BMW Drops Its Controversial “Heated Seat Subscription”

[WolframaticAlpha]

Do you guys remember when BMW used to be an uber-cool brand? Now everything they do is anti consumer and their cars look ugly as fuck.

[Obioban]

1 hour ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Do you guys remember when BMW used to be an uber-cool brand? Now everything they do is anti consumer and their cars look ugly as fuck.

More importantly, BMW's cars no longer drive well. 

 

From 1966 to ~2010 (varies by model, but whenever the model in question moved to electric power steering) BMWs drove vastly better than any of the cars they competed with. Today, there is nothing exceptional about how they drive-- just generic transport. 

 

As someone who had only driven BMWs for the last 20+ years, I stopped buying new ones around 10 years ago, and not a single car they make today appeals to me. 

 

I still have 4 older ones around, but they'll never be replaced by anything BMW has offered in the Turbo/EPS era. 

[bmx6454]

1 hour ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Do you guys remember when BMW used to be an uber-cool brand? Now everything they do is anti consumer and their cars look ugly as fuck.

they have also been making many of the parts under the hood out of plastic that gets brittle over time, and breaks. they have not done anything to rectify this known problem, so it would appear to me it's designed to fail. just my opinion though.

[StDragon]

I guess they realized that after the purchase of a new BMW, the smoldering wallet was enough to keep your ass warm for a very long time. Who needs heated seats when you have that?  

[Brooksie359]

6 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

  

I never said access was free or that there isn't a certain amount of cost involved with maintaining infrastructure or that the thing about seats was identical in nature because it isn't.

My point was related to the thing about the seats - Like it or not it's still you paying for it simply to use after the purchase of the hardware is done. In the case of cellphones, that's more or less a given but even with that it's still true, like it or not.

In the case of heated seats there are no additional costs simply to use aside from any maintenance issues that may come later, which you, the owner of these seats will probrably be on the hook for anyway.

While I do understand the point you're making here and while it does apply in part - That's also incorrect.

The base thing that drove the depression was a simple matter of too many outstanding loans and credit with not enough real money to pay back the debt when it came due.

I'll give a bit of a (Long) summary about it here with some relevant points.

First off - Note this wasn't an instantaneous effect because the total amount of debt accumilated over time but the "Bubble" of outstanding debt grew to the point it had to burst at some point, so it finally did - Worldwide to be exact with this being largely a blanket effect across the globe.

When it did, there simply wasn't enough real money available from "Us" coming in terms of purchases and business in general (Mainly common folk and small businesses at the time) to pay it all back.

The majority of common folk at that time, everywhere worldwide weren't exactly getting rich working their jobs with many barely making enough to simply get by, prices of things slowly going up as always and so folks eventually got behind - Way behind in many cases.

Didn't help the recently ended war (WWI) was having an effect as well as in "After effects" because some countries were so poor and owed so much debt they were struggling period just to make ends meet if they could at all.

Related to "Us":
Big businesses depended on "Us" to buy their wares as a major part of their own income from everyday sales (Related to your point to an extent) but if you, being one of "Us" have no spare money or just money in general in the first place, do you really think you'll get it for free instead just because you want it?
Nope.

Someone has to pay the workers to gather the raw materials, haul it to processing plants, then haul the finished product of their work to other plants/manufacturers so things can be made from it.
The work to actually make these products had to be done, make sure it actually works when completed, ship it and then to sell it along with backing up what you sold (Warranty/Repairs).

All that has to be paid for itself as part of the cost of just having it.

People don't work for free you know (Unless you happen to be a slave) but in this case, while the majority were getting paid it simply wasn't enough all total to help counter all the accumilated debt that grew because of the rest getting things on credit, loans made (Many of these were bad loans too) and all the rest that came with it. 

That BTW doesn't mean common folks like us didn't loans ourselves or were trying to skip on them, however it does show there were enough trying to "Have it all and have it all right now for free" while not worrying about how much debt was being accumilated because of their own actions (In part at the very least) to drive this along.

So.... The money didn't show and here we go:

Defaults on loans and the like took place, resulting in a domino effect across the entire market because all the rest coudn't absorb the difference - Jobs were lost, plants shut down and that was probrably the biggest driving force behind it.
Lack of money from "Us" caused the burden to grow, it became too great for the rest of the market to handle and there it all went like dominoes.... Right down the tubes.

That's why debt, in truth is a bad thing.

You can't chalk it up being due to just "One Thing" aside from it's root cause (Too many outstanding loans and credit out there with not enough real money to pay back the debt when it came due) because there were many reasons and causes of it with some being bigger contributors than others towards the problem as you'd expect it to be.

My parents and grandparents lived through all of it, the after-effects leading up to WWII as well and made sure we, being their children understood why it happened in the first place so maybe we woudn't "Help" to repeat the same mistakes that caused it ourselves.

So yeah - I've had a REAL history lesson from those that lived it.
 
It was called the "Roaring 20's" for good reason - Many living the good life without a care in the world about whom or how it was going to be paid back and it eventually caught up with them and everyone else as a consequense.

As it's been said before, the actions of a few can affect all the rest because it can.
All we can do as individuals is to try not to be part of the problem ourselves and hope the rest won't be either.

I was mostly explaining why we have planned obsolescence. Yes durable good didn't cause the great depression but they certainly did add fuel to the fire especially because alot of people depended on those jobs at factories that made durable good to pay for things. Also keep in mind that it wasn't the average person using credit to buy things that really screwed up the economy especially because you can still pay for things if you still have a job the big problem is when you lose said job and still have that debt. The main reason for the great depression was actually people buying stocks on largely credit which is such a stupid idea that I can't believe this was a widespread practice that nobody thought would have horrible effects when the stock market goes down. 

[Beerzerker]

20 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

I was mostly explaining why we have planned obsolescence. Yes durable good didn't cause the great depression but they certainly did add fuel to the fire especially because alot of people depended on those jobs at factories that made durable good to pay for things.

The thing about planned obsolesence actually came later and gradually too, it's not like they went from durable goods made in 1929 to things that are totally disposable by nature like we have today back in 1940.

Yes, if factories didn't produce folks coudn't make a wage to pay for their own needs and bills too, however do remember the US at that time already had rep for quality goods at that point so it wasn't just for things sold here.

It was also a matter of presence on the world market too.

Other countries had the same basic rep but it was for different things such as the US didn't make a "Great" watch for example but the Swiss did, that rep being long established so they had demand for what they made.

The economy worked but for different reasons and in different ways at that time - You can't use reasons and viewpoints of how it works for us today to apply it to what was at that time because it was a totally different world back then.

20 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Also keep in mind that it wasn't the average person using credit to buy things that really screwed up the economy especially because you can still pay for things if you still have a job the big problem is when you lose said job and still have that debt. The main reason for the great depression was actually people buying stocks on largely credit which is such a stupid idea that I can't believe this was a widespread practice that nobody thought would have horrible effects when the stock market goes down. 

That was kinda my point as well BUT even with that even the common folk still had credit and loans to pay off.
That was for the basics of course, nothing fancy and most of that was getting paid as it should be but alot of the problem were folks of a "Higher" class just going nuts at that time with free-wheeling spending and eventually digging a hole so deep they and everyone else coudn't fill it.
Be it about taking out loans, using credit, bad and shady spending practices.....

As for a life view of things at that time:
People right after WWI were generally optimistic about things because "The war to end all wars" as they called it was over and for awhile they were celebrating it's end and just life in general.
If they coudn't get what they wanted right away, they put it on loan or credit and forgot to press the pause button (Why stop the party when it's hopping?) and take care of the responsibilites all that brings - Didn't help at all as time passed, more and more crashed the party too.
While celebrating because the war had ended, things did improve for a short while BUT at the same time no one "Bothered" to tell them when the party was really over, so it took the stock market crash to do that - Leading to the worst hangover they ever had.

The deal about buying stock shares on credit sure as hell didn't do anything to make it better and did contribute to the collapse, which goes right back to not enough "Real" money to pay the bills when they finally came due. 

Unfortunately, those of a "Higher" class were the main culprits in this because they, unlike the common man didn't have such worries as having food on the table tomorrow and having no one but themselves to both, grow it and get it.

For those (Common folk) working in factories at the time, they were not really getting anywhere with big corporations paying them just enough to get by AND even fixing things so that's all they could ever expect.

What I mean by that is things like "Company Towns" the company built and had them living in, "The Company Store" where they had to buy literally everything from with the company controlling that too so they'd have no choice but to work for them.
It was a form of slavery by economics and do remember the tales about folks wanting to quit and get out, but company "Goons" were looking for and dealing with anyone that tried to leave, leveraging the "Obviously" outstanding credit bill at the company store to justify these things.
That all being as planned by the company itself.

The concept of "The company taking care of you and all your needs" was also something that evolved over time, there were variants of the same thing going on in other places like the UK for example and it never got any better on it's own, no matter where it took place.

Well, folks finally got tired of it (The US) and that became a driving force for unions to be created and take the companies on to change things for the better. 
I'm not sure how folks in the UK and other places too dealt with it and won't claim to know how or to what extent - Only that it did but I'd have to bet WWII was a major part of changes happening.

There is SO much more that could be said but not going to, and frankly this has kinda derailed the thread so I'm ending it here.

[Naijin]

On 9/7/2023 at 10:29 PM, OhioYJ said:

The article didn't touch on... What are they doing for those vehicles out there already? Will they just be activating these features? Or will those people have to pay to activate them? Is this policy retroactive? Just going forward? I think we can assume the answer but it would be nice for them to actually answer it.

If I'm not mistaken, you could already choose to pay just once to activate it or subscribe for 1 month at a time when you need it. For example, if you don't need heated seats but maybe go for wintersport once a year, you can activate it for a month for cheap, without having to pay hunders (maybe even 1k in case of German premiums) for something you barely use. If the next buyer wants to use it more than you, they can choose to activate it in full.

 

It can be cheaper to manufacture cars like this, and I do see their point, but it's still software locked, which means it's prone to cracking.

[OhioYJ]

11 minutes ago, Naijin said:

If I'm not mistaken, you could already choose to pay just once to activate it or subscribe for 1 month at a time when you need it.

Yes, but if they are dropping this idea entirely, are they just leaving this process out there for those "few unlucky" cars that did get this. Which would make me even more concerned about what happens when their "activation" servers go offline, and you can no longer use your heated seats....

 

I'm sure BMW has that covered though in their EULA that no one read.

[Heliian]

On 9/7/2023 at 5:04 PM, Alvin853 said:

activists want to force BMW

No, they are customers and if the customers aren't buying your product then you probably shouldn't have a bs sub for heated seats.

 

 

 

 

[WolframaticAlpha]

On 9/8/2023 at 4:35 PM, Obioban said:

More importantly, BMW's cars no longer drive well. 

I felt that they went downhill after the whole diesel thing. I remember driving a diesel BMW and thinking that it was so fun. Test drove a X3 a few years back and it felt so... normal? I mean yes it was a crossover/suv, but still, it is a fucking bmw. Sheer driving pleasure they used to say,  doesn't feel like it anymore.

 

Also the new cars look absolutely hideous. What's up with the weird grille.

[Brooksie359]

20 hours ago, Naijin said:

If I'm not mistaken, you could already choose to pay just once to activate it or subscribe for 1 month at a time when you need it. For example, if you don't need heated seats but maybe go for wintersport once a year, you can activate it for a month for cheap, without having to pay hunders (maybe even 1k in case of German premiums) for something you barely use. If the next buyer wants to use it more than you, they can choose to activate it in full.

 

It can be cheaper to manufacture cars like this, and I do see their point, but it's still software locked, which means it's prone to cracking.

My question is if it's cheaper to manufacture all of them with heated seats then just have all models have heated seats and be done with it. No extra cost of adding in some software and subscription to enable and disable the heated seats which certainly is unnecessary. I feel like people think that they would have to have a subscription service to warrant always having a feature but you don't. You can just sell it like that always especially when the cost of the heated seats didn't seem that much based on the cost to permanently unlock the feature which mean it much cost BMW much less than that to have all seats come with heated seats. 

[wanderingfool2]

7 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

My question is if it's cheaper to manufacture all of them with heated seats then just have all models have heated seats and be done with it. No extra cost of adding in some software and subscription to enable and disable the heated seats which certainly is unnecessary. I feel like people think that they would have to have a subscription service to warrant always having a feature but you don't. You can just sell it like that always especially when the cost of the heated seats didn't seem that much based on the cost to permanently unlock the feature which mean it much cost BMW much less than that to have all seats come with heated seats. 

It's going to really depend on how efficient they are at switching lines.  If they are really inefficient then switching to only heated seats might save money.

 

For Tesla at least I think they mentioned before that it cost marginally more to include it in all (but then again you have to think that cost isn't everything...the amount you can sell a vehicle for is also a thing).

 

Overall if BMW allowed  you to purchase it at anytime then I have no problem with a monthly subscription...if they didn't then I do.

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It's going to really depend on how efficient they are at switching lines.  If they are really inefficient then switching to only heated seats might save money.

 

For Tesla at least I think they mentioned before that it cost marginally more to include it in all (but then again you have to think that cost isn't everything...the amount you can sell a vehicle for is also a thing).

 

Overall if BMW allowed  you to purchase it at anytime then I have no problem with a monthly subscription...if they didn't then I do.

I still think that having heated seats standard would be the obvious solution. I mean it's a luxury car and heated seats as a standard feature will likely help with sales or more so not having heated seats would probably negatively effect sales. So it's obvious that you would want heated seats so if they can save money by only producing heated seats like they themselves said then just have all of their cars come with heated seats. No reason to charge extra through a messed up remote activated model that undoubtedly costs BMW more than just selling their cars with heated seats always. 

[Alvin853]

22 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I still think that having heated seats standard would be the obvious solution. I mean it's a luxury car and heated seats as a standard feature will likely help with sales or more so not having heated seats would probably negatively effect sales. So it's obvious that you would want heated seats so if they can save money by only producing heated seats like they themselves said then just have all of their cars come with heated seats. No reason to charge extra through a messed up remote activated model that undoubtedly costs BMW more than just selling their cars with heated seats always. 

Then you will have people complain they're forced to pay for heated seats when they don't want/need them. Can't make everyone happy I suppose
Also if customers do price comparisons to other brands cars, and those don't come with heated seats in the base configuration, then the BMW might be considered "too expensive" (though at the prices we're talking about that's probably not going to make a huge difference)

 

Edit: also in some countries there are government incentives/subsidies for example for electric cars, and the amount is based on the model base price, with cheaper models getting more money back. So they may want to create a base model that falls into a higher tier of incentive, but they don't actually want to sell the car at that price, so they make a whole lot of stuff that any sane person would want in their car "optional" features to get the price back up to where it would have been anyway. 

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Alvin853 said:

Then you will have people complain they're forced to pay for heated seats when they don't want/need them. Can't make everyone happy I suppose
Also if customers do price comparisons to other brands cars, and those don't come with heated seats in the base configuration, then the BMW might be considered "too expensive" (though at the prices we're talking about that's probably not going to make a huge difference)

 

Edit: also in some countries there are government incentives/subsidies for example for electric cars, and the amount is based on the model base price, with cheaper models getting more money back. So they may want to create a base model that falls into a higher tier of incentive, but they don't actually want to sell the car at that price, so they make a whole lot of stuff that any sane person would want in their car "optional" features to get the price back up to where it would have been anyway. 

No people wouldn't. Do you see people complaining when their car has Bluetooth when they don't want to pay the extra cost? It's such a dumb argument especially for a luxury car like a BMW. Compare that to such a stupid model like locking heated seats behind a software lock and you can clearly see which option is better in terms of public perception. 

[wanderingfool2]

16 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

No people wouldn't. Do you see people complaining when their car has Bluetooth when they don't want to pay the extra cost? It's such a dumb argument especially for a luxury car like a BMW. Compare that to such a stupid model like locking heated seats behind a software lock and you can clearly see which option is better in terms of public perception. 

When it has what most consider "luxury" features; yea people complain about it.

 

People used to complain about not needing AC and didn't want to buy the cars with one.  There's lots of places where if you are "forced" to buy the one with heated seats people would question why.

[Brooksie359]

6 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

When it has what most consider "luxury" features; yea people complain about it.

 

People used to complain about not needing AC and didn't want to buy the cars with one.  There's lots of places where if you are "forced" to buy the one with heated seats people would question why.

No you wouldn't be forced to buy the one with heated seats because one without heated seats wouldn't exist and especially for a luxury car I doubt people would care. If they cared at all about things like that they wouldn't buy a BMW.

[GhostRoadieBL]

I don't mind park assist or lane keeping, auto - drive functions being paid extras (assuming they are continuously updated) but the moment the feature is out of development and no longer receives updates, your customers have already paid for the feature and shouldn't continue paying. I treat it like an MMO(without the operation cost of servers obviously), keep developing it, keep adding features and perks and people should pay for your time. Stop adding features or stop production, you've been paid so time to stop charging people for something you're  not working on.

[HenrySalayne]

19 hours ago, Alvin853 said:

Then you will have people complain they're forced to pay for heated seats when they don't want/need them. Can't make everyone happy I suppose

 

17 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

When it has what most consider "luxury" features; yea people complain about it.

People used to complain about not needing AC and didn't want to buy the cars with one.  There's lots of places where if you are "forced" to buy the one with heated seats people would question why.

BMW is by their own description a "premium" car manufacturer. There are other "non-premium" brands which have heated seats as standard in their base model. Most people simple see paywalling a feature that's already in a car and widely comes as standard as a petty move, not "unnecessary luxury".

If you live in the southern regions of the world and you're barely getting any cold days, you might not care, but especially their German home market has extended periods of the year with temperatures around and below the freezing point. I personally consider an A/C, heated seats, heated mirrors and heated wiper fluid dispensers a base configuration at the positioning of BMW's models at the market. I had all these features and a wire-heated windscreen in a car costing 20% less than their base model at the time a few years ago.

 

I just drove a current generation BMW 520D for the weekend and the amount of RGB led and chrome accents is astonishing. That's something they could easily dial down - not features with an actual use.

[Kisai]

On 9/11/2023 at 9:35 AM, HenrySalayne said:

 

BMW is by their own description a "premium" car manufacturer. There are other "non-premium" brands which have heated seats as standard in their base model. Most people simple see paywalling a feature that's already in a car and widely comes as standard as a petty move, not "unnecessary luxury".

 

This.

 

There's basically two kinds of people (as a generalization), people who DO NOT WANT things because they view it as a tax (see "the Microsoft license tax" that justifies people pirating Windows, or using Linux no matter how poor the experience is) and people who want everything, even when it is locked down and view obstacles to it as petty BS (such as DRM on games/music/movies/television.)

 

Business however often don't see it that way, they either view ALL their customers as potential criminals (which is the reason for petty DRM nonsense) or they view their customers with contempt (such as Nintendo) and view any use of their IP beyond what permission is given as equal to armed robbery.

 

Pretty much, when it comes to hardware, "locking away" features behind DRM is just ASKING for people to buy the cheapest model and then go behind the manufacturer's back to unlock it. This is also how various hardware devices sometimes find new life with a different use (such as Kinect cameras being used as cheap Mocap.) So just offer only one hardware configuration and leave different trim levels alone.  Apple, before they started soldering RAM onto the mac's, Mac's were often bought with the smallest RAM/Disk configuration and then aftermarket upgraded with hardware that is better than Apple's overpriced upgrades.

 

The heated seats is one of the most petty, right behind Tesla's battery capacity limiters. 

 

There are many things out there where I've just voted with my wallet because of petty stuff like this. I'll likely never buy a Tesla as long as Elon has anything to do with it. If I ever want a car, it's likely going to be a Toyota or Honda EV if the infrastructure to use it exists.

[Franck]

On 9/7/2023 at 5:28 PM, Alvin853 said:

heated seat functionality permanently for £350 ($414).

 

it's nearly the price of a full seat. Unless they really up charge like crazy to cover for the other people that don't pay for it then i can't understand the pricing.

 

Last year a 2019 civic costed me about 220$ to replace the whole seat for another stock one and i had to pay an extra 60$ extra for heating option.

Even if i go more premium for example for my Challenger Scat 392 the whole bottom seat with alcantara leather with ventilated ac cooling and heating is currently 313$ for the stock part. I can't find the back rest but it's probably the same price. It has 1 duct and 2 small motors so maybe 650$ for the whole seat.

 

I don't know how they manage to make the option just for heating 414$.

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, Franck said:

it's nearly the price of a full seat. Unless they really up charge like crazy to cover for the other people that don't pay for it then i can't understand the pricing.

Comparing against a civic though isn't necessarily fair though.  BMW is considered "luxury" pricing.

 

Also, it's 2x your cost since the BMW one includes both passenger and driver.  The $414 cost is actually slightly cheaper than what it used to cost (looking at Google) before the whole built in every car model.

 

The thing that people I think fail to realize is that you can't just look at a cost to add in a feature, but also the lost potential if you offered it for lower prices.  Luxury features are the areas that makes the automotive companies higher margins.

 

The general idea though is that you have to look at what it was costing before, if the base pricing hasn't increased and if the general cost to "add it" after the fact is lower than it was if they didn't do it that way; then I couldn't care less about it "costing" so much.  BMW is and always has been a money pit anyways, if the overall cost is lowered by them doing this then it's actually a benefit.

 

7 hours ago, Kisai said:

Pretty much, when it comes to hardware, "locking away" features behind DRM is just ASKING for people to buy the cheapest model and then go behind the manufacturer's back to unlock it. This is also how various hardware devices sometimes find new life with a different use (such as Kinect cameras being used as cheap Mocap.) So just offer only one hardware configuration and leave different trim levels alone

Offering just one hardware config, without locking out features with software, would mean that the base level pricing increases.  Now the practice that I don't like is the concept that if you let your battery drain to zero you have to essentially pay to have the "software" reset...despite it being just a battery that could be easily swapped.

 

7 hours ago, Kisai said:

The heated seats is one of the most petty, right behind Tesla's battery capacity limiters. 

 

There are many things out there where I've just voted with my wallet because of petty stuff like this. I'll likely never buy a Tesla as long as Elon has anything to do with it. If I ever want a car, it's likely going to be a Toyota or Honda EV if the infrastructure to use it exists.

Why is it petty?  If it's offered as an item available for purchase (and overall it seems like if you went the purchase route it might actually be cheaper)...it also affords people the option to use it the once or twice when they need it (like living in an area where it only gets cold enough to need heated seats once or twice in the lifetime of a vehicle).

 

It's funny how people consider things "petty" and decide not "purchase" a product because of a single person...yet ignore the faults of all the other manufacturers for things that are important.

 

BMW is petty, stop buying BMW because of the heated seats

Honda is a saint, lets ignore that they were fined for HIDING A SAFETY DEFECT.  That doesn't matter, because greedy BMW.

Toyota, and the whole acceleration issue, they knew about it.  Yes many of the cases were mistaken pedals; but for the actual cases that weren't Toyota knew about it, downplayed it

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Why is it petty?  If it's offered as an item available for purchase (and overall it seems like if you went the purchase route it might actually be cheaper)...it also affords people the option to use it the once or twice when they need it (like living in an area where it only gets cold enough to need heated seats once or twice in the lifetime of a vehicle).

It's petty because in a luxury car, a heated seat likely adds a trivial amount of cost. So tying this to a monthly subscription is absolutely bonkers when there is no on-going maintenance to have it.

 

Putting this in context, it's like if Apple charged you a monthly fee to use the "silent" button. The button is still there regardless, and the phone can still be switched to silent mode through software, it's just the physical button. It's trivial cost to have the button at all.

 

Here's a realistic counter-example. Most cars in CANADA were sold in the 80's and 90's with engine block heaters, even the cheapest ones. Yet having this as "optional" was usually not a great look because in areas where it got really cold, you could literately crack the engine block. So people who bought a car in Vancouver or Vancouver Island, likely never, ever, needed the engine block heater, yet the rest of the country pretty much required them.  And what about US models? Models sold in New England and northern states bordering Canada likely required them, but I'm pretty certain the engine block heater was optional for the entire US. If you had a heated garage, you didn't need a it.

 

The point is, many "extra" features in a car's trim level are usually already there, it's not like the air conditioner requires a different engine. No, the mounting point is already there on the engine. If you want to after-market add an air conditioner, or retrieve one from a junked version of a car from the same manufacturer, you could go through the effort of doing so. But without the "A/C" switch" in the factory car, you would have to replace several more trivial parts. Replacing the entire console of the car just to install the A/C is usually a pain in the ass, which is why a if you want to after-market add A/C, (or power steering, or cruise control, or any number of things) they usually just add another lever to the steering wheel or a button hole cut into the dashboard somewhere.

 

It would make more sense to remove all the different options and include everything as standard, and if you really want to make a "winter climate" model, make that an entire trim level. You can have a DX model for southern states which includes AC standard, but no heated seats, and a NX model for northern states and Canada which includes engine block heaters, heated seats and AC as standard. If you want to make that distinction. But don't do this silly thing about locking a feature that already exists in the car out with software. People will not be amused by that and think you're robbing them. Luxury cars should just include everything and quit looking like penny-pinching, petty, and arrogant.

 

These trim levels are things I expect from sub compact cars under $10,000.