<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/bmw">BMW</a> owners are furious that on top of the cost of the luxury <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/cars">car</a>, they’ll be required to pay a monthly subscription fee to use features like the heated seats.
Per the <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/07/12/bmw-owners-outraged-over-18-a-month-charge-to-use-heated-seats">New York Post</a>, subscription plans recently rolled out in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/united-kingdom">United Kingdom</a>, Germany, South Korea, and several other markets, which included fees for premium features. BMW owners will be forced to pay the equivalent of $18 per month to use heated front seats in their cars.
Owners also have the option to pay $180 per year to use their heated seats, or can opt to spend $300 for a three-year subscription, or $415 for “unlimited access,” the publication reported.
It’s unclear whether subscriptions will be required in the United States at a future date.
“Front Seat heating gets things nice and cosy in no time,” BMW’s UK site says. “Activation after purchase is quick and easy.” 
Heated seats aren’t the only premium feature with an upcharge. In some markets, owners will pay $12 per month to use their heated steering wheels. It’ll cost $42 per month for adaptive cruise control. The feature that switches off high beams automatically when another car appears also costs $12 monthly. 
Anyone who wants to connect their iPhones to their cars through Apple’s CarPlay feature will be charged $265. 
Reactions on social media were swift and brutal. 
“This is wild — BMW is now selling a monthly subscription service for heated seats in your car. Monthly fee: $18, Annual fee: $180,” one person <a href="https://twitter.com/JoePompliano/status/1546871470256783361">shared</a>. “The car will come with all the necessary components, but payment is needed to remove a software block. Welcome to microtransaction hell.”
“Can&#8217;t say enough about how insane and dystopian this is,” another person <a href="https://twitter.com/GiladEdelman/status/1546950272085135360">agreed</a>. “It&#8217;s not a subscription for heated seats. It&#8217;s a subscription to disable the software that BMW has installed to prevent you from using the heated seats, which are of course already built in.”
There’s a good chance that other luxury brands will follow suit. During an interview with <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23172839/mercedes-benz-ceo-ola-kallenius-electric-vehicles-self-driving-luxury-tech-g-class">The Verge</a>, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källeniu said they’ll likely be offering subscription-based upgrades in their vehicles as well.
“I think you need to offer customers both. Some customers don’t look at the price, they just want the best, most desirable product. ‘Whatever it costs, just let me pay now and that’s it,’” he said. 
“You have to have that option, but I think you can add functionality as you go along. You let people choose what they want through the app store…That is true digital, recurring revenue,” he continued, comparing these offerings to cell phone companies that offer upgrades for a fee.  
&#8220;It is not about just selling your 2.5 million vehicles or whatever a year,&#8221; the CEO continued. &#8220;Your install base should grow and grow, so that one day you have tens of millions of vehicles. Then if you start monetizing some per month in that install base, the lever actually starts looking quite attractive. I think we are onto something here. It is too early to say how much this economic potential is, but it is there.&#8221;

98th European Motor Show

‘Welcome To Microtransaction Hell’: Twitter Reacts To BMW Charging $18 Per Month To Use Heated Seats

BMW Charging $18 Per Month To Use Heated Seats, Twitter Reacts

Cars

Money

United Kingdom

One furious Texas mom exhibited no embarrassment at all when she accosted her 14-year-old son in the midst of traffic and <a href="https://abc7ny.com/4518724/?ex_cid=TA_WABC_TW&amp;utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+New+Content+(Feed)&amp;utm_content=5bca3267dfdcb1000104d118&amp;utm_medium=trueAnthem&amp;utm_source=twitter">spanked him with a belt f</a>or one simple reason: he had stolen her BMW.
Liza Martinez, from El Paso, Texas, told <a href="https://kfoxtv.com/">KFOX</a> that the incident started on October 12 while she was at work. She said her 14-year-old son Aaron called her and informed her that the internet at their home was not working. Martinez said, &#8220;As soon as he said that, literally, I got a message instantly that my WiFi was down. At that point, it blocks out my cameras, my home security. I don&#8217;t see when the doors are being opened or closed.&#8221;
Discovering that Aaron had picked up a friend at his home from the friend&#8217;s mother, Martinez contacted her daughter, Liza Campero, who lives next door. She asked her daughter to see if the BMW was still at home.
Nope.
Campero recalled, &#8220;That&#8217;s when she told me to grab the belt, and I really just ran into the closet and grabbed the first belt I saw.&#8221;
Aaron was reputedly trying to go see his girlfriend. Martinez&#8217;s search led her to the girlfriend&#8217;s house, but Aaron had abandoned that plan, so when Martinez arrived, only the girl and her mother were there. The girlfriend called Aaron&#8217;s friend and found out there was another girl with them. Campero said, &#8220;The girl that was with them said that mom was looking for them.&#8221;
Campero and her mom knew where to look because the boys had practiced with the girl for her quinceneara.
Martinez drove and found her son at an intersection nearby, and soon was trailing him. She said, &#8220;I pulled right out into traffic next to him. He was in one lane, I was in the lane next to him. That&#8217;s when I yelled at him to pull over. Now.&#8221;
After they both pulled over, Martinez jumped out of her car and ran to the driver&#8217;s side door of the BMW. Once the door was open, she started whaling away at her son with the belt. Campero said, &#8220;My mom said once she opened the door, he had a smirk on his face until she started spanking him.&#8221;
Martinez said later, &#8220;It&#8217;s my son&#8217;s well being, his livelihood. His best friend&#8217;s well being, not to mention all of the people on the roadways.&#8221;
Campero<a href="https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-mother-filmed-whipping-teenage-son-with-13311188.php"> said</a>, &#8220;[My brother] was embarrassed at first. But he went back to school yesterday, and everybody tells him he&#8217;s like a legend.&#8221;
Martinez commented, &#8220;I feel that I have a debt to society. And my debt to society is to make sure my children are productive, law-abiding citizens.&#8221;
Aaron? He&#8217;s been grounded until 2019; his mother <a href="https://6abc.com/society/mom-spanks-teen-son-after-he-took-off-in-her-bmw/4504334/">took away</a> his electronics, including his Playstation 4. His mom removed the hinges from his bedroom door. Campero concluded that her brother has decided he&#8217;d better mend his ways, saying, &#8220;He says he learned his lesson and it was deserved and needs to make better decisions and didn&#8217;t do the right thing.&#8221;
Video below:
<iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="267" width="476"></iframe>

WATCH: Mom Chases Son Who Stole Her BMW, Spanks Him In Traffic

Texas

Ever since Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti launched a $10 million pilot program to supply LAPD with hundreds of electric BMWs, he has boasted about building the most extensive city-owned fleet of pure battery vehicles in America. However, some of those green energy cars stay parked in a garage collecting dust, rarely used for official business &#8212; taxpayer money that appears to have been spent to meet idealistic goals laid out in Garcetti&#8217;s long-term environmental vision.
In a recent <a href="http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/01/16/goldstein-investigation-10-million-lapd-electric-bmws-appear-unused-misused/">exposé</a> by a local television station, a reporter scoured through LAPD mileage records, revealing &#8220;some electric cars are sitting unused with only a few hundred miles on them,&#8221; and with hidden cameras, found police officials allegedly misusing others for personal errands, including a manicure.
The investigative report did not mention Garcetti&#8217;s environmental policy blueprint, called the &#8220;Sustainable City pLAn,&#8221; which prioritized several &#8220;green&#8221; objectives, including &#8220;the nation&#8217;s most aggressive EV (electric vehicle) procurement goal,&#8221; <a href="http://plan.lamayor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/sustainability_pLAn_year_two.pdf">as described</a> by the mayor. The idea was <a href="https://www.lacity.org/sites/g/files/wph281/f/Executive_Directive_No._7_Sustainable_City_pLAn.pdf">introduced</a> in April 2015 &#8212; five months before the LAPD <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-la-electric-vehicles-20150911-story.html">committed</a> to lease the first batch of electric vehicles.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This morning, Mayor <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Garcetti?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Garcetti</a> and Chief Beck discussed and displayed <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LAPD?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LAPD</a>&#8216;s new energy efficient BMW fleet <a href="https://t.co/fye8pzCtEk">pic.twitter.com/fye8pzCtEk</a>
&#8212; LAPD Outreach (@LAPDOutreach) <a href="https://twitter.com/LAPDOutreach/status/740668559550881792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
The Mayor&#8217;s Office released a progress report in 2017 celebrating the outcomes produced by Garcetti&#8217;s ambitious climate agenda, including the LAPD&#8217;s acquisition of energy-efficient BMWs, <a href="https://www.lamayor.org/mayor-garcetti-releases-progress-report-sustainable-city-plan-two-thirds-all-2017-goals-accomplished">stating</a>:
More than 80 percent of all City fleet procurements in the current budget year are electric vehicles &#8211; far exceeding the 2017 target of 50 percent, and giving L.A. the nation&#8217;s largest pure battery electric vehicle municipal fleet, as well as the largest vehicle police fleet.
The BMW i3 all-electric plug-in vehicles leased by the LAPD are not used as patrol cars or in high-speed pursuits. They are supposed to benefit detectives, investigators, and community outreach personnel.
As CBS-2 Los Angeles first <a href="http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/01/16/goldstein-investigation-10-million-lapd-electric-bmws-appear-unused-misused/">reported</a>:
Sources say some personnel are reluctant to use the electric cars because they can only go 80-100 miles on a charge. 
And the mileage logs we obtained seem to back that up.
From April 2016 when the project started through August 2017, we found most of the electric cars have only been used for a few thousand miles. 
Matt Petersen, a <a href="https://laincubator.org/people/team/matt-petersen/">member</a> of the Council on Foreign Relations, is the <a href="https://www.lamayor.org/mayor-garcetti-announces-departure-chief-sustainability-officer-matt-petersen-appoints-lauren-faber">chief architect</a> of the mayor&#8217;s environmental plan. Garcetti appointed him as the city&#8217;s first-ever chief sustainability officer. The mayor <a href="http://plan.lamayor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/the-plan.pdf">wrote</a> that his &#8220;comprehensive and actionable directive&#8221; would &#8220;permeate everything we do as a city,&#8221; and:
Reviews of our department General Managers will incorporate whether they are meeting the goals of the pLAn. The outcomes in the pLAn that require additional funding will receive priority in my annual budget process. Departments will report regularly on their progress, and any challenges they face in implementing the initiatives that the pLAn prioritizes.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is among the city officials whose job performance directly connects to advancing Garcetti&#8217;s green agenda. Coincidentally, he announced his upcoming <a href="https://www.dailynews.com/2018/01/19/lapd-chief-charlie-beck-announces-retirement/">early retirement</a> three days after CBS-2 News broadcast its investigation.
Meanwhile, Garcetti &#8212; who co-founded a group known as <a href="http://climatemayors.org/about/members/">Climate Mayors</a> &#8212; has been rallying his counterparts throughout the country to follow his example and obtain green energy cars for their cities. Garcetti and Petersen teamed up with leaders representing New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and several other large municipalities &#8220;to <a href="http://plan.lamayor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/sustainability_pLAn_year_two.pdf">show</a> automakers and manufacturers that our cities want over 110,000 cars and trucks in our fleets to be electric.&#8221; That coalition <a href="http://plan.lamayor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/sustainability_pLAn_year_two.pdf">intends</a> to &#8220;do joint pilots to help ensure new EVs can be manufactured that meet the needs of cities,&#8221; and &#8220;do joint procurement to help create economies of scale and lower costs.&#8221;
Garcetti is <a href="https://www.lamayor.org/mayor-garcetti-releases-progress-report-sustainable-city-plan-two-thirds-all-2017-goals-accomplished">expected</a> to release an updated version of the Sustainable City pLAn, with revised goals, by early 2019. The mayor is considered a potential candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Mitch Englander &#8212; the only Republican on the 15-member L.A. City Council &#8212; <a href="http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/01/25/goldstein-investigation-lapd-electric-bmws-councilman/">said</a> the money spent to supply the police department with BMW green energy cars has &#8220;been wasted to date.&#8221;
The LAPD has 200 electric vehicles in its current fleet, with an additional 100 scheduled to arrive later this year.
Follow Jeffrey Cawood on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Near_Chaos">@Near_Chaos</a>.

Garcetti’s ‘Green’ Agenda Results In BMW Boondoggle

Eric Garcetti

Los Angeles

In an interview with the German newspaper Bild, published on Monday, president-elect Donald Trump again resorted to protectionist, populist rhetoric, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-germany-autos-idUSKBN1500VJ?il=0">threatening German car companies</a> that he would impose a border tax of 35 percent on vehicles imported to the U.S. market because they weren&#8217;t producing enough cars in America.
Trump blustered, &#8220;If you want to build cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States, but for every car that comes to the USA, you will pay 35 percent tax . . . I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35 percent tax, then you can forget that.&#8221;
German carmakers such as BMW (<a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BMWG.DE">BMWG.DE</a>), Daimler (<a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DAIGn.DE">DAIGn.DE</a>) and Volkswagen (<a href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=VOWG_p.DE">VOWG_p.DE</a>) were Trump&#8217;s targets; predictably, by roughly 7 a.m. EST on Monday, BMW shares slumped 2.2%; Volkswagen&#8217;s (VW) and Daimler&#8217;s dropped 2%. All three German carmakers have invested in Mexico, but they also manufacture in the United States.
Unruffled by Trump&#8217;s threats, BMW executive Peter Schwarzenbauer said BMW would still invest roughly $1 billion in a new plant in Mexico, due to go into production in 2019 with an attendant 1,500 jobs.
Trump&#8217;s protectionist rhetoric may play well with Americans unfamiliar with how economically dangerous the reality of such a policy can be, but here are five reasons that Trump&#8217;s attack on German automakers is ill-considered:
1. The carmakers already build a great number of cars in the U.S. As Germany&#8217;s deputy chancellor and minister for the economy Sigmar Gabriel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/16/germany-hits-back-at-trump-criticism-of-refugee-policy-and-bmw-tariff-threat?CMP=share_btn_tw">pointed out</a>, &#8220;I believe BMW&#8217;s biggest factory is already in the US, in Spartanburg [South Carolina].&#8221; The Spartanburg factory employs 8,800 people, and built 411,000 vehicles in 2016; BMW had planned to invest another $1 billion in the factory. As The <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-car-industry-has-unlikely-patriots-1484045646?mod=djemheard_t">Wall Street Journal</a> has noted, &#8220;BMW is a net exporter, thanks to its huge base in South Carolina, while the number of cars Mercedes-owner Daimler makes in the U.S. amounts to 86% of its U.S. sales.&#8221; employing 8,800 people and manufacturing 411,000 vehicles in 2016. The company plans to invest another $1 billion there as it begins production of the BMW X7 sport utility vehicle in 2018.
2. Putting tariffs on the German automakers would hurt U.S. automakers. As Gabriel stated succinctly, &#8220;The US car industry would have a bad awakening if all the supply parts that aren&#8217;t being built in the US were to suddenly come with a 35% tariff. I believe it would make the US car industry weaker, worse and above all more expensive. I would wait and see what the Congress has to say about that, which is mostly full of people who want the opposite of Trump.&#8221;
3. The trend has been for German automakers to make <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/01/16/trump-german-automakers-will-pay-tariff-on-cars-built-outside-u-s/?utm_term=.00601a431921">more and more cars</a> in the United States; Trump would cripple those efforts. As Matthias Wissmann, head of the German Association of the Automotive Industry automakers, reported, German manufacturers and suppliers increased their production of cars in the United States from 214,000 to 850,000 between 2009 and 2016. He added that 41% percent of those cars are sold in the United States.
4. As is normal when tariffs are applied to foreign products, the victim will be the American consumer; the automakers would likely simply pass on the additional costs to the consumer. As an example of how tariffs could hurt American producers as well, in 2002, President George W. Bush <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/12/01/for-americans-trumps-tariffs-on-imports-could-be-costly.html">imposed tariffs </a>of up to 30 percent on imported steel. That triggered American steel producers to raise their own prices, which hurt U.S. industrial companies that buy steel. The Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition reported the tariffs cost thousands of U.S. jobs.
5. Trump&#8217;s rhetoric could trigger a trade war, which could weaken the alliance between the United States and Germany, which is the leading economic power in Europe and a stalwart member of the NATO alliance. Trump&#8217;s remarks denigrating NATO and his effusive rhetoric regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin have frightened countries throughout Europe; Germany&#8217;s Angela Merkel <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-labels-nato-obsolete-newspaper-interview-223436534.html">responded</a> to Trump&#8217;s remarks about NATO by asserting, &#8220;We Europeans have our fate in our own hands,&#8221; while Germany&#8217;s foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier added, &#8220;The interview statements of the American president-elect&#8230; caused, indeed here in Brussels, astonishment and agitation.&#8221;
<blockquote>
&#8220;The US car industry would have a bad awakening if all the supply parts that aren&#8217;t being built in the US were to suddenly come with a 35% tariff.&#8221;
Germany&#8217;s deputy chancellor and minister for the economy, Sigmar Gabriel
</blockquote>
Trump&#8217;s consistent protectionist rhetoric and its populist appeal may play well for the moment, but as is always the case, when the chickens come home to roost, Americans will discover that any approval they gush over Trump&#8217;s rhetoric will likely have been short-sighted.

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BMW

‘Welcome To Microtransaction Hell’: Twitter Reacts To BMW Charging $18 Per Month To Use Heated Seats

WATCH: Mom Chases Son Who Stole Her BMW, Spanks Him In Traffic

Garcetti’s ‘Green’ Agenda Results In BMW Boondoggle

Trump Threatens German Carmakers With 35% Tariff. Here Are 5 Reasons That’s Ridiculous.