Of course, the least charitable way of framing the idea is that BMW wants to make more money from its already expensive cars. Even one of its most affordable models will cost you around $ 36,000. It’s probably safe to say it’s a price that most people don’t want to pay a monthly fee for the features their car already includes.
It’s easy to see why a service like this would be attractive to an automaker. It will allow BMW to continue making money from cars that have entered the used market. Also, this is not the first time that the company has tried something like this. In 2019, BMW introduced a $ 80 per year fee for people to use Apple CarPlay on their cars. The company then scrapped the subscription after BMW owners complained about it.
The plan also conforms to a broader trend of automakers seeking to go beyond one-time purchases. Companies like Cadillac and Porsche have experimented with subscriptions that allow people to swap cars on demand. But the latest version of BMW on the model seems unpleasant in a way that those services did not.
