Because the other things make sense. Taxes go to things like road maintenance. With a car, you bought the car. The car has hardware in it. You bought the car. You own the car. You own the hardware in the car. It's YOUR hardware. You ALREADY paid for it!
Tesla's business model is different. You pay an annual fee to pay for the ongoing development & maintenance of features that are continually updated by a paid team of programmers: new self-driving features, new GUI features, etc. They have their own custom navigation system, they've added auto-lane-change into the Autopilot system, they've added video games, karaoke, etc. So you're paying for a service, especially ones where NEW features are being added, rather than access to
existing hardware that performs a
specific function, such as heated seats, which you've
already paid for.
With that said, the article in the OP said that the estimates are saying that Car DLC will be a $23 billion service industry within a decade, so my assumption is that this kind of nonsense is only going to get worse. Like, there are some things I don't mind paying for. If you have a remote-start keyfob, you shouldn't have to pay for that. But if you have a remote-start app that includes
cellular remote start, GPS tracking for your car, etc., then it makes sense to pay for that because you have an LTE modem in your car that is costing money for wireless line access, software applications in the cloud, the car, and for iOS/Android that require ongoing programmer maintenance for support & security, thus it requires paychecks & overhead, rather than just a static keyfob that already exists with no support system required.
What I CAN see them doing is creating a universal model with DLC unlocks. Like the old Celerons that were actually neutered Pentium chips. Tesla took this route by adding rear heated seats to ALL of their cars, which came standard as a higher-trim feature, but was
also upgradable as a one-time DLC unlock via an OTA upgrade. So if you bought a base version to save money & had kids, but then your kids got older & got out of their car seats, you could purchase that later. Which is still dumb, but given car economics, makes sense:
Nearly two years after first introducing the rear heated seat upgrade for Standard Range Plus (SR+) Model 3 owners, Tesla has reduced the price of the over-the-air (OTA) upgrade. Until tonight, owners who had the [...]
driveteslacanada.ca
What
doesn't make sense to me is a monthly payment for those features. With the Tesla model, you bought & paid for specific features within the particular trim you purchased. Then later, if you want to turn on features you DIDN'T pay for, you could do so, which is kind of neat to have sort of a "universal model", just like how if you don't want to buy Autopilot up-front, but want to buy it later, you can use the existing hardware to pay for a new-to-you feature. Whereas with BMW, they're offering a monthly subscription fee. Note that they also offer a one-time purchase fee for the heated seats, similar to Tesla.
It gets a little fuzzy because it's weird that Tesla would include rear heated seats on a more basic trim, but then have you pay to activate it later. Production-wise, it makes sense, because then they just have to produce a single model & then you chose the trim & price point, then can add to it later OTA with no shop visit required for hardware installation. Overall, to me, it just feels incredibly offense to have the heated seat hardware installed in a car you purchased & then have to pay an additional monthly fee to use something that doesn't require a programmer support team, a vehicle cellular modem, etc.