BMW’s heated seats micropayments taking over our lives

If they are charging for heated seats, then will they charge for running AC in summer too. :thinking:

I’ve never had a car with seat warmers but I learned to drive when most cars did not have air conditioning. My first car didn’t have AC, neither did my second. But my third that I purchased after university did and so has all that followed. I found it’s easy to become a delicate flower once you can afford it. :grinning:

I find the steering wheel warmer to be more “essential “ than seat warmers. It is my favorite feature in the winter. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Using them will always be free. Flushing on the other hand… :smiling_imp:

This might be just a bad example, BUT I already pay for flushing my toilet, as I would expect the most people with a Water connection to the local Water supplier would do… :thinking:

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Nah, to avoid the “subscription” I installed one of these. :rofl:

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Cosy… :joy:
(and 20 more characters…)

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I was joiking, but to answer, because you got me thinking about it: You pay for water, not the ability to flush. Water is needed for fulshing so flusing costs you money, but you’re not paying for the ability to use the flush leaver.

Similarly, I pay for the gasoline required to produce the electricity that’s used to heat my seats, and running the seat heaters does require the car to consume more gasoline. BMW’s subscription goes beyond that kind of cost.

Wait until the EPA hits you with the “subscription” to periodic environmental impact assessments. :slight_smile:

Or the equivalent of a “toll”/tax for miles driven. :roll_eyes:

I removed your smiley-face emoticon because this is not a joke. It’s actually occurring now, or soon will be. In the US, the 2021 “Build Back Better” bill included a provision for a vehicle mileage tax pilot program that would tax any passenger vehicle (cars and trucks) based on miles driven. I don’t know if that is included in the recently-passed 2022 bill.

Some insurance companies in the US now have automobile insurance policies with premiums based on vehicle miles driven and driver behavior, monitored by a device connected to the vehicle’s diagnostic port.

This has been discussed a few times in the UK. Toll roads for All motorways, or annual charging for amount of mileage.

The fact is that in the UK we already effectively pay this through the tax on fuel. The more you drive, the more you pay.

It wasn’t a smiley face, it as a “roll eyes” emoticon so I was not joking about it. :+1:t2:

I hope that pilot project was removed, but I do not know.

The government’s appetite for revenue is insatiable.

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It’s interesting how technological advancement has logically decoupled these things. It used to be that gas went in the tank, wear happened on the roads, and pollution wound up in the air. Most cars were somewhat similar in those metrics, so you could easily control for them.

Now we have at least some cars that get 47 miles to the gallon (similar road wear, less pollution), some cars that don’t use gas at all (EVs with likely similar road wear, pollution as an unconsidered externality related to the efficiency of generating their electricity), etc.

So if you tax gas to pay for roads, the EVs aren’t paying their share unless you’re also taxing EV filling stations, but then you get a scenario where people can charge at home to avoid that tax.

And if you tax gas to pay for pollution offsets, the EVs wouldn’t be paying their share unless somehow you had a way of differentiating whether the EV electricity came from a coal-fired plant, a solar panel, or something in between.

But if you tax mileage to try to cover both equally, you’re effectively duplicating an existing tax (as you pointed out) - and almost certainly that existing tax won’t go away. :slight_smile:

It’s an interesting situation.

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Very well said. Now on top of that if I bike, I will be asked to pay my fair tax too for biking.

And that would require every bike to have a built-in odometer with anti-tampering measures. :slight_smile:

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How do you tax a high tech always connected EV? Pass a law that requires each manufacturer to have cars constantly transmit milage, speed, and location to the powers that be.

Then they can charge a higher rate for driving during rush hour. Add on fees for entering crowded city centers. Issue tickets automatically for exceeding posted speed limits. And you’ll probably have to take out a second mortgage to pay the disposal fee when you replace your battery.

Yep, the future of tax collecting may just be a software update away. :wink:

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The merits and demerits of government taxation is probably outside the scope of MPU :grinning:

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Agree.

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