$20 a Month for Heated Seats!?

The Car Subscription Services That Will Change the Way We Drive Forever

I recently had the opportunity to try out one of the latest car subscription services, and I was blown away by the features and options available. The price tag, however, was eye-watering - $199 per month for a basic plan. But hey, shows what time does, right? It's sort of doubly evil because full self-driving is a misnomer at least, um, so I'm gonna go with downright mean, I'm gonna say not evil at all because the less people with this technology on the road the better.

Car subscription services usually fall into three categories: comfort options like heated seats and cooled steering wheels, safety features like lane assist and power slash, and performance features like extra horsepower and four-wheel steering. These next subscriptions, however, are purely for luxury. I've been looking at LinkedIn's chauffeur service for their vehicles - the personal driver program is run via an app and sends a driver that can shuttle you around in your own car and even run errands for you. Whoa, that's true.

The program launched in 2017 in cities like Miami and Dallas. Let's guess the price per hour - you're like borrowing a human for that, that's true. I'm gonna go with $50 an hour okay $100 an hour, $250.

Moving on to another subscription service, the Lincoln personal driver costs $30 an hour. That's so cheap for that price; I'm thinking that's kind of like that's a little evil but at the same time that's a price that might get me to use it.

We've been talking about features and options, but where's all this ultimately leading to? Guys, what about subscribing to the whole car? One of the most prolific types of subscription services that car manufacturers offer today is the vehicle swap. For a monthly or yearly fee, you can drive a car then swap it out for a different car from the same manufacturer.

One of the most expensive car swap subscriptions is Porsche's for just a fraction of the vehicle's total value. You can drive anything from a Macan to a Boxster all the way up to the 911. The top tier lets subscribers drive up to 2,000 miles per month. Alright, so let's guess the price of the top-tier Porsche Drive subscription. I'm gonna say $10,000; I'm gonna say $7,000; seven thousand fifty-eight hundred the true prize for the top-tier Porsche Drive subscription is Thirty-One hundred dollars.

Even further ahead, I was just trying to think like what what is like a lease on like a GT3 RS or something. I feel like it's like 2,500 bucks a month so if you're gonna be a little bit more than that. All right, since it doesn't matter who wins this next one is going to be between you and me Justin to determine who loses.

Wow, who's gonna wash the Prius? Rolls-Royce offers a subscription called Whispers - it gives users access to fun things like backstage passes to the Grammys custom Monopoly boards based on the property portfolio of the user itinerary help for an Antarctic expedition among other weird goodies. All right, how much do we think Rolls-Royce Whispers cost well I'm not guessing this is between you two okay I'll give you one clue the clue is that it's just a one-time fee.

I'm gonna scale mine down to ten thousand dollars; you have to take my answer oh okay fifteen thousand dollars all right cool Tim so ten thousand dollars for Justin fifteen grand for me Joe, the true cost of the Rolls-Royce Whisper app membership program is the price of a new Rolls Royce but you need to buy a new Rolls Royce to get the Whispers app.

I went by the cheapest Rolls Royce which is 312,000 so that's the price all right so no I'm only off by 197,000. But you win well on that note Justin you've got to clean the preview I'm sorry.

All right, Chen if you don't already know we make a bunch of clothing you can get it at donutmedia.com you can get the sweatshirt this hat cars are paying shirt cars are paying lots of stuff coming down the pipe for you and if you want to support us for free hit that subscribe button don't cost you nothing but you get to see all of our videos goodbye.

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WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enevery year more and more brands are making buyers pay monthly subscriptions for things as simple as Apple carplay heated seats and even the ability to start home remotely So today we're going to look at a bunch of the crafty and questionable ways car companies are trying to squeeze us with these subscription fees we're gonna guess how much they're charging for each of them along the way to find out why they're doing this to us in the first place oh and one more thing loser has to wash the preppy oh no this is Justin that's Zach I'm Nolan welcome to Donut BMW's heated seat subscription guys how you feel about it I hate it I can't tell you how much I hate it it's so dumb it's the worst in some countries like the UK you have to pay to activate the heated seats in new BMW models if you don't pay the fee you don't use the feature that's already installed in your car that you paid for that's what bothers me the most the car has the hardware and you got to pay for the privilege how much do you think BMW is charging people to use heated seats per month yeah monthly subscription 14.99 14.99 24. 24. yeah I'm gonna go ahead and guess 4.99 a month oh that's pretty cheap see 4.99 sounds like per use to me yeah that would be interesting if you get to pay per click yeah the true price for the BMW heated seat subscription fee 18 a month that's a lot dude so in the span of a 72 month loan you would pay 1296 dollars for heated seats which is insane a point for me baby job gets the point guys how evil do we think this is uh it's rude very rude rude they're probably laughing all the way to the bank but it's up to us as car folks to say no no this one is is pretty bad Toyota offers a subscription service for their key fob which includes remote start via the remote connect plan if the subscription is waived you won't be able to use remote start pretty egregious if you don't have it ridiculous you ask me uh how much do you think this feature costs per month we like Toyotas is this is this like Toyota USA or just all Toyota well that's the other thing too I think a lot of this stuff hasn't hit the U.S market yet because we're so averse to it but uh it's common actually it's the opposite Europe has already like introduced legislation for some of these things against it cash is King in America so any thing that can be monetized is going to be monetized in the US okay so for the Toyota key fob remote start feature monthly cost I'm gonna say ten dollars four dollars six dollars this is an unprecedented situation because the monthly cost for the Toyota key fob is eight dollars so we split as game master yeah I'm gonna just award you both points split it right down the middle all right how evil do we think and now keep in mind that they walk back on this feature but they did try this one it activates later right like you get to use it for a while I mean that to me makes it even maybe more evil they give it to you and then they take it away more than rude yeah it's a little more than rude yeah so rude it's downright mean all right so all these Services show a disturbing Trend moving from a product that you buy once and own outright to a service where you pay once then continue to pay to use those Services video games Justin you might be familiar are very good example of this but now there are so many subscription and micro transactions and loot boxes and V boxes just getting more granular as time goes on we could see the same thing happen with cars if you weren't annoyed enough already with pay to win features and video games next up we have mercedes's acceleration increase subscription for their fully electric line featuring the eqe 350 and the eqe 450 models this subscription gives the cars 20 to 24 more power and cuts the 0-60 time down by 0.8 to 0.9 seconds which is a lot it also activates rear wheel steering wow so so you're paying for sport mode how much do we think they're charging I mean this is probably this is the most significant one yet so they add on a car that's pretty expensive right you know those retail Force 80-ish something like that I would say yeah 80 and up for sure I think Mercedes is probably charging about 60 bucks a month I'll say a nice 75 I'm going to say 35. the true price of Mercedes acceleration increase 100 a month whoa damn it which makes me no one gets a point on the board I got closest though yeah I thought you said no one got the point What's the difference all right so I got a point job is still furthest from having to wash the Previa how evil is this I don't think it's that evil to be honest I don't think it's the most evil one yet I don't like it it's rude but I think it's rude it's rude well guys Mercedes isn't the only company doing these power upgrades companies like BMW have shied away from offering their own subscriptions because of all the backlash that Mercedes got even though they were probably thinking that it was a good idea one thing to note though is that there is hope okay the subscription-based power upgrades have been banned in Europe however I don't know if we'll see the same thing in America because in case you're wondering how much money manufacturers already making on these Services GM said they made almost two billion dollars from subscriptions last year they expect to make 24 billion dollars per year by the end of the decade speaking of GM subscription Services one of the old this ones around is OnStar which is available in any General Motors vehicle OnStar includes great features like emergency assistance dealer maintenance notifications 30 hands-free calling minutes per month how much do we think think OnStar costs I'm going to say seven dollars I was gonna say like ten dollars uh we'll go with five the five seven ten title grouping thirty four dollars a month okay well who you guessed ten that was me yeah you get the money I'm losing that's a lot of money for 30 minutes hands-free calling per month do you think this is rude not nice or mean as you said this is rude I'll go not nice for this one you know what's not a bad subscription the donut underground it's access to our private Discord Channel you get stickers for being a member access to our merch drops first you also get exclusive videos done it underground click the join button below sometimes guys backlash does actually work BMW used to charge a subscription fee for Apple carplay a feature that is free in most cars nowadays uh it's free again for BMW drivers but let's guess how much they were charging just a few years ago was it 200 for five years four hundred dollars for eight years or three hundred dollars for 20 years 20 years seems crazy right yeah because I mean who knows if Apple's even gonna be around I think Apple's gonna be the government by then no one is going to own the same BMW for 20 years right I'm going 200 for five years mostly based on the length a five-year pay period sounds right for a newer car A B A the true price for the Apple carplay subscription for BMWs 300 for 20 years rude I'm gonna say rude yeah yeah up next guys is Tesla's fully self-driving option this feature allows the car to essentially drive itself the feature works with the existing Tesla sensors plus and additional Hardware add-on that needs to be installed by a Tesla technician how much do we think that Tesla was charging for this technology that basically comes with every car this is a monthly thing too monthly subscription for full self-driving I'm gonna say 100 bucks 100 bucks I'm gonna say 25 65. all right it should be noted that you can just buy this outright but if you want to do it monthly the price 199 per month that was way off base hey man shows what time happens how evil do we think this subscription is well it's sort of doubly evil because full self-driving is a misnomer at least um so I'm gonna go with downright mean I'm gonna say not evil at all because the less people with this technology on the road the better car subscription Services usually fall into three categories guys Comfort options like heated seats and cooled steering wheels safety features like Lane assist and power slash performance features like extra horsepower and four-wheel steering these next subscriptions however are purely for luxury LinkedIn has a chauffeur's service for their vehicles the personal driver program is run via an app and sends a driver that can shuttle you around in your own car and even run errands for you whoa the program launched in 2017 in cities like Miami and Dallas let's guess the price per hour you're like borrowing a human for that that's true I gotta think about that hundred dollars I'm gonna I'm gonna go with the 50 bucks an hour okay 50 100 250. the true price for the Lincoln personal driver thirty dollars an hour whoa Justin takes it that's so cheap for that price I'm thinking that's kind of like that's a little evil but at the same time that's a price that might get me to use it yeah we've been talking about features and options but where's all this ultimately leading to guys what about subscribing to the whole car one of the most prolific types of subscription services that car manufacturers offer today is the vehicle swap for a monthly or yearly fee you can drive a car then swap it out for a different car from the same manufacturer one of the most expensive car swap subscriptions is Porsche for just a fraction of the vehicle's total value you can drive anything from a Macan to a Boxster all the way up to the 911 the top tier lets subscribers drive up to 2 000 miles per month all right so let's guess the price of the top tier Porsche Drive subscription uh so for the highest top tier Porsche rental Extravaganza I'm gonna say like 10 grand I'm gonna say seven thousand dollars ten Grand seven thousand fifty eight hundred the true prize for the top tier Porsche Drive subscription Thirty One hundred dollars job even further ahead I was just trying to think like what what is like a lease on like a GT3 RS or something I feel like it's like 2500 bucks a month so if you're gonna be a little bit more than that all right since it doesn't matter who wins this next one is going to be between you and I Justin to determine who loses wow who's gonna wash the Previa Rolls-Royce offers a subscription called Whispers it gives users access to fun things like backstage passes to the Grammys custom Monopoly boards based on the property portfolio of the user itinerary help for an Antarctic expedition among other weird goodies all right how much do we think Rolls-Royce Whispers cost well I'm not guessing this is between you two okay I'll give you one clue the clue is that it's just a one-time fee I'm gonna scale mine down to ten thousand dollars you have to take my answer oh okay fifteen thousand dollars all right cool Tim so ten thousand dollars for Justin fifteen grand for me Joe the true cost of the Rolls-Royce whisper app membership program is the price of a new Rolls Royce but you need to buy a new Rolls Royce to get the Whispers app I went by the cheapest Rolls Royce which is 312 000 so that's the price all right so no I'm only off by 197 000. but you win well on that note Justin you've got to clean the preview I'm sorry all right Chen if you don't already know we make a bunch of clothing you can get it at donutmedia.com you can get the sweatshirt this hat cars are paying shirt cars are paying hat cars are paying lots of stuff coming down the pipe for you and if you want to support us for free hit that subscribe button don't cost you nothing but you get to see all of our videos goodbyeevery year more and more brands are making buyers pay monthly subscriptions for things as simple as Apple carplay heated seats and even the ability to start home remotely So today we're going to look at a bunch of the crafty and questionable ways car companies are trying to squeeze us with these subscription fees we're gonna guess how much they're charging for each of them along the way to find out why they're doing this to us in the first place oh and one more thing loser has to wash the preppy oh no this is Justin that's Zach I'm Nolan welcome to Donut BMW's heated seat subscription guys how you feel about it I hate it I can't tell you how much I hate it it's so dumb it's the worst in some countries like the UK you have to pay to activate the heated seats in new BMW models if you don't pay the fee you don't use the feature that's already installed in your car that you paid for that's what bothers me the most the car has the hardware and you got to pay for the privilege how much do you think BMW is charging people to use heated seats per month yeah monthly subscription 14.99 14.99 24. 24. yeah I'm gonna go ahead and guess 4.99 a month oh that's pretty cheap see 4.99 sounds like per use to me yeah that would be interesting if you get to pay per click yeah the true price for the BMW heated seat subscription fee 18 a month that's a lot dude so in the span of a 72 month loan you would pay 1296 dollars for heated seats which is insane a point for me baby job gets the point guys how evil do we think this is uh it's rude very rude rude they're probably laughing all the way to the bank but it's up to us as car folks to say no no this one is is pretty bad Toyota offers a subscription service for their key fob which includes remote start via the remote connect plan if the subscription is waived you won't be able to use remote start pretty egregious if you don't have it ridiculous you ask me uh how much do you think this feature costs per month we like Toyotas is this is this like Toyota USA or just all Toyota well that's the other thing too I think a lot of this stuff hasn't hit the U.S market yet because we're so averse to it but uh it's common actually it's the opposite Europe has already like introduced legislation for some of these things against it cash is King in America so any thing that can be monetized is going to be monetized in the US okay so for the Toyota key fob remote start feature monthly cost I'm gonna say ten dollars four dollars six dollars this is an unprecedented situation because the monthly cost for the Toyota key fob is eight dollars so we split as game master yeah I'm gonna just award you both points split it right down the middle all right how evil do we think and now keep in mind that they walk back on this feature but they did try this one it activates later right like you get to use it for a while I mean that to me makes it even maybe more evil they give it to you and then they take it away more than rude yeah it's a little more than rude yeah so rude it's downright mean all right so all these Services show a disturbing Trend moving from a product that you buy once and own outright to a service where you pay once then continue to pay to use those Services video games Justin you might be familiar are very good example of this but now there are so many subscription and micro transactions and loot boxes and V boxes just getting more granular as time goes on we could see the same thing happen with cars if you weren't annoyed enough already with pay to win features and video games next up we have mercedes's acceleration increase subscription for their fully electric line featuring the eqe 350 and the eqe 450 models this subscription gives the cars 20 to 24 more power and cuts the 0-60 time down by 0.8 to 0.9 seconds which is a lot it also activates rear wheel steering wow so so you're paying for sport mode how much do we think they're charging I mean this is probably this is the most significant one yet so they add on a car that's pretty expensive right you know those retail Force 80-ish something like that I would say yeah 80 and up for sure I think Mercedes is probably charging about 60 bucks a month I'll say a nice 75 I'm going to say 35. the true price of Mercedes acceleration increase 100 a month whoa damn it which makes me no one gets a point on the board I got closest though yeah I thought you said no one got the point What's the difference all right so I got a point job is still furthest from having to wash the Previa how evil is this I don't think it's that evil to be honest I don't think it's the most evil one yet I don't like it it's rude but I think it's rude it's rude well guys Mercedes isn't the only company doing these power upgrades companies like BMW have shied away from offering their own subscriptions because of all the backlash that Mercedes got even though they were probably thinking that it was a good idea one thing to note though is that there is hope okay the subscription-based power upgrades have been banned in Europe however I don't know if we'll see the same thing in America because in case you're wondering how much money manufacturers already making on these Services GM said they made almost two billion dollars from subscriptions last year they expect to make 24 billion dollars per year by the end of the decade speaking of GM subscription Services one of the old this ones around is OnStar which is available in any General Motors vehicle OnStar includes great features like emergency assistance dealer maintenance notifications 30 hands-free calling minutes per month how much do we think think OnStar costs I'm going to say seven dollars I was gonna say like ten dollars uh we'll go with five the five seven ten title grouping thirty four dollars a month okay well who you guessed ten that was me yeah you get the money I'm losing that's a lot of money for 30 minutes hands-free calling per month do you think this is rude not nice or mean as you said this is rude I'll go not nice for this one you know what's not a bad subscription the donut underground it's access to our private Discord Channel you get stickers for being a member access to our merch drops first you also get exclusive videos done it underground click the join button below sometimes guys backlash does actually work BMW used to charge a subscription fee for Apple carplay a feature that is free in most cars nowadays uh it's free again for BMW drivers but let's guess how much they were charging just a few years ago was it 200 for five years four hundred dollars for eight years or three hundred dollars for 20 years 20 years seems crazy right yeah because I mean who knows if Apple's even gonna be around I think Apple's gonna be the government by then no one is going to own the same BMW for 20 years right I'm going 200 for five years mostly based on the length a five-year pay period sounds right for a newer car A B A the true price for the Apple carplay subscription for BMWs 300 for 20 years rude I'm gonna say rude yeah yeah up next guys is Tesla's fully self-driving option this feature allows the car to essentially drive itself the feature works with the existing Tesla sensors plus and additional Hardware add-on that needs to be installed by a Tesla technician how much do we think that Tesla was charging for this technology that basically comes with every car this is a monthly thing too monthly subscription for full self-driving I'm gonna say 100 bucks 100 bucks I'm gonna say 25 65. all right it should be noted that you can just buy this outright but if you want to do it monthly the price 199 per month that was way off base hey man shows what time happens how evil do we think this subscription is well it's sort of doubly evil because full self-driving is a misnomer at least um so I'm gonna go with downright mean I'm gonna say not evil at all because the less people with this technology on the road the better car subscription Services usually fall into three categories guys Comfort options like heated seats and cooled steering wheels safety features like Lane assist and power slash performance features like extra horsepower and four-wheel steering these next subscriptions however are purely for luxury LinkedIn has a chauffeur's service for their vehicles the personal driver program is run via an app and sends a driver that can shuttle you around in your own car and even run errands for you whoa the program launched in 2017 in cities like Miami and Dallas let's guess the price per hour you're like borrowing a human for that that's true I gotta think about that hundred dollars I'm gonna I'm gonna go with the 50 bucks an hour okay 50 100 250. the true price for the Lincoln personal driver thirty dollars an hour whoa Justin takes it that's so cheap for that price I'm thinking that's kind of like that's a little evil but at the same time that's a price that might get me to use it yeah we've been talking about features and options but where's all this ultimately leading to guys what about subscribing to the whole car one of the most prolific types of subscription services that car manufacturers offer today is the vehicle swap for a monthly or yearly fee you can drive a car then swap it out for a different car from the same manufacturer one of the most expensive car swap subscriptions is Porsche for just a fraction of the vehicle's total value you can drive anything from a Macan to a Boxster all the way up to the 911 the top tier lets subscribers drive up to 2 000 miles per month all right so let's guess the price of the top tier Porsche Drive subscription uh so for the highest top tier Porsche rental Extravaganza I'm gonna say like 10 grand I'm gonna say seven thousand dollars ten Grand seven thousand fifty eight hundred the true prize for the top tier Porsche Drive subscription Thirty One hundred dollars job even further ahead I was just trying to think like what what is like a lease on like a GT3 RS or something I feel like it's like 2500 bucks a month so if you're gonna be a little bit more than that all right since it doesn't matter who wins this next one is going to be between you and I Justin to determine who loses wow who's gonna wash the Previa Rolls-Royce offers a subscription called Whispers it gives users access to fun things like backstage passes to the Grammys custom Monopoly boards based on the property portfolio of the user itinerary help for an Antarctic expedition among other weird goodies all right how much do we think Rolls-Royce Whispers cost well I'm not guessing this is between you two okay I'll give you one clue the clue is that it's just a one-time fee I'm gonna scale mine down to ten thousand dollars you have to take my answer oh okay fifteen thousand dollars all right cool Tim so ten thousand dollars for Justin fifteen grand for me Joe the true cost of the Rolls-Royce whisper app membership program is the price of a new Rolls Royce but you need to buy a new Rolls Royce to get the Whispers app I went by the cheapest Rolls Royce which is 312 000 so that's the price all right so no I'm only off by 197 000. but you win well on that note Justin you've got to clean the preview I'm sorry all right Chen if you don't already know we make a bunch of clothing you can get it at donutmedia.com you can get the sweatshirt this hat cars are paying shirt cars are paying hat cars are paying lots of stuff coming down the pipe for you and if you want to support us for free hit that subscribe button don't cost you nothing but you get to see all of our videos goodbye