When BMW tried to charge people a monthly subscription fee to unlock the heated seats in their vehicles, it faced backlash. However, there’s profit to be made, so automakers are still trying to make the subscription model work, and Audi wants to lead the charge.
The brand is set to accelerate its development and roll-out of “on-demand” services next year, according to Oliver Hoffmann, its head of technical development. So far, Audi only offers a couple of subscription features, but it is on the cusp of being able to offer many more.
“With our next generation of electronic architecture, we will bring more offers to ‘function on demand’ and you will see year by year we will bring new functions in the cars,” Hoffmann told Autocar. However, he refused to be pinned down on what features would be offered on a subscription basis, nor how it would organize payment plans.
Read: BMW Stops Subscription Service For Heated Seats After Backlash
Right now, Audi owners can subscribe to a small number of features, such as the Matrix LED package, which selectively dims the high beams only in the areas where they might dazzle oncoming drivers. Service terms last for one month, six months, one year, three years, or a lifetime. Each costs progressively more, and customers must shell out €2,325 ($2,490 USD at current exchange rates) to get the feature for life.
Although Hoffmann admitted that there was a time when companies thought that subscription features could generate more income than actually selling new cars, he insists that the decision to ramp up their development is a response to customer demand, not a cash grab.
“This is a [big] step,” he said. “I think there is a demand from the customer to bring new functions in the car, and this is a profit pool for us – but we don’t see these revenue pools with this kind of functionality.”
In his view, on-demand functions are a way for customers to get more out of their vehicles over their lifetime. Better still, they don’t require owners to return to a dealership, they just need to use their app to add a feature as it’s needed. Hoffmann believes that these kinds of interactions will be “quite normal in the future.”
