As we've previously reported, you are charged an annual fee of $80 to have Apple CarPlay capability in your new BMW, something other automakers don't charge you for.

Why? One reason: BMW has a wireless system in its cars.

But then, so does the Toyota Supra, which is BMW based, and Supra owners won't be charged for CarPlay—at least for the first four years, we're told.

If you want to use Apple CarPlay in your modern BMW, it's going to cost $80 a year. Preposterous, you say. Not even Hyundai charges a subscription to hook your phone up to the infotainment screen. Why, this is just BMW milking more money from its owners, you might say, and they'll come to rue this decision. Well, hold your horses, especially if they're about to go send some angry tweets. As with most things in the automotive world, this issue isn't quite as simple as it first seems. Here's a brief dive into the reasons why.



CarPlay Is Complicated

BMW's newest models (and the BMW-based Toyota Supra) offer wireless CarPlay, which, a BMW representative told C/D, requires different hardware compared to the wired setup.

But beyond hardware, it takes engineering and testing to make sure CarPlay works properly with the rest of the car and doesn't, for instance, behave like an Alfa Romeo. That's not just in the development phases, either. Every time Apple updates its software or adds a new feature, there's a chance that some new snippet of code won't play nice with the existing infotainment system, requiring an update; wireless CarPlay increases that complexity.

BMW

That means either leave something buggy and make owners unhappy or have engineers work out a fix, which costs money, time, and resources.

This after-sales support is a relatively new problem that automakers are facing. As cars become more and more intertwined with electronics and software, the interactions and potential for errors increase exponentially. This is less of a problem for a company like Apple, which sells a phone for hundreds of dollars that gets replaced after a couple of years. Automakers like BMW, on the other hand, are expected to build a car that works just like the day it rolled off the showroom floor for hundreds of thousands of miles in all kinds of conditions.

Until recently, that just meant designing and building all the components right the first time and occasionally correcting mistakes with a recall or technical service bulletin. A system—say, electronic stability control—requires extra time and money to develop, but it rarely needs updates after the car is sold. To make a car evolve in tandem with all the new devices we might connect to it requires ongoing development that was previously not a part of the business plan.

But It's Usually Free to the Owner

Still, other automakers don't charge a subscription fee to use CarPlay. Many even make it a standard feature. Toyota says that the 2020 Supra will offer the use of CarPlay free for four years while it determines if a future subscription fee is in the cards. Toyota does not charge a subscription fee in its other vehicles.

Should BMW just eat the cost of CarPlay, assuming it's now a requirement to be competitive? Or figure out other cost savings to balance it out, or include all the projected lifetime costs as an option price? Those are all viable options, and ones that would probably involve less grumbling from BMW's ownership base.



Just because BMW was the first to hit users with a subscription fee like this doesn't mean that every other automaker isn't thinking about it (and watching closely how this plays out). The business is changing rapidly, with all kinds of threats to the old ways of making money. Meanwhile, cars are more complicated and expensive to produce than ever before.

Also, your car is a potential gold mine. Just as your phone can give you location-based ads and all other kinds of creepy coincidental recommendations, where you drive is valuable information that, thankfully, hasn't been totally exploited yet. And given the hours we spend behind the wheel, car owners are a captive audience.

One argument for the subscription fee is that it implies a certain level of futureproofing. If you’re paying every year for CarPlay, BMW had better make sure it keeps working. And the optimistic side of the argument is that any kind of subscription opens up the freedom and flexibility to pay for what you use. In theory, that could evolve from connectivity features like CarPlay all the way into performance. You don't need to pay for horsepower all the time if you only really need it for the occasional track. Of course, that's not how it's going to play out, not just with BMW but with commerce as a whole. Cord-cutting services such as Netflix and Hulu promised freedom from paying for extra cable channels you don't use; now, as the Washington Post put it recently, these subscriptions have become "a pricey, complicated mess." The automotive world will be no different; the only question is how the increases will be implemented.

No need to start worrying that we'll be paying as we go for things like power windows, remote start, or even CarPlay. BMW offers a 20-year CarPlay subscription for $300, which seems like a no-brainer to any Apple-using Bimmer owner not on a lease. But it's still a fee for something that other automakers don't make you pay for. You can bet that BMW is listening to its owners as closely as it's watching the balance sheet. Free CarPlay could turn into a necessary feature to remain competitive, much like automated emergency braking has become.

Apple CarPlay seems easy, but in reality it's like any other feature on your car: There's a cost associated with it, and automakers have to find a way to pay for that cost. And there's a good chance that most people will give in and pay up, whether that cost is baked into the base price, an option, or an annual charge. You don't have to like it, and you especially don't have to like BMW's current approach, but it's not free.

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