> The fact that you need to purchase additional software to enable that is absolutely insane and wasteful
I don't know - could be less wasteful to ship identical hardware to everyone. An example from another sector is did you know low end processor chips are often exactly the same as higher end ones, just with features burned off? It means they can re-use imperfect chips, reducing waste, and they can have a simpler production line, reducing costs.
Chips I could understand as they're small and volume would be X times the number of cars produced.
But a heated seat is not light, its a lot of extra weight to ship and therefore more fuel used for every car.
What percentage of car owners will pay for that feature to be enabled. 20, 30 , 50?
That's a lot of fuel and energy burnt to get it to that person and over the life of the car the weight of those seats will have a material impact on the lifetime fuel usage of the car, tyre wear times etc etc.
That's different from other cars I've seen with heated seats , in that case I can definitely see the case of just including it into every car just incase.
I don't know - could be less wasteful to ship identical hardware to everyone. An example from another sector is did you know low end processor chips are often exactly the same as higher end ones, just with features burned off? It means they can re-use imperfect chips, reducing waste, and they can have a simpler production line, reducing costs.