I would rent a whole car, but never part of one.

The use of the word 'dumb' comes quickly to mind as does the word 'opportunity' - its software so it can be hacked or for the more conservative amongst us just hot wire them!

This has so, so many possibilities to go wrong. There's the obvious, like smart cruise control cutting out on an urban highway because of some payment snafu, or the usual vendor web sites that let you start up a recurring charge but don't let you cancel it again. But with the complex software that is a computing cluster that happens to have wheels and an engine, you might also see unexpected interactions that can only be exposed by exhaustive testing. What other car functions depend on the ones that are being activated or cancelled at any time? What's the list of potentially cancellable features?

Somebody else drive the first few generations of this one.

I think this is a marketing mistake much like their program which let you drive a variety of cars. I wouldn’t bother.

I think Brian M is on to something - how long will it be before some enterprising hackers either hack into a BMW to wreak havoc on the car, or sell BMW owners some code which gives them those lovely accessories for free with a one time payment?

Of course, in this age of IP being king, where John Deere does not allow the farmers who purchase their 6-figure tractors to work on them as it would create intellectual property issues, perhaps the entire concept of people really "owning" things is becoming passe.

In their book "The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy" authors Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz talk about such things.

This will add to weight and hence impact fuel efficiency, particularly in certain instances. Take, for example, heated seats. This would never be used in many hot and tropical countries - so why 'lug around' all that extra weight? ...and the additional electronic complexity involved in these systems? While I can appreciate economic advantages in reducing the product variants and options, I suspect this might be a move too far.

I can't wait to see the mods coming out on the darknet for $1500 that completely unlocks every option in your car. Personally I don't like this. You can either buy the car fully loaded or not. If I live in a cold region then you know I'm going to want seated seats. Why would I rent them?

No. Just NO.

Haha, good luck with that, BMW. I can see building all the cars the same way For production efficiencies - that already happens with some items like wiring harnesses. And charging a customer to “buy” (Activate) the feature at a later date could also be an interesting experiment. But “rent” the feature on a monthly basis? Silly.

Great, then I'll only have to pay for heated seats in the winter months...... And for the wipers only when it rains......