New York Is About To Ban Your Car’s Heated Seat Subscription

There are few things in modern automotive life more infuriating than "Hardware as a Service." You know the drill: You buy a luxury car for $60,000. It has heated seats. The heating elements are in the cushion. The button is on the dash. The wiring is connected. The fuse is good. But when you press the button, a screen pops up asking for $18 a month to turn them on.

It is a business model that treats the car owner like a tenant in their own vehicle, a "rentership" society where you never truly own anything. It is deeply cynical, and if the New York State Senate has anything to say about it, it might soon be illegal.

Senate Bill S5708 has officially passed the Senate and is currently awaiting a signature from Governor Kathy Hochul. The bill is refreshingly simple in its aim: it prohibits automakers from charging subscription fees for any hardware feature that is already physically installed in the vehicle at the time of purchase.

This means if the car has a remote start module, heated seats, or advanced safety sensors built into it when it rolls off the lot, the manufacturer cannot disable them via software and hold them hostage for a monthly fee. They can charge you for the feature upfront in the purchase price, sure. But they cannot double-dip by selling you the hardware and then renting you the switch to turn it on.

The bill does make sensible exceptions for features that require ongoing data costs—like Wi-Fi hotspots, live traffic updates, or concierge services. That makes sense; those services cost money to maintain. If you want a live human to find you a restaurant, you should pay for it. But heating a coil of wire in your seat does not cost BMW or Mercedes a dime after the car leaves the factory. There is no server cost for your butt getting warm.

This legislation is a direct response to the consumer backlash we saw when BMW flirted with heated seat subscriptions a few years ago (a program they eventually walked back due to the outcry). But it’s not just BMW. Mercedes has played with "acceleration increase" subscriptions for their EVs. Toyota faced heat for key fob remote start functions that required a subscription. The industry is testing the waters, looking for ways to generate "recurring revenue" to please Wall Street. They look at the Netflix model and think, "Why can't a car be a service?"

The answer, of course, is because a car is the second most expensive thing most people will ever buy. We aren't streaming a movie; we are buying a two-ton machine.

If New York signs this into law, it sets a massive precedent. California and other major markets often follow suit on consumer protection laws. It draws a line in the sand that says: "When I buy a car, I own the whole car." It stops the slippery slope where eventually, we might be paying per mile for brake usage or a monthly fee to use the full range of the battery.

So, here is hoping Governor Hochul signs it. It’s a small victory for ownership rights, but in an era where we own less and less of our digital lives, it’s a victory worth celebrating. The automakers will hate it, which is usually a pretty good sign that it’s good for the rest of us.