I drove a car once with that feature on by default without realising. I was on a long straight road at night. Ahead there was a junction on the left, and the “feature” flashed the headlights and a car pulled out thinking I was letting them out and I had to slam on the breaks.

That was some years ago and even the car I have now (brand new Kia) has a a buggy high beam assist. It comes on and goes off when you don’t want it to. Worse is that it’s activated by pushing the stalk forward. To enable manual mode you have to push it forward again.

Edit: further rant. The auto stop start doesn’t engage quick enough and auto hold isn’t enabled by default, so you can roll backwards waiting for the engine to turn on. Every time I turn on the car I have to turn off Auto Start Stop and Lane Keep Assist

I think the point is a little over exaggerated. You could argue that automatic headlights, such as lights which automatically switch on at night time are also an optional extra in certain models of cars, do I therefore need to pay for people to see me on the road?

How about cars where automatic braking is an option in higher models, am I therefore having to pay for my car to stop?

At the end of the day, car companies create a market where you need to pay for better features and we're moving into a world where some of these features are simply disabled on the vehicle. The writer needs to move on and remember they can also dim their headlights on their own.

I agree the line is fuzzy between enabling a hardware feature built into the car and purchasing a software product but I think this case falls squarely into the first category.

Automatic braking actually is going to be required on all new cars soon, so yes I take issue with charging extra for a feature like that when the hardware is built in.

Maybe a decade ago when the hardware was more expensive and less common it would be totally reasonable to charge to have it added to the car, but I take issue with charging for software enables for hardware that you own.

If the software really does change the product (like theoretically an update enabling self driving), that might be different but I think this case is clear.

For me, if the software is simply flicking a feature switch for hardware already in place then it is purely a lame money grab.

If the software has serious levels of thought and effort to do something significantly meaningful, then the software IS the engineering - and hence is worth something.

That line of thinking breaks down pretty quickly though. Should BMW just charge the marginal cost for hardware features, too?

That would make the base model more expensive and remove options for people who are price sensitive.

I think that's a fair point and perhaps I was a little harsh. If the hardware is already in the car that you have paid for and its simply a software toggle then it is definitely just a cash grab, unless there are other services attached to it such as 3G/4G.

Realistically what I can see is that BMW would make it standard on all models and the price would be slightly higher. So arguably yes you would be paying for it, but you wouldn't have a choice.

The point I was trying to make originally was that as new safety developments are made you will always be able to make the argument that "They're making me pay xxx to be safer". Now I appreciate that there is a balance, but saying that a company is making you pay extra not to blind people is nonsense.

I agree. Especially in the higher end everything is an option. Just look at Porsche, while I really like their cars, they charge a lot for features found on a higher-than-entry model of a non luxury brand. The article ignores that it is still the responsibility of the driver to not blind other drivers.

Though having unused hardware built into your car sucks, I can imagine buying features and receiving them with an Over The Air update effortlessly is compelling for many people.

You don't see the obnoxious headlights if the car tails 2m behind you at 160kmh on the highway. Only if it's SUV, but then the situation is hopeless I admit.

I was hoping it'd be a software update to address the scourge of stock low beam LEDs, that blind the crap out of oncoming drivers.

"Given the prevailing yuppie sociopathy of the typical BMW driver, I think the majority of them would laugh at paying money to consider people besides themselves unless it benefited them somehow." - What would George Carlin say?