After becoming a cinema substitute and helping tourists find the best attractions, the BMW i7 is back in a third ad dubbed “Shopping made easy.” Apparently, “offline shopping can be hard work,” especially when you’re trying to park a car as large as the latest 7 Series. We’ll remind you the G70 is bigger than any other flagship from Bavaria before it, stretching at a stately 5391 millimeters (212.2 inches) long and 1950 millimeters (76.7 inches) wide.
Due to its sheer size, squeezing the i7 xDrive60 between an i3 hatchback and an X3 crossover is not for everyone, or so this ad suggests. “Parking, the ultimate challenge” can be easily completed with only a few taps of the 14.9-inch touchscreen. The ad shows the driver accessing the BMW ConnectedDrive Store to purchase a one-month subscription for the Parking Assistant Professional for €52 (about $55 at current exchange rates).
Launched last month as an over-the-air update, remote parking allows owners to step outside of their vehicle and perform the parking maneuver remotely via smartphone by using the My BMW App. It can be done from a distance of up to six meters (nearly 20 feet). The subscription is available only on cars that weren’t ordered from the factory with the Parking Assistant Professional. If a customer buys the i7 with this feature from the get-go, it’ll be permanently active, so they won’t be paying for it twice.
The commercial doesn’t make subscriptions any less controversial because it highlights how automakers are putting certain features behind a paywall to generate new revenue. It’s especially worrisome here since the 7 Series / i7 sits at the very top of BMW’s range, so one would expect the flagship to have all the bells and whistles without having to pay a monthly subscription.
Speaking of which, the ad also shows the Driving Assistant Plus is a €37 subscription while a heated steering wheel costs €10. As a refresher, BMW made the headlines last year when it introduced a subscription for heated front seats. Customers can avoid many of these monthly fees by ordering the car with the respective optional features.
Source: BMW / YouTube
