> But most car companies don't actually integrate a seat heater if you didn't order one. Lugging the weight of the extra hardware for these features around but being blocked from using them at all feels wromg to me.

I think they've learned from Juniper's licensing model for routers. They ship with all the hardware, but are reliant on license keys for full ability. Go look up the licensed versions of an mx204 for instance. Not something I'm a fan of.