As a long time BMW buyer, the brand lost me when they floated this plan. The writing was on the wall: they see themselves as a lifestyle, not a car brand, and we'll see more desperate attempts to make consumers a subscription instead of a purchaser. Everyone wants to be Apple, which gets a feedline of subscription revenue from phone purchasers.

Note the odd logo change around this time as well (2020 or so), another sign of their attempts to "reinvent" themselves as a services company. https://bimmertips.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/BMW_logo_o... (via https://bimmertips.com/bmw-logo-history-origin/) in one picture, and BMW's take at https://www.bmw.com/en/automotive-life/bmw-logo-meaning-hist....

I miss the days when BMW just made really fun cars that I was willing to overpay for, helping my dealer and the factory stay profitable.

They had stopped this before 2019.

> That convenience wasn't lost on BMW, which for the 2019 model year turned CarPlay from a $300 stand-alone option into a subscription through its ConnectedDrive suite of app services, at $80 per year or $300 for 20 years.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30139034/bmw-apple-carpla...

So, since the 2019 model year was available in 2018, they stopped it in 2018.

I have a 2019 model bought in 2018 and it has absolutely no ongoing fees to use CarPlay, which I do daily.