In an ideal world we could just give everyone those features if they didn’t cost any extra to add instead of creating an artificial pricing structure to get more money out of people. Maybe it can’t work that way but making people’s lives worse just to punish them for paying less in order to incentivise them to pay more, rather than as compensation to the company for doing more work, seems wrong
But they do cost extra to add. Heating coils and controllers aren't free. Doing it this way has real benefits.
1. Lower total cost of manufacturing (which should be passed on to consumers as lower purchase price).
2. The cost of this hardware is only paid for those who value it.
3. You can add these features later (maybe your budget is tight when you bought the car but want to add it later).
I am definitely not a fan of the subscription model for hardware features, but I think that locking features to the customers paying for it is a logical way to make these features available for less cost. If the unlock is one-time and reliable (doesn't rely on some external service to validate your subscription) then I don't have a fundamental problem with it.
I don't think providing a cheaper model is "punish[ing] them for paying less". It is making the car accessible to a wider audience. If the cheapest model included heated seats, self driving and more then they base price would be higher and the car would be less accessible.
Doesn't the same sort of apply to eg. Microsoft should give you access to all of their existing software titles when you buy an xbox? It's not like you paying for Flight Sim now compensates them for doing more work.
