From New Atlas:
Built-in options will soon become subscription services under BMW's new sales model
BMW is looking to start standardizing its manufacturing processes, selling cars with options like adaptive cruise, smart headlights and active suspension built in, and then charging car owners on a monthly or yearly subscription model to use them.....MORE
It's a model that'll be familiar to Tesla owners, and an interesting sign of the times as the automotive industry starts to position itself for a future mobility-as-a-service model in which our traditional concept of car ownership itself might start to dissolve.
BMW itself will take an initial hit on the (not inconsiderable) cost of some of the hardware involved, but there are procedural advantages to giving every car the hardware to enable things like heated seats, Driver Recorder dashcams, the IconicSound Sport electric car engine noise designed by Hans Zimmer, and a range of other systems. If every seat has a heater built in, and every windscreen has a LiDAR system for adaptive cruise, there's that many fewer parts to design, manufacture and keep track of....
*As noted in the outro from "What Fresh Hell Is This? "Windows 10 could start bullying people into using a Microsoft account to install" (MSFT; EVIL)":
When Dorothy Parker used the first half of the headline she meant it. See after the jump....
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Mark my words, the day is coming when the peasants storm the castle.And on Ms. Parker:
...When Dorothy Parker used the line I purloined as our intro, she...was...not...kidding.
From Quote Investigator:
...the testimony of journalist Vincent Sheean who was Parker’s friend: 1
“When it came time to leave the apartment to get a taxi, you could see this look of resolution come on her face,” he said. “Her chin would go up and her shoulders would go back; she would almost be fighting back fear and tears, as if to say to the world, ‘Do your worst; I’ll make it home all right.’ If the doorbell rang in her apartment, she would say, ‘What fresh hell can this be?’—and it wasn’t funny; she meant it.Quote Investigator has earlier uses by other people but the Parker is the one I knew of.
Additionally, Quora has a finance angle in one of their usages:
Fat Yankee stockbrokers via Google books.Of note, the quote “What fresh hell is this” is used in Vanity Fair, Volumes 43-45, Issue 6, page 41 - Condé Nast, 1935, article.“And so the doctor groaned and cursed as he awoke to the persistent ringing of the telephone beside his bed. He looked at his watch and noted that it was three a. m., before he picked up the receiver. "What fresh hell is this, George?" said Dr. Bonnard to the night clerk. "Can't tell you, Doc. Old man in 607 says he must have a doctor right away. Name is Fred Warren and he comes from Stapleton, Staten Island." "Some fat Yankee stock broker who thinks that fifteen-mile wind outside his window is another hurricane ...”
Last seen in 2019's "HBR: Smart speakers and voice assistants are one of the best new ways for companies to interact with and learn from their customers"
