[kumarvvr]

If the option can be enabled in the future, doesn't that mean the car is having the hardware in the seats? (Heating coils, or what have you).

Then, wouldn't that mean the customer is already paying for the hardware (cost of the car itself), and everything else is just greed?

[blabberwocky]

I think the distinction is semantic. The customer is paying for a feature set and usable spec which he receives. It’s not as if the customer pays some price expecting to use the heated seats and doesn’t get to do so.

There’s an argument that this unnecessarily reduces everyone’s fuel efficiency due to the greater weight of the hardware, etc., but again this is more or less already captured in the advertised spec.

[kumarvvr]

The function is as per spec.

But not the Bill of Materials, upon which the price is ultimately decided.

What I mean to say is that a customer who chooses a spec that does not include heated seats, is supplied and charged for hardware that is not required in the spec.

[rkachowski]

In addition to the cost of the energy required to actually heat the seats.