BMW Is Showing Full-Screen Ads on Its Cars' Main Dashboard Control Display
Ranked #1 on Hacker News with 23 points and 3 comments.
BMW has a documented pattern of monetizing hardware and features after the sale of the vehicle. In 2020 the company announced a subscription that charged drivers a recurring fee to activate the heated seats already fitted to their cars. [ 6 ] Forbes described that heated-seat subscription as controversial, and BMW dropped it in 2023 in a reversal of the practice. Forbes reported the reversal, quoting BMW board member Pieter Nota on the practices the company would abandon. [ 6 ] The heated-seat episode sits in the same family as Features on demand , the broader practice of gating capability a buyer's car already contains behind a paywall.
Two months after dropping the heated-seat subscription, BMW addressed a separate question: whether it would put advertising on the screens inside its cars. At a December 2023 roundtable, Stephan Durach, senior vice president for connected company development at BMW Group, ruled it out. BMWBLOG reported his position, quoting the executive:
To say I'm selling the screen to play a commercial. I don't see it. It's a private space.
The animation has been available in more than 70 markets since July 27, 2026, a limited window scheduled to close on August 10, 2026. [ 1 ] Eligibility was broad. Any suitably equipped BMW running BMW Operating System 7, 8, 8.5, 9, or OS X, with a production date after July 2020, could receive it. [ 1 ] BMWBLOG's Horatiu Boeriu independently confirmed the same window, the 70-market reach, and the operating-system and build-date requirement. [ 3 ]
The in-vehicle animation is part of a broader brand partnership with the film. A few of our vehicles, including the BMW iX3, were in the film, and a special edition iX3 was featured on the red carpet during last night's premiere in Los Angeles.
I own a house, and I make payments to a mortgage company every month, and I'm pretty sure it would be illegal for that mortgage company to put a fucking Spider-Man billboard in my yard, facing my front windows. Is what BMW is doing any different?