Worse, BMW thought they were in a comfortable position to exploit their customer base for money -- cutting back on their maintenance program, warranties, etc. and banking on people to not care.
If anything, BMW was driving people away from themselves faster than customers were already fleeing to e.g. Tesla or, more recently, Audi (e-tron), Jag (i-pace) and Mercedes (EQC) for electrics.
It's all of these little things adding up that caused me not to get a new lease two years ago.
(this might become a BMW rant, for which I apologize)
1. Reduced the 4y/50k maintenance to 3y/36k. This wasn't impactful for the average lease but slammed car owners.
2. Locked the maintenance program to the first owner -- as if they didn't hate owners enough, you had to pay extra for a maintenance program that transferred to the next owner.
3. To your point: offensive subscription charges (carplay)
4. (subjective) Bizarre styling changes on their mainstream cars, e.g. X7 and the new 7 series.
5. Refusing to produce normal electric vehicles, per the title of this article.
End result is you now have cars like the i3 and i8 cratering in value because they're hideously complex, in need of specialized maintenance knowledge, and are exceedingly unlikely to carry a maintenance plan without incurring an e.g. 2, 3, 5k fee. It's awful for BMW because now nobody wants to buy one of their more innovative cars because they'll lose 20% of their value right off the lot and another 40% in the next three years, but it's even worse for people who wouldn't mind adopting "established" electric because they don't want to chance the marked-up repairs nor do the research to figure out which cars either have pre-existing maintenance plans or how much they should pay to get all-inclusive maintenance plans that would cover their used cars.
Are i3's really "hideously complex"? An electric motor is far simpler than an ICE. There is very little scheduled maintenance, for example. On the forums, I do not see many stories of painful repair experiences. They just work.
If anything, BMW was driving people away from themselves faster than customers were already fleeing to e.g. Tesla or, more recently, Audi (e-tron), Jag (i-pace) and Mercedes (EQC) for electrics.