Audi blames consumer demand for in-car software subscriptions as it expands on-demand features for future cars

Many car brands have seen the shift to electric vehicles as an opportunity to also shift the paradigm to the software-defined vehicle, allowing them to sell consumers more and more features via software subscriptions. In the grand scheme of things, Audi's subscription-unlocked software features are less egregious than the acceleration boosts and heated seats offered by other brands.

However, as brands like BMW start to move away from subscription-based software unlocks, Audi appears to want to take these features to the next level, according to an Autocar interview with Oliver Hoffman, Audi's board member of Management for Technical Development.

With our next generation of electronic architecture, we will bring more offers to ‘function on demand’ and you will see year by year we will bring new functions in the cars. – Audi's Oliver Hoffman

The executive goes on to say that Audi will make the shift as a result customer demand, rather than purely for profit movites, adding that Audi doesn't see these on-demand features as a huge profit source. Hoffman didn't expand on what services and features would be added to the vehicle, but he did emphasise that these sorts of on-demand features would be the norm in the future.

The only on-demand features Audi currently offers are additional functionality for the LED Matrix headlights and semi-autonomous parking for its e-tron and e-tron Sportback electric cars via the myAudi app. Hoffman's comments come only a short while after BMW announced that it would pull back on in-car subscriptions and software-locked hardware features as a result of low customer acceptance.

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