I’m well! Dacia has a freebie at select UK dealers. Before you get too excited, this Romanian brand is giving away not cars, but water bottles. The Renault-owned automaker is looking into certain automakers and subscription proliferation to unlock certain features. This “Heated Seat Rescue” is definitely the way to have fun with the innocuous BMW and its decision to charge a fee to warm your butt on a cold winter day.
Dacia says it’s renowned for offering simplicity and will avoid this cash grab by allowing customers access to it all without having to worry about any paywalls. The budget automaker pointed out that the flagship versions of the Sandero Stepway, Duster and Jogger have heated front seats as standard equipment.
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Hot water bottles will be available at Dacia dealers located in Brent Cross (London), Trinity Way (Manchester) and Fendrod Way (Swansea) between 1 and 2 February from 9am to 4pm. Each showroom will give away 25 of these so-called Heated Seat Rescuers on a first-come, first-served basis. People will not be forced to buy anything from dealers, who will offer one item per person.
Dacia UK Brand Director Luke Broad said, “Heated Seat Saviors are a bit of fun, but they highlight a broader industry direction regarding subscription-based access to features. Asking someone to pay extra to activate factory-installed equipment is definitely not Dacia!”
Since we mentioned Dacia is all about simplicity, company CEO Denis Le Vot said last year that customers shouldn’t be forced to buy active safety technology if they don’t want it:
“A lot of people disable lane keep assist. You do that because you’re human and you judge the situation so you disable the technology. What we do is we don’t sell it to you. We know that people disabling lane keeping assist, so why are we selling it?”
Although Dacia is known for offering some of the cheapest cars in Europe, the new Jogger Hybrid is the company’s most expensive car to date (from €23,800 in Germany). A larger SUV previewed by the Bigster concept is coming in the middle of the decade and that one will push the price bar even further.
