(Not the person you’re replying to) I’ve never had a car with an automatic trunk motor, so I can’t answer that one, but back when I lived in the Midwest, if my ability to remote start the car to power climate control (particularly of the windshield defrost) stopped working, that definitely would have been in the “I’m willing to pay thousands to fix this” realm. In some cases, that would absolutely limit the ability for the car to get me places; you’re not going very far with a quarter inch of ice on the windshield.

In the summer, it gets closer to “gimmick” territory, but there are also totally times when interior surfaces of the car were too hot to touch, and that affects driving in its own right if you can’t grab the steering wheel.

I want to chime in. I drive Skoda Enyaq (VW Family EV, think ID.4) and have all these gimmicks. I ruled out a Model 3 because at that time it didn’t come with some of these features like notarized trunk etc.

I have my car on a schedule and it automatically heats up, turns on the seat heaters and defrosts the windshield. By the time I leave the house I have seither a snuggly warm car or pre cooled car. That is a huge time saver for me. One annoying part on this car is the fact that the LED headlights don‘t defrost. It sounds like a real first world problem but when it’s real cold outside and the car warms up etc I need to manually scrape the ice from the headlights. I would pay some money to get this „fixed“…

The only two features I use of my car app (which is also a Leaf), is to remote start the heater, and check the charge level. This car is the first one I've owned with remote heating. Is it essential? No. But after scraping ice off my car manually for 20 years, I don't ever want to go back. But that's all I use the remote heater for - de-icing.

As for battery charge level, I don't know why the various charger apps can't read that info off the car as it charges, but I'm sure there's some incredibly dumb reason for that.

For things like remote heating or auto trunk operation, the cost I’d be willing to bear is gated mostly by how much the delta to just buying a new car would be. Especially since having kids, a lot of this stuff makes my life a lot easier. If I’m trying to carry a crying toddler and a large bag of groceries into the house, I don’t want to be struggling to try to get the trunk closed. Being able to completely de-ice the car from inside while I’m getting kids dressed for school instead of needing to spend an extra five minutes doing it manually is likewise huge.

The Tesla (like any EV I’ve driven) is also fun to drive, but I’d trade away the instant torque for the other features if you made me choose.

Remote deicing of the windows in the winter sounds rad and more then just a gimmick.

Even with gloves on it can be quite cold to remove the all the ice from windows. Or you sit in the cold car for 5 minutes waiting for it to defrost on it's own.

And yes, if your climate control is broken I would pay to fix it.

Edit: When you share a car and have no dedicated parking spot the location information can also be interesting.

How important is it for you to have a garage door opener? As opposed to manually getting out of your car, opening it, and then closing it manually

I see these extra features as similar to a garage door opener. It is convenient and I'd be willing to pay to fix it if it ever broke

It's all managed by the car's computers, the complications are already there. You just don't get to control them how you like, for no good reason.