A monthly subscription for E-Car performance?

[stevej37]

Another reason for me to avoid them.
VW will charge a monthly subscription to unlock the 'top performance' of their E-Cars.

First I've heard of this practice.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/volkswagen-sparks-backlash-unheard-subscription-211500754.html

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[Steve Carlton]

I guess if you move to the UK and get an ID.3 that's not sold here, you can avoid it. But that kind of thing is not uncommon and bound to get worse. Most commonly known example is Tesla charging extra for full self driving (FSD) at $99/month. They used to charge, what, $8-10,000 for it and it's just a software download. But not hard to admit that a lot went into it, and debatable how well it really works.

Mercedes charges a subscription fee for continuing it's phone app services and even performance:
https://media.mbusa.com/releases/mercedes-benz-usa-announces-performance-acceleration-on-demand-upgrade-for-eqe-and-eqs-customers

Volvo used to charge for its app after a year, then increased it to correspond to its 4 year warranty.

BMW charges for stuff like heated seats/steering wheels- I don't know the details.

Polestar charges for a performance upgrade package $1,195. For me it would have added $48/mo to my lease payment and it seemed disproportionately expensive for something I wouldn't often engage:
https://www.polestar.com/us/performance-software-upgrade/

With stuff being controlled more and more by software, this is a relatively new concept and it bothers a lot of people, especially since they have the feel of being too expensive. I would rather have the option vs whining about it. I could have bought or leased a more expensive car. Same difference.

[stevej37]

^^^ I had heard of the stuff like BMW does....but not of the cars performance.

At least the VW monthly is low...only $22/month. (I would likely pay that.)

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[Steve Carlton]

For 201 to 228hp and torque from 195 to 229 lb/ft, agree. The lifetime option is $880 equivalent. Decent value.

[VINMAN]

Hence why I will continue to drive my 15yo + vehicles until they are no longer serviceable.

I'm already paying a premium high price for your vehicle, and now you want me to pay extra monthly to use it's stupid features??
GFYS!

[wdfifteen]

I like it as long as the subscription is cancelable.
When you pay for higher performance up front that money is sunk, you have paid for it whether or not you use it. With a cancelable subscription, you only pay as long as you use it.

[jhynesrockmtn]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

Hence why I will continue to drive my 15yo + vehicles until they are no longer serviceable.

I'm already paying a premium high price for your vehicle, and now you want me to pay extra monthly to use it's stupid features??
GFYS!

This ^

My F150 has a bunch of features like built in nav, their handsfree "bluecruise", enhanced security that are extra monthly/annual fees. The endless emails to sign up are enough to make me want to park the thing in their lot on fire.

[unclebilly]

^^^ 100%

In November the online services for my 24 tundra will no longer be ‘free’. They are mostly 5hitty but some stuff is good.

I am to the point that I hate this 5hit. I’m going to get my 53 Merc pickup running with either the crown vic engine I have or an LS and avoid this ‘connected garbage’. I think that Tindra will be my last modern vehicle.

[unclebilly]

I wonder how long before someone figures out how to hack these features… pay for a ‘chip’ once.

[unclebilly]

Bottom line is that car companies are trying to cash in on ‘transportation as a service’ as opposed to one time sales and maybe some post purchase part sales.

Toyota made less of that Corolla taxi cab with 2,000,000 miles on it than a car company would today over a few years with these monthly subscriptions.

They want reoccurring revenue and they are doing it with subscriptions. The young kids are bought into this model. Us oldsters are not.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by jhynesrockmtn

This ^

My F150 has a bunch of features like built in nav, their handsfree "bluecruise", enhanced security that are extra monthly/annual fees. The endless emails to sign up are enough to make me want to park the thing in their lot on fire.

Yep. I don't see any point in paying for "nav" in a car as long as you've got a smart phone. It's surprising to me that nav is still offered these days when the big players are likely always better.
No way in hell am I paying a subscription for something in a car. I bought the car. It's a one time expenditure from that point of view (other than yearly taxes/fees to the gov, insurance, and maintenance).
It's only a matter of time before they start wanting to charge ongoing fees for crap in your home. "Oh, you want hot water..."

Originally Posted by unclebilly

^^^ 100%

In November the online services for my 24 tundra will no longer be ‘free’. They are mostly 5hitty but some stuff is good.

I am to the point that I hate this 5hit. I’m going to get my 53 Merc pickup running with either the crown vic engine I have or an LS and avoid this ‘connected garbage’. I think that Tindra will be my last modern vehicle.

Hell yeah! We'll all be running around in '85 El Caminos!

Originally Posted by unclebilly

I wonder how long before someone figures out how to hack these features… pay for a ‘chip’ once.

It's probably not that hard in the grand scheme of hacking. The harder part will be to block the "phone home" aspect. Because once you hack the car, if it phones home once a week or day or whatever, they'll know "this one was hacked". It'll then be "we disabled your car because you hacked it" or "knock, knock, knock, hello, this is the sheriff's dept, we have a warrant for the arrest of "

[stevej37]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

I wonder how long before someone figures out how to hack these features… pay for a ‘chip’ once.

That reminds me of the early 90's? when I had a 10ft fiberglass dish to watch all the tv channels for free. (including the skin channels )
They started scrambling them and 'the guy' would stop out with a 'fixed chip' to open up the channels for $50 each time. I think he was out a half dozen times in a couple years to my place to get my channels back. Finally, they figured out a scrambling method that 'the guy' couldn't defeat.
Then Direct and Dish came along.

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[Steve Carlton]

Originally Posted by masraum

Hell yeah! We'll all be running around in '85 El Caminos!

Then I'll have to subscribe to El Camino Monthly and Lack of Airbags and ABS Forever magazines vs not renewing features I don't need.

What pisses me off is needing subscriptions to Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, Paramount+, and Britbox. And then they slow release new series with weekly new episodes so I can't binge and split. I'm going back to listen to the radio, as long as it's not SirusXM. Oh, and I'll keep my subscription to Highlights magazine, too.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

Then I'll have to subscribe to El Camino Monthly and Lack of Airbags and ABS Forever magazines vs not renewing features I don't need.

What pisses me off is needing subscriptions to Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, Paramount+, and Britbox. And then they slow release new series with weekly new episodes so I can't binge and split. I'm going back to listen to the radio, as long as it's not SirusXM. Oh, and I'll keep my subscription to Highlights magazine, too.

Too many subscriptions! We have T-mobile for phones and home Internet and they gave us free Netflix and Hulu. We'd previously had Netflix, now because it's free, we have commercials. We are paying for "acorn" because it has a bunch of the shows that my wife likes. We've considered switching to Britbox because a lot of what she likes are British mystery shows/movies.

I've been paying for Pandora for many, many years. I think I started out paying $5/mo, and now I think it's $5.99/mo. For me, driving, and listening while I'm working, that's been money well spent. But otherwise, yeah, subscriptions suck.

[stevej37]

My worst subscription is the Xfinity bill. This past month was up to $275 which includes their 'sports package'.
In the meantime college and pro games are moving to Peacock making a subscription to them necessary. Where does it end?

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by stevej37

In the meantime college and pro games are moving to Peacock making a subscription to them necessary. Where does it end?

It will only end if people stop subscribing to everything.

[stevej37]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

It will only end if people stop subscribing to everything.

True...I could always watch those games at my local bar & grille.
I'm not sure that would save me any money.

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[id10t]

IBM used to license CPUs on their mainframes that way... we could only use 1/2 the CPU cycles available on our old system (moved to Linux on PPC, then Linux on x86/amd64)

[Alan A]

Originally Posted by id10t

IBM used to license CPUs on their mainframes that way... we could only use 1/2 the CPU cycles available on our old system (moved to Linux on PPC, then Linux on x86/amd64)

No used to…
They just change the definition every few years.

Its cheaper to make and ship the same full Monty machine to everyone and cap it than send someone out every time you want an upgrade.

[RANDY P]

Subscriptions, why kill the sheep if you can shear them forever?

If you don't need the performance car, buy the less expensive one, not pay a premium then pay again and again and again. Not doing it. another GFYS.

rjp