That may (?) be true on the S-Class, but the video is at least partly correct....you do pay extra for it on the Mercedes EQS.

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/41678/...germany-report

 

Thats possible since I don't know as much about the EQS.

One thing to keep in mind though, in this scenario you don't pay for the option itself. Rear wheel steering is like a $4,000 option on the S Class. This article also says this is only true in Germany and not here.

 

Let's not blame EVs here. Tesla basically gives you free features constantly through OTA. It's Mercedes specifically that's screwing their customers over. Polestar also gives their users free features too.

In the end, if some manufacturers do require payment over some features, others will not and that will eventually drive the ones that do to stop due to competition. I think this is only an experiment for them.

 

Wasn't BMW charging a sub for heated seats or something?

 

I think thats Toyota. BMW charges for some remote services and speed camera info.

 

Yep, I remember that

 

We have to distinguish between subscription and buying a feature. On Teslas, you can buy additional functionality like FSD anytime after the initial purchase of the car. You can also buy certain things like seat heaters that don't come standard on the lower trims and those can be enabled post purchase also.

If BMW or Toyota do the same, it's just a functionality you are paying for. If they charge a subscription, that's pretty bad.

 

What I suspect they will do is enable all the goodies for free for the first few months, and let buyers get used to them, so they are more likely to pay for the subscription.

 

I don't think that would fly with consumers. BMW tried that with wireless CarPlay and there was a revolt.

I wouldn't worry.

 

I have faith in the free market. This is priming the stage for a disrupter to come in and offer a solution to the these issues. Either that or there will be plenty of ex-employees with the know-how to work around these constraints and build a business around it.

 

I don't think wireless carplay was ever a subscription, it was a $300 option on two of my BMWs, and I believe it was included free in my last one. They do subscription for speed camera info, its $25 for 15 months, automatic map updates, traffic info, etc.

 

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Thats what I was getting at with my post, ultimately the consumer will decide what's best. That doesn't prevent the legacy automakers from trying though.

 

It was a subscription at one point and the owners were pissed. They made it free after customers revolted.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a2...ost-explainer/

 

tesla has been shipping cars for over a decade. have they been hacked in this time? even if they have been it's only a matter of time before it's impossible. and yes, it should be pretty easy for makers to make OTA not work on hacked cars or even disable to car entirely until it's factory reset.

and your A8 is several years old i think, and more 'primitive' by today's standards. sucks you had to pay $4700 for a tool that likely won't be useful on new or coming vehicles, but hopefully it pays for itself in the use you get out of it.

pc/tech cross integrates? that's getting more and more controlled/constrained, or impossible. app stores, authentication and licensing, subscription services for software and updates, it's all the same.

you can't setup windows 11 without a microsoft account although as of right now you can get rid of it once it's setup and use a local account. but clearly microsoft is now monitoring a ton of stuff regardless, even putting ads in their browser, and they've experimented with ads all over the OS (ugh).

then you have apple with arguably the most controlled ecosystem. sure there has been jailbreaking going on for years on ios devices, but there's been no jailbreaking for ios 15 versions. european govt is now (inexcusably imo) trying to force apple to allow apps to be loaded outside of the apple app store, but that won't work because apple can just require any app, no matter how it's loaded, to interact through subscription services and authenticated APIs.

i find the idea of putting hardware in a car (like seat heaters) that are disabled in one 'version' but you can unlock them for a fee to be particularly odious since you've already paid for the hardware.

that's nothing new. cars have come with a few months or a year of sirius/xm or some 'concierge' type on call service which you have to pay for to continue.

i completely disagree. the subscription / recurring revenue model is too lucrative. in the past for auto makers the tech wasn't there, but now it is, and everyone's going to be in on the 'connected car' model.

first off, ex-employees will end up in jail by violating all kinds of laws and non-disclosures, but most likely they still won't be able to do it, because of how the authentication and other mechanisms work.

what's funny is most people willingly give up control and pay for subscriptions whether it's phones and doorbells watching us, giving up all kinds of info and tracking to apps like tiktok, and buying smart tv's that sell data on EVERYTHING the person does with it AND stuffs ads under their noses too.

we live in a hyper connected world, only getting more connected. i'm a techie, but i do see the issues, too. again, for most, they will see more upside than downside.

remember when vacations meant 'getting away'? now it's mostly using a phone to post pictures to IG/FB (ugh).

 

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