You Might Rent Features & Options On Cars In the Future 437
cartechboy writes "These days, you go to a car dealership and you buy a car. If you want seat heaters, you might need to option for the cold weather package from the factory. Want the high-end stereo? You'll be likely be opting for some technology package which bundles in navigation. While some options are a la carte, most are bundled, and even when they are a la carte, they aren't cheap. What if in the future you could buy a car and unlock options later? Say the car came from the factory with heated seats, but you didn't pay for them. But later on, say in the middle of the freezing winter, you suddenly want them. What if you could simply pay a monthly fee during the winter months to have those heated seats work? Whether this model would benefit the consumer, the automakers, or both is yet to be seen. But automakers such as MINI are already talking about this type of a future. Is this the right road to be headed down, or are consumers going to just get screwed in the long run?"
All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Insightful)
FUCK, THAT, SHIT!
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Interesting)
Customer, one month after purchase , "Hi, yeah, for some reason, my door won't unlock. Can you guys do a remote open for me? I'm late for work."
Dealer: "Sorry, Mr. Smith, your door unlock feature was only available for an introductory month. Would you care to renew for the $99.99 / qtr lease at this point?"
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Funny)
The car will now require an always on connection to work.
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't you drive outside of network coverage."
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:4)
The car will now require an always on connection to work.
Not only that, but you will be committing a crime if you modify your car so that it doesn't require an active internet connection.
Once again, the criminals will be the only ones to have what they want.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Funny)
You're just jerking your knee cause when it comes to automated technology, that is the "fashionable" thing to do these days.
Knee jerking has recently been automated.
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Funny)
You're just jerking your knee cause when it comes to automated technology, that is the "fashionable" thing to do these days.
Knee jerking has recently been automated.
True... but you have to pay a lease to access it.
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Customer, one month after purchase , "Hi, yeah, for some reason, my door won't unlock. Can you guys do a remote open for me? I'm late for work."
Dealer: "Sorry, Mr. Smith, your door unlock feature was only available for an introductory month. Would you care to renew for the $99.99 / qtr lease at this point?"
And eventually there will be a recall as that conversation will start ending something like this:
"No thanks Mr. car dealership guy. I'll use my hammer to unlock it Oh, and by the way, I leave work at 5:00. Please expect me to stop by shortly thereafter to pry your skull open with the other side of said hammer. If you wish to discontinue this new service I'm offering, you may lease the rest of your life for the low introductory price of $199.99 per quarter. Have a wonderful day."
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Lets see, we can't get the younger crowd behind the wheel, so lets put the screws to the customers we already have. What could go wrong?
It's not for the young drivers. It's not even meant for you. It's for fleet buyers and leasing companies. Those are the groups who have real purchasing power, so if it benefits them, it'll become the default.
Individuals drivers may buy more vehicles, but they don't collaborate and make mass purchasing decisions, so they don't need to be consulted. In this instance, they'll be passengers, dragged along for the ride.
Re: All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's for people who want to see society become completely rent-based. You can't buy anything, thus you don't own anything, and so can't accumulate wealth and rise through the ranks. Stay in your place, peon!
Re: All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Insightful)
This is closely connected to the annuity based economy. Every company and its brother's dog wants a straw into your wallet that sips a bit every month. It started with "registering" your appliance. Then it progressed to yearly maintenance agreements so you could pay them for stuff that should have worked correctly out of the box but mysteriously doesn't, think of it as paying for them laying off their quality control department. It's not gotten so bad that I purchased a dimmer switch from one of the home remodeling centers, you may know them as what we saber-toothed called "hardware stores" back in the day, and the home center wanted to sell me a maintenance agreement for $10...on a $20 item.
Up next, with the rise of "consumers" shopping brick and mortar stores for a price and then going on line to get it, we'll soon be charged for merely walking into the stores to finger the merchandise (say that last in Bugs Bunny's Bronx-Brooklyn accent), and we will have acquiesced to another iniquity, albeit one which we helped to promote.
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wow. heh. i had a similar reaction. something like "fucking cretins".
wanted to add also something about retarded idiots, but i guess they are just very greedy. i hope this plan blows in their faces.
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Also, it would have been a harsh and undue insult to retarded idiots.
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, this is Mini we're talking about, the world's most overpriced go-kart. If you'll buy coffee daily from Starbucks instead of making your own, why wouldn't you rent your car radio?
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, this idea is just asinine. This isn't like software where you're not shipping some bits, or even if you ship them and selectively enable or disable. These are physically manufactured components. The parts have to be physically manufactured and installed.
One could argue that by eliminating the variance on the manufacturing line, they could increase efficiency at assembly. If that was the case, just include the features as standard features. Otherwise, they're actually going to increase complexity by introducing some sort of DRM-like system that would probably necessitate some sort of wireless connection to phone home (and who's going to pay for that? hint: not the manufacturer). Not to mention the costs to develop and implement such a system. And will any breakdowns be covered under warranty? And, for how long? If I "subscribe" to heated seats, are they going to assume the replacement/repair cost if they break? Do they transfer to a new owner if I sell my car?
I find this offensive, and that Mini is even considering this has eliminated them permanently from future consideration (not that I'm they're target demographic anyway).
It seems as though that consumers that choose not to subscribe to a particular feature would be subsidizing those that do. (After all, the feature physically exists in my car). It would seem to counteract this, you'd have to up-charge those that do subscribe to offset the manufacturing cost. Either way, it seems to be a lose-lose situation for the consumer.
Re: All I Have To Say Is (Score:3)
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is great! Lots of companies have tried this and someone always figures out a way to enable the extra options for free. I have a DSLR camera, an oscilloscope, a TV, a phone, sat nav and several other devices that have been hacked to enable extra features that the manufacturer wants to charge for.
Now I'll be able to buy the base model and get the high spec version with a simple software hack!
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, until your car reports you for violating your licensing agreement and the DMCA.
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That might open a whole can of worms. I imagine the interaction between DMCA and Magnusson-Moss Act is pretty ripe for some protracted and expensive litigation (and as usual, I suspect the lawyers will end up th biggest winners from that)
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They'll keep the whole "You're not allowed to drive without insurance", and add in "Your insurance is cancelled if you modifiy your car".
Why SELL us things once when they can charge us a quarter as much every month for years?
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll keep the whole "You're not allowed to drive without insurance", and add in "Your insurance is cancelled if you modifiy your car".
Uh, I'm not sure where you're from, but the insurer of my car and the dealer I bought it from have nothing to do with each other.
Why would the insurer care? About the only reason would be that they might want more money because the car is more valuable.
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Which oscilloscope?
No idea what the parent had, but I know back in the day at least the nicer Tektronix oscilloscopes were configurable feature-wise before delivery. A lot of it was software anyway, and it was cheaper to just make them all the same and then charge for what the customer paid for. But, from what I hear people still got annoyed by it (though my understanding was that back in the 80s no engineer was too upset about getting a Tek scope).
Rigol DS1052E is one example.... (Score:3)
This is an entry-level 50MHz dual channel DSO, that can be upgraded to 100 MHz bandwidth with a simple, widely available firmware hack.
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, stupid Idea. Since I own the car, I own everything in the car, including anything I have to hack to make it work.
I doubt there is legal precedent for this in the consumer market that would survive in court these days, unless they hung
it on DMCA lockouts of some kind.
There is legal precedent in the computer industry:
My university owned a Control Data 3200 computer back in the day.
They wanted to upgrade it to the next model up, which was a lot faster. They paid a huge price.
The technician from CDC walked in, yanked 8 cards out of the back and restarted it. It was instantly faster.
The card were delay lines. Physical devices that slowed down data movement at key places.
The Data Center director exploded on the spot! The University threatened legal action.
CDC pointed to contract terms, and the University decided not to peruse it. Computer
was replaces with IBM gear shortly there after.
Re: All I Have To Say Is (Score:2)
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Well, leases really only last three years or so.
Its very hard for a dealer to re-lease a previously leased car, and they sell most them outright upon the end of the lease.
Re-Leases are no where near as lucrative as first leases for the dealer, and no where near as attractive to the customer
because they understand they are buying the problem years.
In the first three months of 2013, 27.5 percent of all new vehicles were bought with a lease, according to a State of the Automotive Finance Market report by Exper
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the stupidest and most pointless idea I've ever heard here. Who writes up stuff like that? I'd like to get paid grant money doing that. I can bullshit about things I've no clue about plenty. I even have a penis, which is like +5 skill modifier for bullshit.
It cycles. The end result is if you did a whole bunch of effort to monetize the part, and made pretty much what you would have got to sell it outright.
Car manufacturers would be screwed. Nothing says you can't take a component out of your car and
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Yeah, Verizon tried to "rent" me GPS capabilities on my phone for 8 years, got exactly $0 for that and a pile of other "optional features" that I never used - finally dumped V for T-Mobile last week (unlimited data for less than V charges for limited data? hell yeah!)
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"Welcome to Shifty Ackthpt's House o' Cheap Bargain Rate Options, where you can buy to own seats, transmissions, engines, in-vehicle entertainment systems and even Smart Phone connectivity enhancements!
All constructed of Erector Set or Lego at customer's choice.
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No bleeping kidding
that car would be " jail broken " faster than you can say " WTF"
cracking the DRM on the CAR would be the FIRST #1 job
Re:All I Have To Say Is (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. The funny thing about this plan is that it reveals a truth that isn't really in the best interest of the car companies: their car is actually worth quite a bit less than they are charging you for it. They are giving you a car with all the features, but charging you the price of none of them, instead holding them hostage in hopes of future payments. Any fool can see that this means that the price they were charged for the car was much more than they should have had to pay. I predict this strategy will backfire big time.
Qui Bono? (Score:3)
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The first question is, does a consumer modified ECM violate the whole warranty for the car? If a side mirror falls off, does the manufacturer have to replace it? What if you modify the tuning of the engine and it throws a rod? There are a number of laws out there regarding aftermarket products for automobiles, but they tend to vary by locale.
Under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, unless the modification was actually responsible for the issue, the manufacturer can't legally use it as an excuse to void the w
Re:Qui Bono? (Score:4, Insightful)
In this particular context, it doesn't really *matter* what the MMWA literally says. For the past ~35 years, the federal agency tasked with ENFORCING the MMWA has, without fail, put the entire burden of proof on the manufacturer.
In the real world, it's very dangerous for a manufacturer to risk denying warranty coverage over customer modifications unless they're BLATANTLY responsible for the failure. Even when large corporations COULD objectively deny warranty coverage, they rarely DO, because it would cost them more to document their reasons for denying coverage to the FTC's satisfaction than to just swap it out for a remanufactured replacement item and harvest the high-value parts from the broken one to use for repairing other phones.
What a company like GM or Ford COULD do, however, is require that consumers allow them to update their firmware to the latest version prior to doing anything else... and in the process, slam the door on the vulnerability that allowed you to hack it in the first place to enable the feature. You could end up in the same unhappy position as someone with a jailbroken iPad running 7.0.4 a few months from now, then has it develop a bad solder connection in the lightning port. If you send it to Apple, they'll fix it... but they'll also reflash it to 7.0.5 (or beyond), which probably won't have a working jailbreak for god knows how long. You'll have to choose between a phone with working USB, and a phone that's crippled by Apple to make sure you can't have a 5-row keyboard.
Re:Qui Bono? (Score:4, Funny)
someone tried to sell me a crack code for my Jimmy, once.
....but I didn't care.
Weather report indicates rainy conditions today (Score:2)
Please type in your PIN to activate anti-lock brakes.
This nonsense only works in corporations (Score:3)
Consumers will buy another brand without these annoyances
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Consumers will buy another brand without these annoyances
Right, just like how consumers can switch to a different ISP when they don't like the terms from their current ISP. There's really only a handful of car manufacturers, and if one finds a way to earn more revenue, they'll all follow.
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And when every brand does it, then what?
Competition is for companies trying to screw each other over, collusion is for companies who consider the consumer a common enemy.
Re: This nonsense only works in corporations (Score:2)
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Well maybe not.
The reason this sort of model works with, say, cellphones is because instead of having to fork out the cost of a new phone, you get it at a substantially reduced price.
If automakers do this and they don't actually lower the price of the cars, it won't take off.
But what if instead of paying $20k for a car, you only pay $5k and you "lease" only the features you use?
Some people (like with phones) will prefer to buy the cars out right. But some people (like with phones) will enjoy the lower mont
Let me be the first to say (Score:2, Insightful)
If this happens I will be hacking the shit out of my car.
And pay to carry around that crap, too? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Buy used, if it has a carburetor you're almost certainly safe from electronic snooping.
How would they stop us? (Score:2)
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By finally securing the CANbus so that you can't just patch in anywhere and control the car with it.
Logic Error (Score:2)
By finally securing the CANbus so that you can't
Seems to me then the whole car vanishes in a contradiction.
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If you buy the car, you OWN the car and everything in it right? if you own those heated seats, its not exactly piracy if you enable them. How would they stop that?
They make it only available on leased models, and refuse to "sell" the vehicle. Similar to how they did that with software.
Re: How would they stop us? (Score:2, Insightful)
By buying or crafting their own legislation?
Your idea is bad (Score:2)
And you should feel bad.
Of course this is just a way of screwing people over.
Subscriptions... (Score:2)
feature bottleneck (Score:3)
ugh...I hate this
everywhere you look today, people want to make you pay a monthly fee for something that used to be free...or make you pay separately for something that used to be included in the main price but not lower the main price & call it 'al la carte'
it's marketing idiots who spend their work days trying to make products with **LESS** features
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Something I thought was pretty hilarious on our '99 Dodge Ram was the "base model" analog speedometer. In 1999, digital dash was selling for a couple hundred $$$ premium, but, in reality, the Analog dash cost more to make - the analog needle is actually driven by a digital signal on the bus, and it increments in whole mile per hour steps, so you can be doing 69.49 MPH, and when you edge up to 69.51 MPH the needle jumps from 69 to 70 - then when you slow back down to 69.49, it will jump back to 69.
Same kind
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Another (automotive-related, even) example of the "premium" feature effect you describe:
Automatic transmissions. They are mechanically much simpler, and cheaper to manufacture, than old-fashioned manual transmissions.
Wow; you know absolutely nothing about automotive transmissions. I'm not trying to be a dick, either, I mean that purely as a statement of fact.
Start here, [yahoo.com] then check out this video [youtube.com] and this video. [youtube.com] that should bring you up to speed.
Customers Screwed (Score:2)
Economics (Score:3)
This could, in theory, work out if producing a single model with all the features saves money over manufacturing every permutation of radio/seats/trim/etc. The high-end would cost less, while still allowing more spartan options for those who want to save money.
In practice, I suspect it's a way to jack up the cost of new vehicles and turn every "sale" into a rental. Not sure if this will help or hurt dealerships--if all the options are already in the car, how will the middlemen get their cut of the value-adds?
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On the other hand, if they can afford to build those features into every car PLUS the cost of making them remote activated and still make a profit on the car, only a failure of the free market would allow them to not enable all of those features all the time for free.
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...MINUS the cost of having n-many manufacturing lines and trim options. Which, like I said, would have to be significant to make the "in theory" option believable.
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Even then, a healthy market would require turning all of the features on permanently. Otherwise, another manufacturer that did just that would kill them on value for price.
Of course, many (perhaps most) markets are unhealthy these days.
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Well, that's what makes it interesting. Nobody objects to selling a high-end model for a high price, and a low-end model for a low price. Under highly idealized circumstances, feature-keying would let us sell both models for less due to savings in manufacturing and supply chain complexity. Isn't that cost reduction a healthy sign, even if both cars are the same underneath and we've converted tangible, physical differences into pure price discrimination?
But, like you said, feature-keying implies it's stil
Already done to some extent (Score:5, Insightful)
With the Tesla model S the supercharger feature is optional with the 60KWh battery and can be enabled at any time by an over-the-air update but is a $2,000 feature, presumably to help offset the cost of electricity and building out the Supercharger network. The hardware is installed in every car.
Re:Already done to some extent (Score:4, Insightful)
That actually makes sense though - you're paying for the ability to use the network, not the hardware in the car.
This would be enabling features that exist in the car and have no external dependencies, which is patent nonsense.
I look forward . . . (Score:2)
. . . to the YouTube videos showing how to hack these features.
What I want to know is why there are no heated steering wheels? My hands get damn cold.
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This model works better for software (Score:4)
For software, the marginal cost of distributing the extra features disabled is pretty close to zero. It's all just bits being copied.
For a car, the car maker is still paying for the seat heaters, still paying factory workers to install those heaters, but not always being paid back by the end-user. Makes no sense.
And as a consumer, I want a simple and reliable car. I don't want my seat heaters to have a "DRM AUTHORIZATION FAILURE" error message and refuse to work when I need them.
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There are a lot of costs involved in having more build options for any product. This could offset the cost of building everything to the highest spec for many options.
If I install open source ECU software.... (Score:2)
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Since the cars will also be connected to the internet and each other, the **AAs that'll lead that charge will file a trumped-up charge that you tried to spread malware and cause a highway pileup. Your car will be towed and you'll be in solitary for Conspiracy To Commit Mass Vehicular Manslaughter, Threatening National Security, Copying Floppies, and Disorderly Conduct.
stupid idea (Score:2)
hardware or just software (Score:2)
Prior art (Score:2)
IBM used to do this: you could pay different prices for different clock speeds; if you paid for an upgrade the technician would arrive and remove the "slow down" jumper.
Oddly enough people felt ripped off by this. Who'da thunk it?
Firmware Lockdown by Law (Score:2)
If something like this happens, there will be workarounds, but due to 'safety concerns' promoted by the automakers, cars using such firmware will be illegal.
No I will fucking not. (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely not. Why? For the same reason I'll never upgrade to Adobe Creative Cloud from CS 6. I don't want to be held ransom.
MINI is not thinking of this (Score:3)
It will never catch on (Score:2)
How will they enforce this? (Score:2)
Of course the consumer will get screwed (Score:2)
Of course the consumer will get screwed. Car companies aren't in it to lose money.
Do you really need to ask? (Score:2)
"...or are consumers going to just get screwed in the long run?"
I can see it now:
Me: It is cold and those heated seats would be nice now. Maybe I can just pay a monthly rate during the winter.
Car Company: I'm sorry but that option requires a 1 year contract.
Stop right now (Score:2)
This sometimes already happens (Score:3)
With features that are cheap enough to add, this sometimes happens already. My 2010 Honda Fit base model, for instance, did not come with a remote lock/unlock feature from the factory. You can buy the "keyless entry system" from the dealer for about $150. What does it consist of? A key with the remote control features in it. That's all. The solenoids for locking and unlocking the doors are already there, they just aren't used. I was able to get it working for much less by buying a blank key from an online shop, following the directions to sync up the remote, and having it cut to fit at the local shop.
But, as others have noted, there are limits on the extent of this kind of practice. Shipping extra bits with a software package costs basically nothing, Shipping extra hardware in a car can get expensive quickly. They have to balance whether it costs less to ship all vehicles the same (economy of scale) or whether it would save money to leave a feature physically omitted from base trims. Then they have to decide whether they will get more money by including it for everyone (and thus using it as a selling point to drum up volume) or by charging it as an add-on.
If they get too greedy, then yes, buyers will just hack the car (or have someone else do it) to enable the missing features. As noted, this already happens sometimes. I wouldn't exactly call buying a key and following the official factory sync process a "hack", but it worked and it saved me some money.
Great, Just What I Wanted (Score:4, Insightful)
...a used car that is governed to 25 MPH and can only make left turns because basic functionality has to be enabled via $50,000 DLC that was only included with the initial purchase.
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And entire web sites devoted to hacking car "feature codes".
And the only way the manufacturers could LEGALLY control it would be via some sort of DCMA lockouts.
Still, this would be hacked within days.
Your dealer isn't going to turn you in either, because he knows where is bread is buttered.
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If true, I will never buy a BMW...
Re:Only for original purchaser? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or a way for the automakers to get nothing. I'd just buy older cars whose features I didn't need to rent.
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I still drive my 1932 Chevrolet, and it's still perfectly road legal. So, 82 years and counting. I just rebuilt the engine again, and she's probably good for another 15-20k before more major work. The car has far outlived its original owner (my great grandfather, who passed away before I was born), and very well may outlive me provided I find someone to care for her like my grandfather, father, and I have. Sure, I don't drive it more than once a month or so, but my daily car will be 20 this year and has
Re: Only for original purchaser? (Score:4, Interesting)
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More likely a way for smart buyers to get a fully loaded car without paying for it. Buy the base model, then pay $200 for the unlock mod chip, and instantly you have the luxury version that costs $12k more.
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It could be a way for the automakers to get something from the millions of people who, like me, will never buy a new car.
Thats one of the things some car manufactures want to kill.
They dont want people buying an old car, they want people buying a new car at new car prices. BMW et al. dont get any money from used car sales, for them that is a problem.
A lot of features that come in new cars are either designed not to last for more than 5 years or require regular software updates, people who buy these cars don't realise it but it's killing the resale value of their cars. This is called planned obsolescence and the reason w
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As long as the hardware isn't too expensive it's often already in the car. Cruise control and steering wheel controls are in the car -- they just need to pop the plate or put on a deluxe stalk. These "heater elements put into all seats" would simply be another cost savings measure vs. manufacturing efficiency.
I can't imagine renting, so to speak, butt heaters only during winter could possibly be cheaper. It soulds more like a mathematical cover story for a quasi-loan where they simply charge poorer people a lot more over the long run because they can't afford the option up front.
Renting a seat heater only when you really need it won't be cheaper than having it there all the time. Few in Florida are going to rent seat heaters, so those people in Michigan that really want them are going to pay more since their rental fee is also paying for the unused heaters installed in cars in Florida.
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I think you've hit on the correct phrasing of the question raised in TFS: Are people who use the extra features are going to get screwed? Depending on how you look at it, either yes, they are, or no, people who only want a bare-bones car are finally off the hook subsidizing stuff they don't use. There's two problems, one a universal economic one and one practical:
Economically, the seller is partitioning their market which allows them to capture more of the surplus by filling the area under the demand curve
Re:And (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with some features, is that they add weight to the car. I don't want to pay for gas to truck around 20 lbs of crap I can't use. I can't imagine cruise control takes much to make it work with computerized cars (software having little mass), but something like a seat heater would. I'm already hesitant to buy a new car with all the crappy "infotainment" systems that pretty much all suck and generally aren't updated.
Re:And (Score:5, Interesting)
Seat heaters weigh very little, and the wiring is already present in some models which feature them as an option. Some cars actually have harness changes for major trim levels, but they were in the minority, last I checked. Normally they just swap engine harnesses for different engines, and leave plugs hanging for any missing features.
In the cars of yesteryear, infotainment options were big bulky modules, but today they're more likely to be a software change. It costs a couple hundred bucks best-case to put some computer module into a car whose handheld equivalent would only cost one hundred, because of the temperature and vibration requirements. But you could get down towards the best case in more situations if you included the module in more vehicles in your range, and thus produced more of them. If having it lurking there induced more people to pay for a vehicle option, you might even come out ahead. Meanwhile, you get to claim that more of your vehicles are shipped with the feature, even when it's not used.
Anything that actually adds weight to the car will be simple enough to hack into action. You'll need some kind of alternate controller, which will probably be a few bucks on eBay. You'll disconnect it from the car and the car will throw a fault code which you will ignore, and you'll plug it into something else which will let you use it... for free.
The only exception to this is going to be engine features. You're going to lug around more engine than you use, which we already do in the USA in most cases. You'll be able to pay more to use more of the engine or for example turn up the boost, which will also reduce your service intervals... and your warranty duration, most likely. The higher-tune versions of some cars already have short warranties, so that's no stretch. This way, automakers can cut themselves down to only making a small handful of identical engines, and cut their design costs dramatically.
The positive side of this for the customer is that as tuning changes are made for later models they can be backported to earlier ones, and delivered to customers who have already paid for a higher performance level. They'll receive the updates during their normal vehicle warranty service.
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In a healthy market (read, when pink unicorns are present) sales price is driven to the marginal cost of production. The upshot is that this scheme can only work if the market is unhealthy. Otherwise they would be forced to enable the features permanently or leave the hardware for them out to cut costs.
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Want to use your over-the-air antenna? Enter special code from the internet. Why wouldn't they do it with cars too?
Well they do it with cars, when the feature is a service. Think Sirius Radio and GPS Maps and traffic updates.
But physical parts of the car are a different thing. You take title to the car. You own it.
I don't think you can sell seat warmers as a service, unless it can't exist without an outside source.
Re: (Score:2)
Heated seats (or steering wheels for that matter) are a pretty terrible example, too. Locking out features of software works because you're trying to get the software to do something you couldn't figure out on your own. Turning on a heated seat just involves shorting around the box locking you out.