BMW Wants To Sell Car Features On Demand (arstechnica.com) 152
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: BMW is planning to move some features of its new cars to a subscription model, something it announced on Wednesday during a briefing for the press on the company's digital plans. BMW says that owners can "benefit in advance from the opportunity to try out the products for a trial period of one month, after which they can book the respective service for one or three years." The company also says that it could allow the second owner of a BMW to activate features that the original purchaser declined.
In fact, BMW has already started implementing this idea in some markets, allowing software unlocking of features like adaptive cruise control or high-beam assist (in the United States, those options are usually standard equipment). Other features are more whimsical, like having a Hans Zimmer-designed sound package for your electric BMW or adaptive suspension for your M-car. Indeed, the company says that its forthcoming iNext will "expand the opportunities for personalization."
In fact, BMW has already started implementing this idea in some markets, allowing software unlocking of features like adaptive cruise control or high-beam assist (in the United States, those options are usually standard equipment). Other features are more whimsical, like having a Hans Zimmer-designed sound package for your electric BMW or adaptive suspension for your M-car. Indeed, the company says that its forthcoming iNext will "expand the opportunities for personalization."
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
My first thought was
Car: Payment declined, disabling brakes.bin
but then I noticed "The company also says that it could allow the second owner of a BMW to activate features that the original purchaser declined. "
which to me says "We can charge a second owner to unlock features that the original purchaser already bought"
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which to me says "We can charge a second owner to unlock features that the original purchaser already bought"
But the original owner didn't buy any features at all. The original owner licensed features for one to three years. The second owner may or may not opt to extend the subscription.
My question is how dumb do you have to be to get one of these second hand, never mind what idiot would be the first owner.
Re: Really? (Score:2)
You donâ(TM)t buy an out of warranty BMW unless you really want to repair your own vehicle. That support cliff is a bit pricey.
I just want to know how well they locked them out....
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So, are they going to try to DMCA you, if you play shade tree mechanic on your OWN car you bought and paid for??
Are the BMW police going to monitor your car to see if you have changed something on it, software or mechanical?
It's perfectly legal to change the chip on your car or reprogram it, so, what's to keep you from just altering the software to get these features turned on as long as you wish?
I have to think, after seeing how the security has been
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This is no different from Telsa, where even things like range are software controlled, the hardware is all there. I'll admit I was annoyed when Cisco went to this model for their network software stack, but now that I think more about it it just means the code is all already there for whoever manages to hack it. Not that I would condone such a thing.
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But did you buy the car, or not? What is the long-tail of purchase, that you must also license what you already own? You have *title* to the car. It is yours. All of it, 100% of it, no part not owned by you.
Yet you don't condone using all of the thing you own, just the part that you don't own, although you own the entire car. All of it.
The problem is: you've let your car be connected to The Overlords who actually own your car. If you don't disconnect your car, its telemetry is likely broadcast to who knows?
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A governmental unit may have jurisdiction to offer a license tag, but when I've purchased a car, I've not signed a license to the vendor of the car for anything, either new, or used.
It's MINE. It's MINE to mod, to hack, to wreck, to drive, whatever I want. It's not Ford, Honda, BMW's, etc. I signed no contract, recognize no subsidiary interest in or of the vendor.
Yep. No issue. Side-cuts ready.
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It's MINE. It's MINE to mod, to hack, to wreck, to drive, whatever I want. It's not Ford, Honda, BMW's, etc. I signed no contract, recognize no subsidiary interest in or of the vendor.
This is what some farmers who bought John Deere tractors thought ... only to find that the thing stopped working when they made small repairs. Never underestimate the greed of some manufacturers.
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Read your purchase contract carefully. The manufacturers are not stupid.
2nd or 3rd-hand purchasers could be different, of course.
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BMW isn't the first to try to abuse intellectual property rules to lock hardware up using software in ways they would otherwise have no legal power to enforce. No doubt they won't be the last either.
It's about time we had explicit exemptions in IP laws that prevented this kind of abuse, though. There is nothing about exploiting legal technicalities in this way that is promoting the creative activity that IP laws are supposed to promote.
Maybe we'll get lucky and the right to repair movement will win sufficie
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Was it IBM or Fujitsi who ran into this problem?
IIRC the mainframe was delivered with ALL the memory, but used a jumper to disable half. Customer ordered memory upgrade, observed the tech removing the jumper, then sued because the machine they paid for, already had all the memory when delivered?
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There is absolutely nothing magic about how modern cars work, even the software they use. If nothing else, you can tell this because many manufacturers are doing essentially the same thing, just their version of it.
There is also absolutely no guarantee that the original manufacturer or some officially licensed repair shop will do a better job of maintaining a vehicle than a reasonably skilled independent repair shop or enthusiast. Again, we've seen this pattern repeated many times over the years.
To the exte
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I love that people are afraid of used BMWs. They are ridiculously cheap because of that attitude. Albeit, you do have to either be able to wrench or know a good mechanic that won't charge you a premium for bringing in a Bimmer, but if either of those are true then used BMWs the best cars you can buy for the money. Sometimes you have to buy or fabricate some special tools, too.
I do worry about the integration of these services, but that has always been my concern with Bimmers and the DIY community has always
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You're responding to someone who buys BMWs at 100k miles, drives them to 300k, and then gets another 100k one.
Unfortunately, like most people who buy a BMW for all the wrong reasons, your friends are shitty drivers and they treat their cars like shit. The fact that they want Teslas as replacements confirms that they're part of the "ooh, shiny" crowd and are probably not doing much real research when investing in a vehicle.
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The best car I've ever owned was a BMW. Bought second hand, many years of low cost driving.
Lovely car.
Cost of BMW in the US? (Score:2)
I have no idea what a BMW costs in the US (and the loss of value), but here, the cost of leasing a new one (for, say, 60k€) is about 540€/month (60k km for 36 months, no downpayment). Including maintenance. That amounts to 20k€ over 3 years. (all costs include 19% VAT)
Now with my specific model, when I compare prices for 3-year-olds on used car platforms (list price about 60k€, 60k km, sold 2017), they really lost more than that even when you factor in a typical discount on the list pric
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BMWs are great vehicles, and are decently reliable. However, when they break, you pay BMW prices to fix them, because you can't just fetch a part from a parts store and replace something. For example, with a certain German make, if you replace the battery, the car won't start until the battery is "registered" with the ECU by a dealer programming tool.
Yes, "registering" a battery is pretty ridiculous, but it should be said that every shop I have seen has a programming tool for that. And of course, Android tools like Carly can do it, too (provided you have an OBD interface adapter).
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My question is how dumb do you have to be to get one of these second hand
That depends. Once it is out of warranty someone will undoubtedly find an easy way to enable all the "optional" features so you might be able to end up with a second-hand car with lots of high-end features for the price of a second-hand car with hardly any features.
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Like this won't be trivial to hack. The Rigol oscilloscopes are a good example.
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I doubt they care if people hack it. The people who will won't be the ones who buy them brand new. Lots of DIYers still love their "Genuine BMW" parts even though they are just VDO parts with "Genuine BMW" stamped on them.
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My only thought was, 'FUCKING DLC for cars, ohh just fuck off'. If they want to sell me part of the car and they control what runs and what does not, well, they can just fuck right off. Simply would not buy a car under those conditions, I will not buy a car, the manufacturer can control at a whim, those psycho cunts can go fuck themselves.
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My first thought was
Car: Payment declined, disabling brakes.bin
but then I noticed "The company also says that it could allow the second owner of a BMW to activate features that the original purchaser declined. "
which to me says "We can charge a second owner to unlock features that the original purchaser already bought"
Nope, as an owner, I can confirm that some of the packages (BMW Drive Recorder, High Beam Assist) are permanent, just like they would be if you bought them with the car. Some others have different expiration dates (BMW eDrive Services - about 50 months, Digital Key - 15 months ("trial", I assume)).
I wonder if BMW can actually pull this through in markets other than Germany, where the majority of their cars are only sold after a first 3-year lease period and most customers simply don't care what happens afte
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My first thought was
Car: Payment declined, disabling brakes.bin
That would never get type approval.
A BMW is not an aircraft such as the 737MAX, for which you can just have your design documents rubber-stamped by the FAA.
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>> which to me says "We can charge a second owner to unlock features that the original purchaser already bought"
Tesla is already 100% doing this. There are numerous stories on Tesla enthusiast forums and YouTube channels about used Teslas being sold advertised with feature X and the new owner discovering it's not enabled, calling Tesla, and being told that "The original owner bought that feature, not you. If you want it, pony up $$".
It's probably where BMW got the idea.
sleazy (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wish Volvo had just included auto-wiper hardware and anticipated I would want to pay for it later.
It's not really sleazy it's sensible. I have a product I rent for $1,000 a day. Some people want to save money and rent the lower featured version from me and I advertise the lower featured version and then say it's unavailable and ask if it's ok if I upgrade them for free for only $500/day. They all have said yes.
If everybody paid $500 I wouldn't be able to recoup the cost of the product. But at $1,000
No, just sleazy (Score:2)
It's not really sleazy it's sensible.
No, it is just sleazy. BMW can clearly can afford to make and install the hardware for these features on every vehicle which means that every owner will be paying the manufacturing cost of that hardware. They are not going to discount the cost of the extra, unusable hardware when purchasing a basic vehicle.
However, the company is then going to lock away certain parts of that hardware so that only those who pay them more will get the benefits of using what they have already purchased. This is nothing mor
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That would be a more convincing argument if they weren't talking about locking up features that have been standard for years on top-tier models of car and available for years as optional extras on many lower-tier models. Clearly they are quite capable of offering cars with or without features like heated seats, and of manufacturing both variants cost-effectively.
Re:sleazy (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes sense for rental, but it's sleazy for sales. It also shows that our economy is broken.
If they can afford to include the device at time of manufacture and then not enable it, they are not being squeezed by sufficient healthy competition. Competition should be strong enough that they either enable the feature by default (to improve the value of the car) or don't include the capability at all (saving on the marginal cost of production).
The whole thing reminds me of stores that installed pay toilets in the '70s. They stopped once they figured out that people saw that as a sign of a crappy store and tended to shop elsewhere once they saw it (not to mention showing their displeasure by peeing on the floor).
Re:sleazy (Score:4, Insightful)
or don't include the capability at all (saving on the marginal cost of production).
But the math doesn't just come down to the marginal cost of production for that one widget. Assembly lines gain their efficiency from being able to do the same thing over and over again at high volume and speed. If you have to customize things, that adds cost (even if it saves on individual components).
Microprocessor companies do it all the time. Sometimes it's cheaper to build one model of processor and then artificially hobble it to fill lower-tier market segments than it is to run multiple production lines.
I get why it *feels* somewhat scummy, but from a strictly rational point-of-view it makes sense.
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My drive array is larger than my current use because I anticipate needing that space eventually. Your analogy falls apart the rest of the way since I didn't build it to sell it to someone else.
You go to the hardware store and ask for a pound of 16p nails. The guy gives you a bag containing a pound of nails and a box with 5 locked compartments containing a pound of nails each. He charges you his cost on the 6 pounds of nails and the custom lock box plus 30%. Do you accept that or would you go to the store ac
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It's not really sleazy it's sensible.
It's sleazy.
It's like buying a house except you're not allowed to go in the basement, den, or kitchen unless you pay more to unlock those doors.
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Car manufacturers used to do this for map updates, onstar etc where there was a justification but now they're doing it to functions in the car.
Secondly there is a cost to users of dragging aro
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Hopefully like Tesla it will be hackable.
Once the manufacturer loses interest in supporting the car there is no reason not to hack it and enable all the features. People who bought salvage Teslas do it because Tesla isn't interested in supporting them anyway and tries to remotely nerf the car just to be dicks.
Some people have a strange sense of humour (Score:2)
I don't get the joke.
Is this supposed to be funny?
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I don't get the joke.
Is this supposed to be funny?
No, this is why I ditched Photoshop in favour of Affinity Photo. AF is a has a one time payment model, PS bleeds you for multiple times the usurious price you used to pay before they went for the subscription model and bled you for even more money over a longer period of time. Seems to me the same basic principle is at work here, bleed the customer for even more money and hope they don't notice because it is done over a longer period of time.
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Affinity applications have sometimes been on sale where the one-off purchase barely cost more than a single month of an Adobe subscription to the comparable CC application, at least here in the UK.
Even if you wanted all three Affinity applications, it would still have worked out cheaper to buy permanent licences for those than two months of Adobe's all-in CC subscription. Obviously this comparison is only fair if you're not interested in the other stuff Adobe has in CC where the Affinity applications don't
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Some are, some aren't. If you look on the CC site, there are sometimes offers that are priced per-month but have a minimum subscription period of one year ("annual plan, paid monthly"), and other offers for the same product that are priced per-month at a higher rate but without the lock-in ("monthly plan").
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The math really isn't the complicated, how is that so confusing for you?
The math isn't confusing at all. I do, however, understand that there is life outside the US, and I do have basic awareness of the fact that international pricing is not always as favourable as pricing in the US and in some cases can be much worse.
Now if you want to look at different photo editing options then sure, you can find cheaper ones and more expensive ones.
/glances up thread
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we were talking about Adobe vs. Affinity here.
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Yes, I had to double-check I was not reading The Onion.
And even then, sometimes a real story was an Onion piece a few years ago.
Are discount airlines charging for toilet use yet?
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Are discount airlines charging for toilet use yet?
At least one of them tried.
Since that policy did not last for very long, I assume it did not work out well for them.
Ability to open car doors Purchased. (Score:2)
Ability to open trunk, Purchased.
Ability to turn left, Purchased
Ability to turn right, Purchased
Ability to notify the police when you are in an accident, FREE.
Ability to send the police your GPS locaiton and speed history for the past year, FREE.
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Re:Ability to open car doors Purchased. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ability to indicate turns and lane changes? Not available at this time.
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NO. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:NO. (Score:5, Funny)
Nah. Turn signal is definitely there and working. I just ran out to the garage and checked mine to be sure... GIVEN I NEVER FUCKING USE IT! HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!
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BMW's have turn signals, - but with one of the worst user interfaces known to man. push a little to make it blink a few times. Push a little more to make it latch blinking. Push the other way to unlatch - unless you push to hard then it latches the other way. The difference between push-a-little and push-a-lot is pretty small.
I suspect most BMW drivers have simply given up on every getting them to do what thy want.
I'm sorry Dave (Score:5, Funny)
You have not purchased the extended fuel tank option so the car must stop now you have gone 100km. Would you like to make a one off extended range purchase or have us automatically call for a tow truck? Note that the advanced safety system will not allow you to fill the car with other than DRM approved petrol stations so forget about the Jerry can.
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Let them get rid of plastic parts first... (Score:2)
I will never again own a BMW till they get rid of those plastic parts.
I am open to being educated as to how a plastic part can be better than a metallic one in places where friction/tension is expected.
Sorry BMW, I'll take a hike.
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There are many industrial plastics that are lower wearing than steel.
UHMW being the most common, just don't use it in a high temperature environment.
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BMW prioritizes shedding weight, which is why they have the magnesium alloy blocks. They also do a lot of research into materials, including those plastics. Which parts are you complaining about? My cam cover is plastic, but that's pretty standard these days. Aside from some sensors I can't think of any plastic parts inside the engine.
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I must assume that you are a troll. I DO read car forums (especially BMW, since I drive one) quite often, and there's definitely not a widespread problem with plastic parts. If anything, current BMWs are mostly troubled with software stability and functionality issues (mine has infrequent restarts of the central display with navigation, and some online functionality is not working. Waiting for the next OTA update to fix this, since they admitted this as a problem they were working on...)
My last one needed a
I own a BMW today, but my next car won't be (Score:4, Interesting)
Vote with your wallet, folks.
It is well within their rights to make unpopular product decisions.
Show them it's a bad idea by just not buying them.
It's sunk cost for them once they put hardware features onto a vehicle, regardless if the that the owner decides to pay for it or not.
My choice will be a non-BMW vehicle. Maybe you still want a BMW and instead just don't want to pay to the license fees. Both ways send a pretty strong message.
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We should probably wait to hear the details before making such decisions. The announcement was pretty vague and the journalists are making a bunch of wild guesses that drive clicks.
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Agree, same situation. the add on features are crappy and too expensive, I hate the feeling of paying for something that is already that and has already been produced, and I hate subscriptions too (longer term financial commitments). I hope strongly such models will either fail in the market, or the market economy is replaced by something better.
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Yeah, I am still looking for BMWs but they have to be atleast 2018 or older. Nothing newer will ever be considered, in a few years, I wouldn't even consider the brand as nothing new from them is acceptable.
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It is well within their rights to make unpopular product decisions.
What makes you think this is unpopular? They are following the Telsa model, which ironically means they are copying one of the more popular cars current on the market.
Show them it's a bad idea by just not buying them.
Except it's not a bad idea. Standardisation drives down cost. It's an idea that has been tried and true in many fields, not the least of which being the automotive field. I mean right in front of me is an oscilloscope with 100% identical internals to one with better specs. I've been thinking of performing the firmware hack that unlocks the 200
Let the hacking begin! (Score:4, Insightful)
Some automotive computer systems can't even reliably stop hackers from remotely taking significant control over key items like braking. How long do these clowns think it will take for hackers with physical access to the vehicle to bypass their silly restrictions?
As far as I'm concerned people who pay for cars they don't really own are even more unwise than those who buy 'smart' home entertainment devices and actually allow them to connect to the internet. I'll drive a rusted hulk before I'll own a car whose ultimate control is in the hands of the dealer, the manufacturer, law enforcement, or anyone to whom I don't hand the keys or the fob.
This would be a 'get off my lawn' moment if it weren't for the sinister implications and outright dangers of this kind of scheme. You'd think Windows 10 would have taught people a lesson, but apparently not.
(B)ring (M)ore (W)allets (Score:2)
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I thought it was (B)reakin' (M)y (W)allet.
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Bavarian Monkey Wankers.
Could I pay them (Score:4, Insightful)
To remove the computers from the car?
Probably for rentals / ride-shares. (Score:2)
This service would be ridiculous for purchasers, but for some advanced hooks between a rental car company, or ride-share service like Uber / Lyft, maybe it makes sense.
Or maybe it lets BMW save significantly on cost scale, by standardizing parts across models, so now every model includes AWD, air conditioning, satellite radio, etc. That lets BMW build or order parts in greater volume, driving its build costs down, and potentially unlocking future revenue from the same vehicle.
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AWD costs money. AC is already standard. This has to be features that it doesn't cost anything substantial to add to the vehicle, some of which may even be subsidized by other companies. The most obvious examples are mapping features, carplay, android auto... looking beyond the most trivial potential options there are also things like advanced driving modes like reducing traction control or yaw control. And of course, hotspot services.
Premium Business Model (Score:2)
It looks like the high end car market is starting to adopt the high end hotel business model. I can stay at a moderately priced $150/night hotel, and it comes with a mediocre breakfast, wi-fi, and, usually, a parking spot, or subsidized parking if in a downtown area. High end hotels charge you for *everything* Internet is a charge. Breakfast is a charge. I heard one hotel chain is experimenting with charging for clean towels. I stayed in a nice hotel in the suburbs of Chicago once and they charged me for pa
High end hotels just lump on an force $35 night fe (Score:2)
High end hotels just lump on an forced $35 night fee now days
Car as a service (Score:3)
This will further tank the value of used BMW, not that it is great now due to catastrophic lack of reliability out of warranty.
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Then you would not want to buy a Tesla
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Maybe consider not... (Score:2)
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... connecting your car to the Internet. That seems like an extremely bad idea.
With the outstanding security record that consumer electronics are known for, I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong.
Better idea! Charge to remove features. (Score:2)
The button you have pushed brakes is not paid for (Score:3)
The button you have pushed brakes is not paid for you want to buy now?
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Anything that gets checked during safety tests and is part of a car's standard function, will have to be always-on. Otherwise it would never be allowed on the road.
when all fails, copy Tesla (Score:2)
It is a good thing that Tesla will not be making batteries in China and now, Germany.
No sense having their technology stolen.
Your copying the wrong stuff from Tesla (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, there goes BMW (Score:3)
Can't imagine ever buying a BMW after this.
Though I suppose someone might figure out how to jailbreak the software, and make all features available, perhaps except online ones, since BMW could undoubtedly push a software update to reverse it.
Anyway, my next car will be an electric plug-in hybrid, so BMW's are not exactly that interesting in that regard.
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Can't imagine ever buying a BMW after this.
Yeah you should stick with companies like Tesla who don't do this bullshit. ... Oh wait.
I hope you also don't ever buy any lab equipment because it is pretty much universally made under this model.
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perhaps except online ones, since BMW could undoubtedly push a software update to reverse it.
If you're ever in that position the very FIRST thing you do is disable the cellular connection so they can't dick with it remotely. My phone needs a cell connection to perform its primary function. My car needs a cell connection like it needs sugar in the gas tank.
Dick Move Detected (Score:2)
Fuck you, BMW.
I'd never buy a BMW (I like to drive cars, not look at them being fixed on a lift) but this kind of dick move has guaranteed that I'll trash-talk BMW every chance I get from now on. (And Tesla too, for that matter.)
FIGHT the subscription model! (Score:2)
here's the answer (Score:2)
DON'T BUY BMW.
Seriously, it's super simple. If we don't want them to expand this, make the idea a marketing failure. Between social media rage and a growing balance sheet, I think we all know which source of information they will take seriously.
Stop fucking buying BMW. Some times it's not about your epeen. My current and previous cars have been BMWs and while they're certainly nice cars, neither before nor after would i have chosen them (they're paid by my company) as they're not nice enough to be worth
Irritating :-( (Score:2)
There's something very irritating (to me anyway) about a car (or any other mechanism for that matter) that has desirable features all built in ... but I can't use them because I didn't pay to have the right switch turned on :-(
Sigh (Score:2)
Honestly, the day that my car decides to switch off a feature that it perfectly well has fitted to it and isn't just a software activation, I find a new car or just start making other people take me (e.g. Uber or whatever).
It's not like it's purely software (but even that grates when you know that Windows Home/Pro are only a few DLLs different), it's got the sensors and actuators to make those things happen already.
I bought what will probably be my last petrol car a couple of years ago - it should last me p
post-capitalism (Score:3)
instead of exchanging money for goods and services according to a market price, we now pay for permission to unlock products.
If you think you can still operate your business how you see fit, joke is on you, if you aren't making obscene amounts of money you'll never see any capital investment. Instead of a 20% ROI on an investment, now we expect at least a 1000% ROI. You'll be left in the dust once each industry shifts to this model.
In the end it's a system designed to extract money out of our pockets. Producing something useful is only an accidental side effect that eventually gets in the way of profit.
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My thoughts too. I mean, some ideas cause businesses to go under. Maybe BMW drivers think differently than I do, and this turns out to be a great idea. Either way I don't care, because I can't afford a plain BMW even without extra features.
In my way of thinking, if all of the hardware exists and is already in place on the vehicle, then to charge for their use will only appeal to those wishing to be cheeky. Otherwise no one will want to purchase this vehicle, as you're paying for the hardware involved AN
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I think the point is more that it lowers the cost of manufacturing by having just one SKU but not doing a hard-lock on the feature during manufacture.
I wonder what BMW share-holders think of this concept. Because now, other car manufacturers will begin adding these "features" for free.
Aside from that, this could be said about any "feature" and they could, if they wanted to, begin calling things that have been around for years, "features" and charge accordingly...
Do you like your seats to move back and tilt? $10/month
Do you like your windows to go up and down? $5/month
Do you like to go into 2nd gear? $8/month
Do you like to go into 3rd gear? $9/month
Do yo
Re: How about... (Score:2)
Agreed. Fuck no would be more appropriate.
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Forget Hans Zimmer's sound system, I want one designed by Hans Gruber.
LMAO! Whoever modded you down either has no sense of humour or never watched Die Hard.
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I wonder how much the monthly charge for the steering wheel will be.
Gah! Downmodded, why? Whoever is moderating here has both a broken funnybone and a lack of imagination. With all the shit going on in the world I wouldn't be surprised by a no-choice 'rent-to-rent-forever' business model where a situation not very far from your sarcastic one-liner might actually occur.