Audi Owner Finds Basic HVAC Function Paywalled After Pressing the Button For It (thedrive.com) 173
The owner of an Audi Q4 E-Tron decided not to purchase the automaker's tri-zone climate control feature, yet still received a "Sync" button in their brand new battery-powered SUV. "Instead of just doing nothing [when it was pressed], or, you know, syncing the climate zones, it instead caused a message to pop up on the screen indicating that the function had not been purchased," reports The Drive. From the report: Audi U.S. and U.K. both offer tri-zone climate control on the base trim. However, some markets offer tri-zone climate control as an optional add-on. In Denmark, where this particular owner told us they're based, the add-on costs around $758 (5,114 Kroner). The owner acknowledged that they chose against purchasing it but didn't expect pressing the button to display a message.
Historically, cars with unpurchased features simply had those blank pieces of plastic in place of a button. They couldn't be pressed, and they didn't look too out of place as they mostly blended in with the interior. Audi's implementation here is kind of serving the same purpose, and while it sharpens up the appearance of the interior, it comes with a reminder that's a lot more in-your-face than a blank button that you simply can't press. "Blank buttons aren't rude," wrote the owner. "This one is reminding me that I'm cheap." Interestingly, the message doesn't feature any sort of prompt to purchase the function.
Historically, cars with unpurchased features simply had those blank pieces of plastic in place of a button. They couldn't be pressed, and they didn't look too out of place as they mostly blended in with the interior. Audi's implementation here is kind of serving the same purpose, and while it sharpens up the appearance of the interior, it comes with a reminder that's a lot more in-your-face than a blank button that you simply can't press. "Blank buttons aren't rude," wrote the owner. "This one is reminding me that I'm cheap." Interestingly, the message doesn't feature any sort of prompt to purchase the function.
Tacky but (Score:2)
not really news. Plus you can probably pay the dealership for the feature later if you want it, which is something you can't do if you just have a blank piece of button.
No, you misunderstand (Score:5, Insightful)
You most certainly used to be able to pay for additional upgrades later on. They'd involve installing the upgrade and adding the button. Typically the faceplate was just as snap-in as the button, so that swap you could even do yourself.
This here is a software lock. You probably already have the hardware (and so are paying the extra fuel for trucking it around; not much, but it's there) and turning it on involves, well, flipping some bits. Bits that would be trivial to flip if only they'd let you, but they won't. Neener, neener.
I hate that in "enterprise" hardware, but that's possibly justifiable because at the end of the day it's the whacked-out beancounter logic that carries the decisions, and causes middle management to knowingly want to be fucked over in that particular fashion. I hate that in "consumer" goods like cars, because just the same you just know you're being fucked over. And there is no beancounter to make me want that.
This is the manufacturing sending you message. "You don't want to be cheap in your own car, now do you?" Drop the button and shut it with the message and I'm happy again. Having to pay $760 dollar for happiness? The vehicle already cost at least $55k. Pray tell dear manufacturer, now who is being cheap?
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Which brings me to the real purpose of my comment: if there isn't alraeady a thriving cottage industry selling pirated keys to enable all the 'features' of your vehicles, then there soon will be.
Re: No, you misunderstand (Score:2)
Most markets include the feature in the base model, only a few markets charge extra for it - likely a fairly small market, and most likely an easily detected crime in some markets...
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It it's YOUR car, is it even a crime? (or rather, should it be?)
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Exactly.
It's yours, you can basically do whatever you want with it. And that includes fixing it.
If an application's software deliberately prevents me from using a particular part of its functionality, I consider that to be a bug, and bugs should be fixed.
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It's yours, you can basically do whatever you want with it. And that includes fixing it.
If an application's software deliberately prevents me from using a particular part of its functionality, I consider that to be a bug, and bugs should be fixed.
So go for it, crack it all open and fiddle with it, nobody is going to come to your house and stop you.
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Hmm ... how is that different to a computer?
As with a car we own the hardware, but is it legal to crack Windows / Adobe / etc to get them to work without paying for the Pro or Premium version?
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There are some cars that have an entirely different wiring harness based on trim level. You'd have to splice in a new connector, reprogram the relevant control module, rerun the entire electrical test routine to get it to pass, and add a button. Plus depending on the manufacturer, adding a button might mean replacing an entire trim piece.
In the case of the Audi, you connect something like a VAG Com and flip a few bits in software, done deal.
Which would you prefer?
Re:Tacky but (Score:5, Insightful)
Having said that, it appears that the full cost of the feature is already in the car, and that cost is reflected in the price. Asking hundreds of dollars for it to be enabled is exorbitant. But that's just my opinion, the market can decide. I have no intention of buying another Audi.
Re:Tacky but (Score:5, Informative)
While this practice may seem unfair, it does offer some advantages:
- since it's essentially a software upgrade, there's very little cost to adding the possibility of the feature to the vehicle. If you didn't ask for the feature, the lower purchase price will reflect that.
- installing a new feature turns into a purchase and over-the-air unlock, which you can do without ever leaving your driveway. you don't have to leave the car at the dealership for an afternoon or a few days.
- only people that want the feature end up contributing to the cost of developing the enhanced software. GRANTED, options are overpriced. $400 floormats? really? We all know that. This isn't a surprise to anyone.
- by making every vehicle that rolls off the line have that same hardware (instead of say, having to install an additional control board for the feature) lowers manufacturing cost. Not only is there one less piece of hardware for them to develop and keep in inventory, but there's one less step in the manufacturing process, lowering their production cost. In theory this would lower the sticker price, whether or not you paid for the feature.
I have a Rigol oscilliscope. They're not cheap. And they can have some powerful "options", that you either pay for when you buy it, or after the fact. (there's no price difference unless you get the entire package, where there's a slight discount) There's no hardware upgrade, it's all software. If I buy a new feature I get emailed a file to put on a flash drive and plug it in to "unlock" the feature. All the added features can be activated this way, and some of them are very powerful, and accordingly, rather expensive. But ths allows Rigol to manufacture a single product, and their resellers to stock a single product. The only alternative to this is for them to really complicate things and have many production runs, or build-to-order many of their scopes, which would also require me to order in advance and wait for it. Retailers would have a tough time keeping much in stock, just trying to guess what random set of features a user might want. And if later my needs change and I need a feature I didn't originally get, it's super-convenient for me to add it to my existing scope. It's the same concept as the vehicle here. Plus, users that don't need the extra features can get the scope at a MUCH lower price. (with the confidence of knowing they don't have to deal with selling it and buying a whole new one if later they find they need a feautre)
In theory, this is good for the buyer and the seller alike. This being the capilalist world it is though, I'm sure it's more better for the seller than the buyer, but the buyer is still benefitting somewhat from it. I think this angst is just a case of a manufacturer finding a way to, for example, save themselves $100 and save the consumer $30, and the consumer is upset because they're not saving $130. One alternative is every car comes with the feature, and everyone has to pay for it, whether or not they want it. Or the ones that want it have to pay $900 for it instead of $750 since it has to be custom made. Neither of these options benefit the consumer. People need to take their $30 savings and shut up ;)
Re: Tacky but (Score:2)
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What they send is a signed certificate, that only works with that specific serial number. The scope doesn't care who owns it. But you do have to have the certificate, and if you bought the scope and paid for the upgrade, and then sold it, and that person did a factory reset, they'd need to reload the certs, and I don't know if Rigol will just give those to anyone that asks.
TECHNICALLY speaking, it doesn't matter who has access to them since they will only work with the scope with that serial number. So
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An excellent write-up, thanks for that!
I bought my Audit GT with pretty much every option they offer, so I don’t have any paywalled features. But my buddy has the Porsche Taycan (same basic car) and I remember distinctly my emotions when I first drove it a year ago. Giddiness (it’s a fun car), followed by “oh cool, I can get features through software upgrades later like the Tesla!” followed by minor disappointment when I realized I’d have to pay for them, to “oh hell no,
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People are already figuring out how to enable these features for free anyway. Sometimes older vehicles can be upgraded too, e.g. older Nissans can have Android Auto enabled by loading up firmware from newer models.
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Eliminating the feature (and cost) can make vehicles eligible for additional rebates and reduce the tax/licensing/registration fees you pay for the car.
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I mean yeah it would be nice if it came standard, which it does in the US and UK. Somehow Danish Audi buyers got screwed. Either that or they get a cheaper Etron if they don't want the tri-zone climate feature.
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It probably should be news, but for another reason. All the hardware is already there. You can bet Audi didn't take a loss on that, that is, he paid for the hardware one way or another. But to actually use the hardware he already paid for, they demand that he pays more.
It's not illegal or anything, but in a healthy market that condition couldn't exist. Audi would either need to not include the extra hardware at all and cut the base price by their cost for that hardware (at least) OR they would be obligated
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It probably should be news, but for another reason. All the hardware is already there.
So write your own software for it then. If you don't want to pay them to write the software for you then write it yourself or pay somebody else to write it for you.
Audi would either need to not include the extra hardware at all and cut the base price by their cost for that hardware
Seems more like they have found that having one SKU and customizing it with software is cheaper than manufacturing a whole bunch of different physical variations.
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And in a healthy market, competition would drive them to enable the feature all the time everywhere and not waste money developing a paywall.
Meanwhile, if they stopped the shenanigans locking people out of the system, there probably WOULD be 3 or four Free software projects available that all worked better than the crap firmware being loaded now.
Software Defined Car (Score:5, Informative)
old news (Score:5, Informative)
The Suzuki Ignis I purchased (a cheap cheery simple car) 3-4 years ago, have the GPS paywalled. You need to pay 5000 NOK (Kroner as the author says) to unlock it. The near 600 dollar code comes on an SD card. The GPS is already built in the car.
There's a lot of cars with various things paywalled, some even have the Remote keys as paywall, or "start your car with your keys" as an additional paywalled function, some even have it as a MONTHLY subscription so you need to pay a monthly fee to have that functionality.
The more we accept this, the more they get away with (The you will OWN NOTHING principle) they are so lusting after, because it's like streaming services, you no longer own a copy of your movies, you're now used to renting them for a limited time only.
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I wouldn't mind if it would cost same amount or less than when purchasing a traditional car. I mean, I can right now lease a car instead of purchasing it and get it with any bells&whistles I like. Apart certain specials, leasing a car is *always* more expensive than purchasing one.
In IT, the cloud has become popular because that model is actually quite economical to the customer compared to running your own datacenter. Same for streaming services - I don't care about owning movies or tv series on DVD/BD
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Yeah true, but the worst part of this trend is that we (who buy these cars) actually don't get the car cheaper, because they're already manufactured with these features built in, and guess who paid for that? We did - and they have the audacity to "lock" our own hardware. It's a business model that must end.
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If you buy the base level without the extras you *do* get it cheaper. You said the GPS add-on cost $600.
The GPS unit in your Suzuki cost a certain amount to design and test, but only a few dollars to manufacture and install. It probably actually costs Suzuki more to make some cars with it and some without it, and keep track of which is which, than it does to just put it in all of them. But they want to have a base model that is competitive with other base models, and also a model with GPS, AND they need to
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You are probably way over-estimating the development cost. Keep in mind that a feature's development cost should be amortized over the volume sold.
Sonsidering that GPS is routinely added to middle of the road android phones for much less than $600 extra hardware included, I'm guessing most of that $600 goes to the CEO's winter yacht fund.
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This isn't anything new. Some decades ago, one of my relatives bought a base-model car that didn't even come with reversing lights, but, in fact, all it was missing was the switch in the gearbox. The wiring, sockets and even the bulbs were already installed for the reversing lights.
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Then pay again if you want to see it one more time. After all, it's only money, right?
And how many series you wish to see more than one time? I can count maybe two. Babylon 5 and...yeah, can't think of another right now.
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the SD card has the maps on it.
Re:old news (Score:4, Interesting)
My Ford didn't have the GPS option. It does now. I didn't pay for it.
It's actually a pretty terrible GPS, I use my phone anyway. Hacking it was more for the entertainment value than anything else.
it would make car more expansive (Score:2)
That is why they are doing it that way. You request to not have paywall, means the feature cease to be standard in all car, make the chain more
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People only want the stock navigation in the very best cars anyway, everyone else should leave it out and offer USB-C and a wireless charging pad, and both apple carplay and android auto. Odds are that if their navigation isn't already google based, it's shit, and your phone will not only do a better job today but your tomorrow phone will do an even better job tomorrow.
Re: it would make car more expansive (Score:2)
.You request to not have paywall, means the feature cease to be standard in all car, make the chain more complex and so for those WANTING the feature, it becomes more expansive.
That's a non-sequitur. They could make the assembly line simple and just make the feature a standard at a standard price for all vesicles, no activation needed. After all, apparently it's dirt cheap to implement anyway since they're already shipping it on all vehicles indiscriminately.
They're just being dicks.
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The Suzuki Ignis I purchased (a cheap cheery simple car) 3-4 years ago, have the GPS paywalled. You need to pay 5000 NOK (Kroner as the author says) to unlock it. The near 600 dollar code comes on an SD card. The GPS is already built in the car.
When they have more lawyers than you could ever afford, security could be in the from of a rubber band.
The more we accept this, the more they get away with (The you will OWN NOTHING principle) they are so lusting after, because it's like streaming services, you no longer own a copy of your movies, you're now used to renting them for a limited time only.
From free email to free websites to free apps, the society that lives and breathes around you today, is the one who created this. Hell, they became so damn cheap they practically demanded it. Tends to make you wonder who is actually lusting here.
If Greed tries to remain drunk on COVID well beyond reasonable limits, we will simply find piracy coming back. Greed assumes it can rely on the middle class tha
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Basic models seem to come with just an Android Auto/Apple Carplay connection instead of a built-in sat nav now. Except for the few that come with somewhere to mount your phone, the really cheap models.
Re:Sell excess components (Score:2)
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The more we accept this, the more they get away with
That's good. I hope everyone does this. This is a standard economic practice where the rich subsidise the poor all the while benefitting from economies of scale. It's the reason a good many products have become cheaper over the years.
You bought hardware which does ${thing}. You don't get to complain about ${otherthing} if you didn't actually buy ${otherthing}. What underlying hardware was delivered to you is not what was referenced on the spec sheet.
Re: old news (Score:2)
That's an awfully complicated way to spell "dick move"...
The feature is already dirt-cheap to implement, to the point where they ship it on every vehicle indiscriminately. And I assure you no vehicle is sold at loss. So... why not just enable it by default, for everybody, at no extra cost?
Yep, right: dick move.
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I support the new strategy (Score:2)
First % world problems (Score:3)
"Blank buttons aren't rude," wrote the owner. "This one is reminding me that I'm cheap."
Yeah, if you can afford an Audi and don't pay for all the features, you pretty much are cheap.
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"Blank buttons aren't rude," wrote the owner. "This one is reminding me that I'm cheap."
Yeah, if you can afford an Audi and don't pay for all the features, you pretty much are cheap.
Taking a look at the Ford F-150, the price range from cheap bastard to self-respecting owner, is well over $50K.
That's blowing a shitload of money, to appease knob snobs like you.
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You can afford X, so you should buy X-Premium-Plus-Max. Even if you never use Plus-Max. Otherwise, you're "cheap".
As if that, is rife with logic.
Re: First % world problems (Score:2)
Look again when you're sober. Parent's point is pretty clear.
People are illogical and childish (Score:2)
I wonder when... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder when ordering a regular meal to your hotel room will result in them bringing the "premium" version but the extra bits being locked in transparent boxes with a digital padlock. Pay extra $30 to unlock your garlic bread, glass of wine and bowl of fruit.
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No, but they will adjust the fans spinning over premium diners to waft the essence of upgrades towards the "standard-grade" crowd, all programmed by your meal order.
Your nose, knows how to spend money. Sometimes better than you do.
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I wonder when ordering a regular meal to your hotel room will result in them bringing the "premium" version but the extra bits being locked in transparent boxes with a digital padlock. Pay extra $30 to unlock your garlic bread, glass of wine and bowl of fruit.
You just described the refrigerator that has snacks and beverages found in many hotels.
Not to mention, the menu used to order the meal has those items for extra cost.
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Isn't that how the minibar already works? You can see everything in it, but have to pay to take stuff out.
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I wonder when ordering a regular meal to your hotel room will result in them bringing the "premium" version but the extra bits being locked in transparent boxes with a digital padlock. Pay extra $30 to unlock your garlic bread, glass of wine and bowl of fruit.
Hotels long ago mastered the art of extracting more money from their customers, for example: 13 Hotel Mini Bar Ideas That Actually Appeal to Guests [cvent.com]
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I take it you've never been to a hotel buffet and ordered a standard meal then.
What is it with Slashdotters and some childish sense of entitlement that they should be allowed to use something simply because it exists when they didn't pay for it.
The Oracle Car (Score:2)
"The owner of an Audi Q4 E-Tron decided not to purchase the automaker's tri-zone climate control feature..."Instead of just doing nothing...it instead caused a message to pop up on the screen indicating that the function had not been purchased..."
Consider yourself lucky Oracle doesn't own that software. Instead of doing nothing, a SWAT team of lawyers would have pulled your over to sue the shit out of you for daring to press the red shiny button labeled "GO".
Then don't press the button (Score:2)
'"Blank buttons aren't rude," wrote the owner. "This one is reminding me that I'm cheap."'
No one is forcing the owner to press the button. It's not like it's giving them the message without any prompting (that would indeed be rude).
The choices are to either have a button there that blends in with the dash, and not press it because it doesn't do anything, or to replace it with a blank that doesn't blend in as well, and still not press it. In the former case you can just buy it later if you want, and/or it in
As a German I don't understand (Score:2)
why anybody would want to buy a German car like this. I mean the competition is cheaper, smaller, lighter, more fuel efficient, has fewer lines of code running on it and probably about the same level of quality.
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Because the German car has better interior and superior suspension in most cases, and you spend your time inside the car where the interior is, and it rides on top of the suspension. If you can afford to replace your car every time it goes out of warranty, then German cars are superior. Otherwise, you pretty much have to go Japanese. What I don't get is why anyone buys American cars, and that includes "Crossovers" which are just... tall cars. Pretty much all of them are built like shit.
Can't wrap my head around the concept (Score:3)
I get it, you need to pay the work others did... but we're talking about a situation where the function was cheaper to just leave in the mass produced product deactivated than to take out. So the thing CANNOT be worth 600 bucks.
You'd think giving it as a free added value thing would be good to stand out against competition, especially considering Audis aren't exactly pauper oriented products...
It really feels like we're on a race to the bottom. Like the market has conspired to squeeze us for all we are worth and there isn't an entity interested in grabbing market share by being better than everybody else.
I remarked this on a zoutube video about an EV.. All the established auto makers have decades of experience under the belt when it comes to vehicle design. You'd think we'd have servicability, aerodynamics, comfort, safety and usability down pat by now. Like there ought to be two checklists: One for "must haves" and one for "you're getting fired if you do this". Yet modern cars suck. Even when they have adaptable, software controlled suspension, the do not give you an option to set it in a way YOU want it...
Despite all the cooperation between different manufacturers, all the standardization, it still seems to not be in the budget to create plug and play pieces that just work because they are built upon those decades of experience.
Not that I'm surprised. Look at Windows and Office... Enough sad.
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Simple fix . . . (Score:2)
Don't buy a car like this.
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Audi: Four zeros on the grill and one behind the steering wheel.
t.Audi driver
What happens if you sell the car? (Score:2)
Re: What happens if you sell the car? (Score:2)
I'm not sure about the case of selling back to a dealer, but for secondary market sales I don't see a mechanism for the car to know if it has been sold to someone else. I guess there is also an alternate question: if it hasn't been upgraded and then is sold, then can the second owner upgrade, or is the first owner the only one able to upgrade?
An interesting business model might be to make the upgrade stay with the owner forever. So if you buy climate control for your current Audi, then you get it for all f
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If the vehicle is sold through their dealer network then they can do whatever they want to it because they own it in between the two different owners. They certainly could write a license that restricts the feature to the purchasing owner, and I guess I can see it happening, but the backlash would be instant and enormous and it would absolutely harm sales, because it would harm resale value and that's a huge consideration with automobiles.
Siriusly (Score:3)
Didn't this nonsense start with SiriusXM? All new cars seem to have that SiriusXM button on the radio even though it's and absolutely shitty service and you really don't want to pay for it. If that button gets accidentally pressed, you get an announcement broadcast over your sound system for why you are a cheap bastard for not paying for SiriusXM.
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Still carrying the weight (Score:2)
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Commonly vehicles with AC delete get a pulley in its place because belt routing has become so tight that they would have to relocate other components as well to simply use a shorter belt. So while there is a cost and weight penalty to carrying a compressor you're not using, there's no friction penalty. I suppose there's the drawback of the A/C clutch potentially being activated at high RPM by a fault or something, but there would seem not to be much of a reliability penalty either.
The ultimate hardware nagware (Score:2)
Editors wrong, not a basic function. (Score:4, Informative)
Basic HVAC functions: Heating, A/C.
Not Basic: Tri-zone.
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Dual zone was stupid enough, but Audi seem to have had a Gillette 5 blades moment here. The cabin is such a small space you can't really have two or three different temperature zones. At best you can have some blowers blasting out slightly different temperature air on a few parts of your body, which tends to be uncomfortable.
Have to laugh at the pricing too. In what scenario would that be worth paying, even if it did work?
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I quite like the dual zone feature. The smaller human in the passenger seat can have heat while I can abstain. In my experience they quite like having even hotter heat blowing on their feet.
If there were some even smaller humans in the back seat I can see it being useful for them to have a third option. I don't think I know any Audi drivers who often carry small humans in the back though. Maybe that's why they make it an option?
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Cheap Ass being taunted for being Cheap. (Score:2)
Should be a good title for this one.
Although the underlying "Car DLC" principle is one that has existed for a lo o o o o o ong time, it's just become a bit more obvious.
Fuck you 'lameness filter'
People complain, BUT... (Score:2)
Man who didn't pay for something discovers (Score:2)
said something doesn't work.
News at 11. But real news this time, not this pointless shit posted on Slashdot.
This pricing model is here to stay (Score:2)
My model Y has all the hardware for full-self-driving, but it would cost me $12K to enable it. It seems if you have a really big number like this people have a easier time seeing the value of software.
The first encounter I had with this kind of pricing model was back with the IBM PC/AT. Base model had 6MHz clock -- a few hundred more would get you an 8MHz clock. Only difference was one logic gate input, which people quickly learned how to do themselves. (Just cut one pin if I recall correctly.) Gran
Cost of components is low (Score:2)
With everything being so cheap it's easier to manufacture hardware that has all the options rather than making different hardware variants. Also cheaper to service w/ less variants.
The other side effect of low cost of components but high workmanship costs is that it's cheaper to buy new than repair things.
So yea this is value-based pricing rather than cost-based.
I, for one, would prefer simple, basic vehicles (Score:2)
Paywalled airbags next (Score:3)
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What's the issue? (Score:2)
Customer buys car without feature, finds button to turn on feature they didn't buy, presses the button, buyer reminded they didn't buy the feature.
What am I missing?
When I bought my first car in 1985 or so, the buyers next to me were buying a Nissan Sentra, and the salesman said that A/C was a dealer bolt-on option that could be added anytime in the future - the car shipped from Japan without A/C compressor, but the rest of the A/C was installed (controls, wiring harness, etc) at the factory.
This is nothing
A New Vehicle License. (Score:2)
Coding. (Score:2)
One wonders if one can long code these options in VCDS...
Reminds me of my VW GTI. (Score:2)
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Re: Thanks for thr info (Score:2)
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What makes you think that EVs *have* to have a data link to the manufacturer?
Re: Thanks for thr info (Score:2)
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Well, if you don't have a car with a Diesel engine that can run on vegetable oil you're not going to be very independent anyway.
Come to think of it, maybe it's time to invest into a horse. Water and grass are usually easy enough to come by.
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Pretty sure most electric motorcycles don't.
It is the manufacturers that want the telemetry and control connectivity to be non-optional, not the users.
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Re: Thanks for thr info (Score:2)
This isn't a matter of EVs, it's a matter of modern cars. It's just that the old ICE manufacturers haven't all caught up yet in the trend.
Audi apparently is making good leaps.
Once they're all here, what remains will be other advantages and disadvantages - like the solar panel one.
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That is completely unrelated to the car being electric.
If a government requires kill switches in cars, the requirement will most likely apply to any new car, electric or not.
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The first amendment does not impart any rights. The first amendment bans the government from interfering with rights we naturally possess.
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That's a false analogy. Audi does not waste materials, the better climate control probably requires very slightly different hardware, which is why it makes economic sense for them to include it in all cars. They just want to charge much more than it costs them to enable it.
I would be against waste of resources, but they probably save on resources by including it. And they don't even try to "push it" by having an unlock link or something. Their software side probably thought it makes more UI sense to not hav
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Either the feature requires additional hardware (like ducting and servos) which you are paying for and carrying around, and so you should be able to use it, or it's a pure software change, in which case they are fucking sleazebags for not letting you use it. Either way, fuck VW group, they are diesel cheaters who password protect modules to prevent you from working on your car (and only dealers and authorized service centers can get the codes, which means everyone else has to spend time and money working ar