Mercedes Locks Better EV Engine Performance Behind Annoying Subscription Paywalls (techdirt.com) 296
Last year, BMW announced plans to charge a $18 per month subscription for heated seats. Now, Mercedes is considering making better EV engine performance an added subscription surcharge. "Mercedes-Benz electric vehicle owners in North America who want a little more power and speed can now buy 60 horsepower for just $60 a month or, on other models, 80 horsepower for $90 a month," reports CNN. "They won't have to visit a Mercedes dealer to get the upgrade either, or even leave their own driveway. The added power, which will provide a nearly one second decrease in zero-to-60 acceleration, will be available through an over-the-air software patch." Techdirt reports: If you don't want to pay monthly, Mercedes will also let you pay a one time flat fee (usually several thousand dollars) to remove the artificial restrictions they've imposed on your engine. That's, of course, creating additional upward pricing funnel efforts on top of the industry's existing efforts to upsell you on a rotating crop of trims, tiers, and options you probably didn't want.
It's not really clear that regulators have any interest in cracking down on charging dumb people extra for something they already owned and paid for. After all, ripping off gullible consumers is effectively now considered little more than creative marketing by a notable segment of government "leaders" (see: regulatory apathy over misleading hidden fees in everything from hotels to cable TV).
It's not really clear that regulators have any interest in cracking down on charging dumb people extra for something they already owned and paid for. After all, ripping off gullible consumers is effectively now considered little more than creative marketing by a notable segment of government "leaders" (see: regulatory apathy over misleading hidden fees in everything from hotels to cable TV).
The only thing that'll stop this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The only thing that'll stop this (Score:5, Insightful)
or poor sales
Re: The only thing that'll stop this (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? I think it is rather a good idea. In the past, if you have an S500 Mercedes Sedan, and wanted an S 65 AMG, you paid for a new car basically. It was unfeasible to just buy a new engine and have it installed. Now; you can effectively do that. You pay some more; you get a faster car. That is generally how the auto industry works! Only now the process is simple. It is a software solution not a hardware one. That is less waste in materials, components, and installation. That is a good thing.
No, actually it is quite the opposite. Performance doesn't just come out of thin air. It comes from the physical capabilities of the hardware. This approach is wasting all the extra materials involved in making a more powerful motor. They could have made the hardware cheaper, lighter, and more energy efficient by not having it be capable of providing that extra power, but instead they made it more expensive, heavier, and less energy efficient.
So you're paying paying for all of the materials and the R&D cost for more capable hardware, but getting none of the performance. You're literally buying hardware capable of delivering more performance, but the manufacturer is artificially limiting its performance and charging an extortion fee to get the full use of the hardware that you paid for.
In no way is this a good thing, and we should absolutely not encourage this nonsense. It is bad for the environment, and if everyone did this, you'd be nickel-and-dimed to death on everything you buy.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: The only thing that'll stop this (Score:5, Insightful)
If they sell you a 2GHz cpu, they don't later promise you a software upgrade to 3GHz for a fee because that CPU has never been tested running at 3GHz and might not work.
If they wanted to sell these later upgrades, they would need to test the CPU at the highest speed right up front, and they could not sell the units that fail at all.
So the fact is you have hardware that the manufacturer knows full well will work at the higher speed, they are artificially limiting you from using it until you pay more. This is different from selling a product believed to be inferior at a lower cost, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
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If they sell you a 2GHz cpu, they don't later promise you a software upgrade to 3GHz for a fee because that CPU has never been tested running at 3GHz and might not work.
It's worse than that. If there were higher-speed versions of your CPU available then you can be pretty sure your individual chip was tested at those higher speeds and failed.
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If they sell you a 2GHz cpu, they don't later promise you a software upgrade to 3GHz for a fee because that CPU has never been tested running at 3GHz and might not work.
They don't offer you a software upgrade, but in many cases depending on what is happening in supply chains they very much do bin functionally tested higher parts at a lower performance rating because it often makes economic sense to do so.
Whole companies exist that re-bin CPUs and GPUs and sell them to tweakers and overclockers. In some cases SI partners even do this as part of their normal production process to offer a better product than the vendor does (this happens in the GPU market).
You pay for a speci
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Possibly because it strongly incentivizes later owners of the vehicle jailbreaking the car and potentially loading dangerous unregulated software into it. This isn't a computer where some sweaty guy is going to blue-screen his overclocked machine and drop his sesh, people are going to die directly because of this choice and the choices that will result from it.
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But people can already try to do that kind of thing anyway. There are probably orders of magnitude more people dying from cars due to other aspects of cars than this one.
The same thing will happen when all cars get speed/power limited. It's a problem that will need to be solved in the future anyway. May as well start figuring it out now. Not sure what the solution will be. But I hope it's not "force cars to
Re: The only thing that'll stop this (Score:4, Insightful)
they are artificially limiting you from using it until you pay more
They are limiting your performance because you only want to give them limited money.
No, that's not correct. It has nothing to do with how much money you are willing to give them. CPU manufacturers are incapable of making every CPU run at the maximum speed. So if everyone were willing to buy the fastest chips, some of them would still end up settling for a lower-speed chip, because the faster ones don't exist in those quantities.
When you buy a chip rated at a lower speed than the maximum speed, that chip was pull from a bin that failed QA testing at a faster speed. They are giving you a discount because it isn't capable of running at a faster speed, and if they didn't do that, they would have to throw away those chips, because they don't work at the maximum speed. That's just being environmentally conscious.
The two situations are really not at all comparable.
I'm not saying there aren't advantages to having fewer SKUs, but the way you do that is to actually have fewer SKUs, i.e. sell fewer models, not to software-downgrade the hardware so that you can continue to have more SKUs, but with fewer actual differences. Charging people to flip a configuration bit is sleazy.
In the car scenario, later when you have some spare cash. You'll be happy for the easy upgrade. Knowing you got the best version available, and not having to wonder if the one you got is upgradable to 3GHz safely since they all are.
You'll spend the extra cash on the upgrade you don't actually need, and it will add almost nothing to the actual used value of the car, because accessories rarely do. And now you've spent the full amount for that feature, but you've gotten a fraction of the use out of it, because you waited until later to pay that extra fee. You're better off saving that money towards trading up to a newer car.
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No, that's not correct. It has nothing to do with how much money you are willing to give them. CPU manufacturers are incapable of making every CPU run at the maximum speed. So if everyone were willing to buy the fastest chips, some of them would still end up settling for a lower-speed chip, because the faster ones don't exist in those quantities.
But there's still an infinite quantity of cars in this fantasy scenario?
Wait and buy the CPU you want later after they make some more. Or buy the cheaper one. Same as with the limited number of cars being made.
When you buy a chip rated at a lower speed than the maximum speed, that chip was pull from a bin that failed QA testing at a faster speed. They are giving you a discount because it isn't capable of running at a faster speed, and if they didn't do that, they would have to throw away those chips, because they don't work at the maximum speed. That's just being environmentally conscious.
Of that chip was perfectly fine and nobody wanted to pay full price for it. But someone was happy to pay a lesser price for lesser performance.
Why does anyone care either way? They get exactly what they wanted and paid for. How do you know what the chip is capable of? You didn't test it, they didn't
Re: The only thing that'll stop this (Score:2)
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I think some of them will want to have their slightly more powerful / more expensive cars show that it's more ex with a slightly different model number.
With a prefix or suffix to the model name / number.
If everyone is driving X, how do you get to show that you got the better X ?
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What's the problem? You saved $1000. Or you bought the better car if you wanted passengers.
Why is choice bad here?
It's not like 1 year after your purchase they're changing the rules. You're getting exactly what you paid for. With the option to have something even better later. Why is this bad?
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Performance doesn't just come out of thin air.
False. Performance is an arbitrary thing you pay for from a specification. There was a whole industry (car chipping) that existed to extract more performance out of 100% identical parts you already had.
This approach is wasting all the extra materials involved in making a more powerful motor.
No this approach is simplifying extra materials in making a cheaper motor. Motor power may be limited by materials, but it has been *defined* by software since the first days of fuel injection.
So you're paying paying for all of the materials and the R&D cost for more capable hardware, but getting none of the performance.
No. I'm paying for the exact performance advertised to me. What goes on under the hood is none of my business. How th
Re: The only thing that'll stop this (Score:2)
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Performance doesn't just come out of thin air. It comes from the physical capabilities of the hardware. This approach is wasting all the extra materials involved in making a more powerful motor.
Are you an electro-automotive engineer? No me either. So I don't know but there is more than one dimension for performance and operational characteristics here. These are not pure drag-cars or something, but touring cars. They have to be capable of sustained high speed operation.
Lets say your battery system and power train have to be able to discharge at N and apply force F to the wheels for you to be able to run down the autobahn at 90KPH. Maybe it takes 2(N) to provide comfortable acceleration but realis
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And if you bought a newer / more powerful car, it's a one time expense (after trading in your current car), instead of monthly subscriptions.
At least until the the manufacturer decides not to support it any longer due to a different business model / expenses of servers, etc. So basically renting the extra power until the manufacturer decides they don't want to anymore.
No thank you.
Re: The only thing that'll stop this (Score:2)
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Performance doesn't just come out of thin air. It comes from the physical capabilities of the hardware. This approach is wasting all the extra materials involved in making a more powerful motor.
Often the question is asked "why don't EVs have a transmission" and the answer is that it's both cheaper and more efficient (to say nothing of more reliable) to just have a bigger motor than to have a gearbox with more speeds. You pay a minuscule penalty for having a bigger motor than you need, unlike an ICE, where the penalty is massive. So EVs already have bigger motors than they need at the top end, to serve the needs at the bottom end. The limitation on performance is then not the motor, but the battery
oh my fucking god (Score:2, Insightful)
Is that your only frame of reference? IBM sales tactics?
People buying an IBM mainframe know they are getting screwed, they just pay the fee to get the machine the business needs. Additionally they know the price they are paying has no relation to the cost of making the machine and they can genuinely treat disabled hardware that can be activated as a plus because, again, they are getting the machine due to a critical business need.
In the real world people have a sense of "fairness" and hate this shit.
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Di
Re: oh my fucking god (Score:3)
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Plenty of people bitched about IBM over this issue. Also, the mainframes were leased, not outright purchased, so it's also a very different issue.
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Plenty of people bitched about IBM over this issue. Also, the mainframes were leased, not outright purchased, so it's also a very different issue.
More importantly, approximately nobody uses mainframes anymore, and dubious pricing by mainframe vendors was almost certainly one of the factors that drove people to build clusters instead. So yeah, saying "...but IBM did this and got away with it..." is not a particularly compelling argument.
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More importantly, approximately nobody uses mainframes anymore ... LOL!
Lol. Just
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IBM did this model with mainframes for decades, and nobody complained.
They did complain. Microsoft did it with Windows NT as well.
Re: The only thing that'll stop this (Score:4, Informative)
IBM did this model with mainframes for decades, and nobody complained
You've obviously not been in the IT biz long, because everybody fucking complained. HP also tried this to with their Itanic Superdome line.
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IBM wasn't the only mainframe company to do this.
I worked where we had machines from both Magnuson (M80) and Amdahl where performance upgrades were available with no additional hardware - just a microcode update or (IIRC on the Amdahl) some sort of "secret" code or switch setting. Admittedly perhaps if IBM hadn't done this the Magnuson and Amdahl might have been less able to "get away with it".
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So you're paying paying for all of the materials and the R&D cost for more capable hardware
Nope.
You are saving all the R&D costs (and manufacturing costs, storage costs, training costs and distribution costs)of making X different versions of the hardware by making just one.
That's not necessarily true. Yes, it is true if the companies are starting from scratch and these are the first EVs they've ever built. But otherwise, they are likely to have older, slower motors already available. Building a newer, faster motor, however, will always involve extra R&D costs.
They are giving you the best hardware available. And letting you choose how much of it you are willing to pay to use. And letting you upgrade at any time. What's not to like.
They are giving you overbuilt hardware that gets worse energy economy because it is overbuilt. That's what's not to like. This is a waste of natural resources, this increases road damage because of weight, this
Re:good god you idiot (Score:4, Informative)
This has happened before in the car arena (e.g. Tesla doesn't make all those different battery sizes, they just limit how much can be used of the bigger ones) but they don't announce it to the world and ask consumers to pay a monthly ransom to use the full battery amount.
AFAIK, there are only two times Tesla did anything like this (other than the seat heaters, which AFAIK they eventually turned on for everyone), and neither is actually comparable:
Neither of those is comparable to what is being described here.
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This has happened before in the car arena (e.g. Tesla doesn't make all those different battery sizes, they just limit how much can be used of the bigger ones) but they don't announce it to the world and ask consumers to pay a monthly ransom to use the full battery amount.
It happens in the gasoline engine arena, too.
Manufacturers have been selling the same engine with different power "options" for as long as I can remember (ie. since the 1980s).
The only new thing here is the subscription model.
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This isn't an "upgrade" by any stretch of the imagination. It's more like extortion: "pay us or we'll cripple your engine".
This should be illegal. We need real right-to-repair legislation now.
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You can't defend abusive practices by just saying 'you don't have to buy one'.
Isn't it a self solving problem?
No, it's not. As we've seen, the free market can't make companies act ethically and responsibly. Free markets only work when they're regulated.
Re: The only thing that'll stop this (Score:2)
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is laws.
Umm, you're basically talking about making the entire concept of in-app purchases illegal. Yes, it sucks ass to have to pay to flip a Boolean variable to enable code already on your device to do the needful, but there's nothing inherently unlawful about that.
Thing is, most intangible products that you purchase these days are ultimately just some flag in a database saying you're now allowed access to something. You're splitting hairs if you think it makes a huge difference whether a bit is being flipped on
Re: The only thing that'll stop this (Score:2)
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Additionally, broad consumer protection laws to prevent the kinds of bait-and-switch, deceptive pricing, & overcharging scams that seem to be commonplace in north America. The "price" needs to be upfront & the final price you actually hand over at the end of the transaction & the p
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Laws against economies of scale driving down prices for consumers through simplification of design?
Tell me what about this is morally wrong for you?
a) You're getting exactly what you pay for. Specifications are written and dollars are paid to get those specifications.
b) You have a product. If you want to hack it for extra power, go ahead.
c) This isn't very different the process of chipping a car for more power out of the existing engine, the only difference is the vendor is providing you the opportunity to
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is laws.
Why do you care how people spend their money?
If you want to start controlling how much value they get for their $$$ then you're going to have to ban just about every product on the market.
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An example from Tesla is the rear heated seats. It would have been more expensive for them to make special seats without heaters than to just use the same seats on the higher- and lower-end variants. ...
I hate subscriptions, but I totally understand why manufacturers software-disable features, rather than paying more to remove features in hardware, or skipping out on having price tiers altogether.
If you have these seats in your car, why are they disabled?
The honest thing to do would be the manufacturer going: "We planned to have heated back seats as a higher-tier feature, but it turns out it's cheaper for us to just have it in all cars. So here you go everyone, heated seats for everyone because anyway we're going to have to build them into all cars."
Re: What lawmaker would want to stop this? (Score:2)
Dear Mercedes. #ChuckYouFarley (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. Someone charges you $60-100K for a car, then tries to nickel and dime you for $20-60/month for control over YOUR CAR?
No.
Way to make EV even LESS desirable.
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I think this is going to be adopted by all vehicles including EV where possible.
EV Derangement Synrome (Score:2, Informative)
This has nothing to do with EV's, and everything to do with capitalist greed. See: the same manufactures wanting to charge you annually for Apple Car Play and Android Auto, despite both services being available for free.
Re: Dear Mercedes. #ChuckYouFarley (Score:2)
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Another thought, if you are paying a price for a over specced vehicle, since you don't plan on paying the extra to unlock the extra performance, does your vehicle last longer / less maintenance issues?
After all the motors, batteries, etc are specced for X performance, but you are only using it at 80% of that specced-for performance.
Less wear and tear, less other issues maybe?
Re:Dear Mercedes. #ChuckYouFarley (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they sell you a car with a specific ability to perform.
Then they artificially limit it. Gating it behind a paywall.
That is being nickel and dimed.
And I would encourage anyone who winds up with one of these stupid things to break any and all controls and open the device THEY OWN up for THEMSELVES.
Could be a problem (Score:2, Funny)
for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell
Hey! Business needs to make a profit. But! (Score:3)
Double Dipping (Score:5, Insightful)
First they sell you the car and then they RENT it too you too.
Wonderful
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Only if you want to rent it. They offer you the complete sale as well. If you don't like it simply don't do it. It is that easy.
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Only if you want to NOW. Sooner or later, these companies will start feeding you a sticker price to get into the seat but you'll have a monthly fee to drive it anywhere.
Re: Double Dipping (Score:2)
There is no option to buy the seat heating and multiple other features only the engine.. Don't defend psychopathy
microtransactions (Score:3)
I have a hot date that night. It's going well so I tap in an extra 60HP as we're walking to the car for the drive back to her place. Vrrm-vrmmm!
The hourly rate can be set to make it more enticing for the consumer to upgrade to a monthly plan, or the features can be used occasionally at a higher rate.
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And gamify it so you have to buy tokens, and pay with tokens. No, thanks.
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Re: microtransactions (Score:2)
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Since the cheapest model comes with all these disabled features, the hardware to support them is physically present and you've already paid for it. Making you pay again to use the stuff you've already paid for and are paying for the energy to move around is ridiculous.
If you just want occasional use, you can join a car club and rent use of the whole vehicle on an hourly basis. When you're not renting it, you don't have the physical vehicle at all and someone else can use it.
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Since the cheapest model comes with all these disabled features, the hardware to support them is physically present and you've already paid for it.
But you didn't pay for it. Instead you obviously saved money by not paying for it.
Making you pay again to use the stuff you've already paid for and are paying for the energy to move around is ridiculous.
You didn't pay for it. You certainly didn't pay them all the extra R&D costs to design an inferior version. Or the added costs to supply 2 different hardware versions.
Why did you buy this version to carry around the extra stuff? Were you tricked somehow? Did you not understand you'd be carrying around excess baggage when you bought the car?
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Why stop there? Skip the buying completely and reap the rewards! Just rent what you want. Doing a DIY project? Rent a truck. Have a hot date? Rent a fancy sports car. Vrrm-vrmmm!
When you figure out why that's a stupid idea, you'll be enlightened.
Re: microtransactions (Score:2)
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You forgot to end your post with a "/s"
Re: microtransactions (Score:2)
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She just think you are a showoff and going back to her place is where she drops you off her radar.
just an little bit of DRM to use DMCA block repair (Score:2)
just an little bit of DRM to use DMCA block any and all non dealer repair
Given the cost of a Mercedes (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Given the cost of a Mercedes (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't aimed at people buying a Mercedes new from the factory.
It's so they can profit from the 2nd hand market.
I'm sorry Dave, I cannot take you to that protest (Score:3)
This is coming. Permanent tracking and forbidden zones. For national security.
If users patch their control units ... (Score:3)
that is there plan to force you to use the dealer (Score:3)
that is there plan to force you to use the dealer for any and all service.
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This is why manufacturers oppose the right to repair laws.
You will own nothing and be happy (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Funny I used to laugh at conspiracy theorists, these days it seems they have read the spoilers
Interesting take (Score:2)
I wonder if whoever wrote this:
>> It's not really clear that regulators have any interest in cracking down on charging dumb people extra for something they already owned and paid for. After all, ripping off gullible consumers is effectively now considered little more than creative marketing by a notable segment of government "leaders"
ever bought a CPU clocked higher than the absolute base level.
The consumers in this scenario aren't gullible or dumb - they're not being fooled, they are being offered so
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What do you mean by "base level"? Usually CPUs are mass-produced with one die (so many p-cores, so many e-cores, so much cache). They then test them and see how fast they can go. Random variations in manufacturing mean they don't all work at the same speed. That randomness means the number of CPUs that work at maximum speed is smaller than the number of CPUs that work at a slow speed. Because there is higher demand for the CPUs that go fast, which also in limited supply, they increase the price. This
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It's not even a stupid system, and this goes way back. It's the standard problem of product where the intellectual property (IP) is the most expensive part. The result is an component whose material and manufacturing costs are dwarfed by the development. The most typical product here is the CPU chip. Once the design is done, a plant just churns them out. At which point the company says "Most customers don't need the 64 processor version; how much will it cost to develop a cheap 16 processor CPU?". And
Tesla changed the power levels of early Model 3s. (Score:2)
The early Model 3s (LR RWD) were recorded doing 0-60 in 4.4 seconds, then an update nerfed the 060 time and it went to over 5 seconds, then in another update, Tesla kindly set it back to just under 5 seconds.
Consumer protection laws need revising + right to (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Consumer protection laws need revising + right (Score:2)
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The idea of locking away the full capabilities of the car I buy should come with a Caveat subscriptor, that if the car has say 100kw battery but the seller locks away 25% of that behind a subscription, then the owner should be reimbursed for having to drag around 25% dead weight... because you are paying to transport it everywhere with you.
You know you can just buy a different car right?
Walking or public transport might also be an option.
Similarly locking up the full capacity of the engine, or heated seats, or whatever means you shouldn't have to pay to maintain that thing any more, it's clearly a leased item and the maintenance of it should fall to the lessor.
Don't want to pay to maintain something. Don't buy that thing.
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Don't want to pay to maintain something. Don't buy that thing.
They don't offer that as an option. If you could pay $500 up front OR take it on subscription for $20/month we might be talking. But that's not how it works.
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They might not, but odds are they're not the only provider, you know? It's not like they're a utility where you only have one company.
As I understand it, John Deere is losing lots of market share due to their DRM crap. Farmers buy, get burned, go to either older models without it or a different company.
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Re: Consumer protection laws need revising + right (Score:2)
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Window seats will only be for subscribers? /s
You'll have to pay extra for the actual window. And a fee each time you raise or lower it. Be sure to put a little sticker over the eye-tracking sensor so you don't get charged for glancing out of it by mistake.
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You're reimbursed by paying less for the car.
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Or perhaps the owner can realize that he can go from 0-100% battery capacity and wear out the battery less because 25% is held "in reserve" so you're really only going between 0-75% of full battery capacity. Most EV owners alread
This isn't new (Score:2)
Every new car is like this.
New model years boast increase HP and Torque over previous model years even though it's the exact same powertrain. All the manufacturers have done is tweak the ECU.
Maybe some justification for it (Score:2)
I would have zero problem with this... (Score:2)
...if there were ironclad, comprehensive right to repair laws on the books that would ensure it was absolutely OK for you to apply a patch some bright spark had coded that would do exactly the same thing for a fraction of the price. Oh...and the corporate grifters couldn't void your warranty unless they could prove the "outlaw" patch caused some kind of damage.
Vote with you wallet! (Score:2)
Used to dream of owning a Mercedes or a BMW (Score:2)
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anything AAS (Score:2)
"The Right to Read" was right, but didn't think far enough. We're fast moving into a world where anything becomes a "service". Which is just business buzzword for companies wanting a continuous revenue stream instead of ordinary sales.
This is evil. It means everyone becomes a constant slave. It means when you hit tough times in your life you can't scale down anymore by relying on what is already yours and cutting out expenses you can go without for a while. Even if these "rental features" allow you to cance
Tesla has done this for years (Score:2)
Why is this a problem? (Score:2, Interesting)
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In the case of improving the car performance or heating the seats, you do not really buy software. And if you did, you don't have the choice of installing your own seat-warming software, or buying it from a third party.
I wish mo
Remember folks (Score:2)
Inflation is caused by rising wages and has nothing to do with companies gouging [businessinsider.com] people for every pfennig [kanebridgenews.com] they can.
Do people work on their own cars anymore (Score:3)
Like being able to do stuff like bypass the computer that goes bloop and bleep so they can have heated seats? Or do ECU mods to tune the car themselves and not rely on some "subscription"?
This might be complicated if you are only leasing the car, but if you buy it outright, you should be able to do whatever you want with it, within existing road and saftey laws, of course.