Volkswagen Wants You To Pay Monthly To Unlock More Horsepower (neowin.net) 132
Slashdot reader darwinmac writes: Volkswagen is offering a subscription model for extra horsepower on its ID.3 electric cars. Want to bump your ride from the standard 201 bhp to the full 228 bhp? That will be about £16.50 per month or £165 per year, or a one-time £649 "lifetime" fee that is tied to the car, not you. If you sell it, you have to pay again.
VW defended this to the BBC by saying you are basically paying for a sportier experience without buying a higher powered model upfront, calling it "nothing new." Nothing changes mechanically. You are just paying VW to essentially flip a boolean somewhere in the car's software.
VW defended this to the BBC by saying you are basically paying for a sportier experience without buying a higher powered model upfront, calling it "nothing new." Nothing changes mechanically. You are just paying VW to essentially flip a boolean somewhere in the car's software.
How stupid do you have to be? (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of business model has gotten extremely bad results, time and again. How incompetent and stupid do you have to be to try it again?
Re:How stupid do you have to be? (Score:5, Funny)
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Don't give them ideas ...
Re: How stupid do you have to be? (Score:2)
Electronic brakes like this
https://youtube.com/shorts/u3y... [youtube.com]
Re:How stupid do you have to be? (Score:4, Informative)
Companies like APR and Unitronic have been selling software tunes for about the same price for VW and Audi for a long time. VW is just getting in on the game now. You can buy a Stage 1 APR tune for ~$500 and add the same kind of bump in performance to your 2.0t, and its just software, no additional hardware required. This is not uncommon for other brands either. The same engines are used across a variety of models, all tuned for the audience. Its been software controlling it for a long time, this is nothing new.
Re: How stupid do you have to be? (Score:3)
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Presumably the tuning also voids the powertrain warranty, so I wonder if the subscription price includes warranty coverage for the tuning you get.
This could be worthwhile simply to not void the warranty on your engine
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Yes, and warranty is one reason VW's fee is somewhat justified. Upping the power places more stress on the driveline and suspension components. I don't know what their European warranty is, but in the US, it's 4 years. Probably not a big coincidence that the lifetime cost is very close to the cost for 4 individual years.
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Yes and it's similar here. You up the performance, you lower the efficiency. Selling it after market helps them keep regulators happy with good numbers at the time of sale, but gives consumers the option to have more power with lower range.
Increasing the maximum power shouldn't impact official efficiency scores because the test procedures don't include tests at max power.
For ICEs, some tunes are actually marketed as improving efficiency (not at max power of course). Whether that's true though...
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Since this is the new normal, it's appears we're not nearly as intelligent as we think we are. Few people understand or want to understand how classism has crippled our society. Greed outweighs intellect everytime.
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Unfortunately, you may well not be wrong on that.
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yes, it's unfortunate but it's karma, we the people get the business we deserve, what goes around, comes around. Ethics aren't some abstract concept, without ethics, societies cannot function, nor can individuals. What we see is the breakdown of personal ethics reflected by a decline in our society. This is the inevitable result of greed, irresponsibility and selfishness. Spoiled rotten people going bad. Karma isn't a reality, karma is the reality.
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Yes. As soon it is mostly everybody for themselves, a society is done for. Getting there is a slow process, but the west is now in an advanced stage of it.
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sadly, we're a global society now, nowhere is immune or safe from this now. historically the only ones who manage are those people both isolated and self-reliant
my advice, head for the hills and learn to be self-sufficient
Re:How stupid do you have to be? (Score:5, Interesting)
Calling all hackers, calling all hackers....
Since you already own the car, hacking it to unleash its full potential can't be a crime.
Mind you... I've been using electronic test equipment for decades with similar stupidity. You buy an oscilloscope and it has a specified bandwidth and/or feature set. Pay more money, enter a code and voila -- it suddenly has a higher bandwidth and/or more features. Everything was in their when you bought it, you're just paying to activate it. Once again though, many bits of kit have been hacked to sidestep these artificial limitations.
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In Germany, for example, messing with any core car system means it is not legal to drive on public roads anymore and your insurance is void. Hence really stupid idea.
Re: How stupid do you have to be? (Score:2)
Only if the tampering has any relationship to the accident IIRC. Like if you ignored right-of-way at normal speeds.
Re: classism has crippled our society (Score:2)
Costco (the big box store) has joined this sick crowd.
If you want to shop in the morning when they open the doors you now have to upgrade$$ your membership to 'gold star' or 'executive' otherwise you as a regular member have to wait for another hour before getting the privilege of shopping at the store.
Re: classism has crippled our society (Score:2)
Actually, with the increased credit card reward, Costco pays me foe the privilege to shop earlier than others.
Re: Actually, with the increased credit card rewar (Score:2)
To quote Monty Python "I'm being oppressed here!"
Your argument is that classism is good because this specific instance works for you, too bad for 'the less fortunate' that don't have your means.
Well, good for you then, I'll get back to being a mud farmer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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> you now have to upgrade$$ your membership to 'gold star' or 'executive'
you're historically backwards.
the business membership is the base membership. they added the less expensive membership, but held back some hours for the business folks to partially placate them.
the business members' purchases are what keep the place going; the cheap membership is just a bit of gravy.
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It worked for IBM...
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In an entirely different situation. Apples and oranges.
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This kind of business model has gotten extremely bad results, time and again. How incompetent and stupid do you have to be to try it again?
Where? As far as I can see this kind of business model is quite common across many industries, has been for decades, and hasn't had a massive negative impact on car sales either.
In the end, economies of scales and feature activation is a benefit for consumers who demand the lowest possible cost, and don't want to buy a whole new car because their current one isn't sporty enough.
You're raging at nothing.
Re:How stupid do you have to be? (Score:5, Informative)
It's from the company that brought you diesel gate. Yet you are surprised?
You mean Bosch? Otherwise you can't say "the" company, because all of the German automakers cheated, but they all did it with assistance from Bosch, who makes the PCMs for all of their vehicles. (And most of the sensors and actuators, too.)
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Hardly. If I hack your bank account and empty it out do you blame Intel for providing me the CPU to do so? Yeah a lot German automakers were caught, but Bosch only provided the hardware that enabled them to do so.
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a lot German automakers were caught, but Bosch only provided the hardware that enabled them to do so.
They provide engineering support to their partners, and they were fined for doing so in this case.
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AFAIK, the findings were that Bosch did not aid the fraud and had no design requirements to prevent what happened. You are blaming the maker of the screwdriver because it can be used to break open doors.
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AFAIK, the findings were that Bosch did not aid the fraud
The finding both in the US and the EU was that they couldn't have done it without them, and that they provided aid when they knew what they were doing with it. So, no.
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-... [ca.gov]
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
Re:How stupid do you have to be? (Score:4, Interesting)
the people responsible for the protocols that were so easily cheated should also be held accountable.
That's not what happened. The offenders got caught. The protocols did their job. The machinery of justice moves slowly. By all means fix that, but don't complain about the parts that worked.
Re: How stupid do you have to be? (Score:2)
This cheating was actually legal in Europe at the time, via a loosely defined loophole where they could emit more NOX in order to "protect the engine". May still be, I'm not sure. But regulators in every member state were aware it was happening, so basically everybody there was doing it, even foreign automakers.
A few tried to get away with it in the US, but got some pretty stiff penalties handed to them by the EPA each time they did, though it was within a margin of error where they had plausible deniabilit
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Better late than never and all, but the testing protocol enabled that cheat. I think that was his point.
That is because it was not designed by security people. Engineers are often easily scammed, because most of them assume people are honest. And, to be fair, that is usually the case on engineering, because a lot of engineering designs get tested harshly in actual use. But not all and when you test for one of those you need the security engineering mind-set. If they even had one competent, say, IT security expert or general fraud expert in there, the fraud would have been discovered pretty much immediately an
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Re: How stupid do you have to be? (Score:2)
Not true. There are some bits that are mandatory, not illegal.
Idiots (Score:2)
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Re: Idiots (Score:4, Funny)
BMW drivers don't use indicators anyway, so adding a sub for them wouldn't make BMW (or Audi) any money.
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BMW didn't do that after all.
Mercedes already sells an increased power subscription for their EVs though.
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Problem is there are bigger idiots who will still buy the car. Look at BMW and their subscription seat heaters. BMW is smart enough to not charge a sub for the turn signals tho.
It’s really not that new of an idea. Companies for years made a base model that you could add upgrades to and pay extra for them; and in some cases things like wiring for them was already installed, all that was missing was some hardware. The difference was they were hardware and thus a subscription model didn’t work. In others, the build order could be changed in software to add features
BMW let you pay once to add the feature if you wanted, and a subscription model can be beneficial to the c
Re: Idiots (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just unaware, but I'm astonished that the subscription seat heaters weren't instantly hacked just on principle.
Turn signals (Score:2)
BMW charges a sub to not have functioning turn signals.
I can't wait for Louis Rossmann to offer a bounty (Score:2)
to hack this shit.
https://youtu.be/_gZrvHCO83I [youtu.be]
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Speaking of Louis, I haven't seen anything from him in months. Hope he's ok and hasn't been shit upon by the powers-that-be.
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He's been posting regularly, this is a few hours ago...
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Speaking of Louis, I haven't seen anything from him in months. Hope he's ok and hasn't been shit upon by the powers-that-be.
You might want to check your feed, he's posting 4 or 5 times a week here lately.
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Should be illegal (Score:1)
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Tesla did it 1st. BMW does something...
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But what BWM and VW are doing is scummy. T
How much to pass emissions tests? (Score:2)
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It's an electric car, so...
Normal in software (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Normal in software (Score:5, Informative)
Because you bought the hardware.
When you rent server time from AWS you haven't bought their datacenter.
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Except this is normal in the hardware world too. Always has been. And technically even for cars. The only difference is in the past eeking out a bit of extra performance from the exact same engine involved swapping a chip in the ECU rather than flipping a software big.
Stock engines for cars have always varied greatly in performance for the exact same hardware you bought.
Also you bought it, get out your software tools and hack it, just like I upped the performance of my oscilloscope by enabling a software fe
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Stock engines for cars have always varied greatly in performance for the exact same hardware you bought.
That's a recent development, since the 2000s really. Before then the different versions of the same engine were actually different, like in the 80s or 90s only a turbo motor would get the sodium filled valves, and it would have higher-flow injectors and a higher-flow fuel pump. At minimum back in the day the carburetors and intake manifolds would be different, like a 440 which might come with a 2 barrel, a 4 barrel, or a six-pack, or a 383 which could come with a 2 or a 4, or dual 4 barrels on a cross-ram m
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>VW isn't doing anything untoward here. You get exactly what you paid for.
Many, and I, would argue that they are doing something 'untoward.'
They are charging for something that doesn't have any cost to them.
They are intentionally crippling their models to produce extra revenue.
That sucks, and I and people like me don't like it.
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But the hardware you bought works as advertized, doesn't it? This is just extra, if you want extra.
I have a robotic lawnmower, which handles 1000 square meters, runs max 14 hours a day. The model able to handle 1400sqm has exactly the same hardware - only the daily running hours are not limited in that model by the software. I knew what I bought with the 1000 sqm model, and I would be grateful, not annoyed, if I could upgrade the software to impreve the running time.
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>"This is pretty normal in the software world. [...] Why do we find this offensive, when hardware is involved?"
Because with software, they are supposed to MAINTAIN it. You get updates, added features, security patches.... things that take effort and add value.
In the case of hardware, like this, you already paid for the hardware. The motor is already capable of more power, they just lobotomize it so you can't use what you paid for. You still have to haul a larger motor around with you, whether the full
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Indeed.
When I worked in the consumer genetics industry, I learned that for some DNA tests, they would always perform the highest level test, regardless of which level you bought. Then, if you "upgraded" all they did was flip a switch so you could see more of your markers, that had already been tested.
Tesla does it too! (Score:2)
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Came here to say the same thing. They're just copying Tesla. Given Tesla's current sales trajectory, VW may wish to rethink that plan.
But you already bought it (Score:3, Informative)
... you are basically paying for a sportier experience without buying a higher powered model upfront
But you did buy it upfront. All the hardware and software for that sportier experience is already in the vehicle... except for that toggle bit. If it required swapping in upgraded parts, an up-charge would be reasonable. But to differentiate price on toggling a bit on or off, while not uncommon in the world today, still smells like corporate thievery.
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There you go, thinking like a normal person. Guess what, you don't actually "own" anything anymore, you just license it.
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Car engine performance has always been variable for the same hardware you bought. The only difference is in the past you bought a small chip to install to get that extra performance. This isn't corporate thievery. You are getting 100% exactly what you paid for. The entire spec sheet is there for you. People buy based on specifications alone. You are getting those which were advertised to you. Complaining that the system is capable of more allowing you to upgrade later without having to buy a whole new car i
Hey VW (Score:4, Informative)
Fuck you.
Market power (Score:3)
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I'd like to see consumer bodies pushing back on this stuff, if you have to have stuff installed in your car that you pay for (energy input costs) to cart around that you can't use due to a hostage subscription
You're really not paying anything extra for any of the equipment if you don't use it in this case, because they need that hardware to do maximum regenerative braking. It works in both directions, and they're "only" not allowing you to use it to make the car accelerate faster without paying them. I think that too is wrong, but you're overstating the case.
Similar to the idea of unlocking extra battery capacity via software
Even in a pay-for-range scheme (which I don't rule out happening eventually, but will probably be the last thing they implement along these lines) you're st
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Best thing that we as consumers can do it not pay for this BS.
Why? I'll pay for this. I get a cheaper car with the option to upgrade to upgrade power for what is ultimately 1/60th the cost of the past - buying a new car. Actually it's not that different from chipping an engine, a practice as old as the ECU usage for engine control. The only difference here being it is an optional first party purchase rather than a shady 3rd party who tell you "this may blow your engine" in their warnings.
All the while you are actually getting exactly what you pay for. Zero consumers g
Mistake in the summary (Score:3)
Summary says "If you sell it, you have to pay again." This is the opposite of what is in TFS "the upgrade would remain on the car if it was sold on." https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com]
I will NEVER buy an automobile with this (Score:2)
Summary is misleading (Score:2)
This is what the article actually says:
"A customer can also choose a £649 "lifetime" subscription, but that is tied to the car, not the individual. If you sell your car and buy another ID.3, you would have to pay the fee again."
Well... (Score:2)
a one-time £649 "lifetime" fee that is tied to the car, not you. If you sell it, you have to pay again.
Summary is unclear. The article also notes that Volkswagen did not clarify whether the upgrade is tied to your account or to the car.
If it's to the car, then....*shrug*. If it's to the user...I guess it depends one whether that upgrade is applicable to future cars (seems unlikely).
What I would fear would be treating it like certain console games where you could sell the game disc but certain fe
I'm ok IFF (Score:2)
If implemented securely and practically I'm ok with this:
1. This increases value by allowing cheap upgrades later; IFF the car model number gets upgraded then it increases resale and insurance value.
+ model number verification needs to be properly handled
+ Regulations needed to prevent them from expiring your ability to upgrade later (like lowering resale value; they have motive to do this.)
2. Normally, you always paid for extras such as this - likely quite a lot more money to
"fee tied to the car" ? (Score:3)
I don't know, why wouldn't a "lifetime feature subscription" not be tied to the car? Should I expect a future, new car to automatically have features I had paid for on a previous car? What would be crappy is if the "lifetime" subscription goes away on the existing car if I sell it.
What would be worse is if VW didn't offer the option of a "lifetime" subscription to begin with. Think of a lifetime subscription as just a normal paid upgrade on a purchase, and seems pretty standard (to me, anyway).
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Tesla has been known to disable features when a car is sold second hand (e.g. driver assistance features).
Motorcycle riders pay for ECU tuning (Score:3)
Motorcycle riders pay to have their ECU flashed with tuning parameters to improve the performance of the bike.
Here's one popular site: https://www.ivansperformancepr... [ivansperfo...oducts.com] . It cost me about $400 to flash my Ninja ECU.
Paying the manufacturer for it at least doesn't violate the warranty
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Until last year or so Ford owners could download someone else's tune on the internets and load it into their PCM with a $15 cable (A $10 cable that's been hacked to add a switch which does a pin swap.) Alas, Ford has begun locking PCMs recently, and they were pretty much the last manufacturer not to.
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Car owners did this too. The people on this forum complaining about hardware they are not using clearly are still driving carburetted engines from the 1970s or are completely and utterly clueless as to how cars work.
Following Tesla's playbook (Score:3)
Tesla has been doing this for years. So does Ford with its 150 Lightning and Mustang Mach E. I don't know what took VW so long.
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Actually following their own play book. You have been able to software tune engines since the ECU was invented. We "upgraded" our car with a new chip back in 2000 to squeeze about 30hp extra out of it.
The Next Frontier for Hackers (Score:2)
If you buy it, you should be able to use all of it. This business model has been tried and failed, but venal manufacturers have not given up. Let's jailbreak all of these black box extortion machines and use the equipment that we have paid for.
Warranty? (Score:2)
Is this pushing the batteries harder and thus increasing the odds VW will have to do a full battery swap under warranty?
There are some scenarios in which a tradeoff like this would make sense but IMO it would be better marketing to do, say, a 10-yr warranty on the base wattage but a 7-yr on the higher wattage but then have a $649 upgrade on the warranty bring it back to 10 years.
If that is the issue they are being really tone deaf.
X as a service = evil. (Score:2)
Look, I understand why companies WANT to make things a service rather than something you buy. Usually you can get away with charging more money for a product, often a 'repeat customer' is worth more than a one off, and finally you can convince idiots that can't afford something to buy it anyway.
The problem is; is it ever a good idea for the customer to do it? Almost never. Charging more money is not good for the customer, repeat customer is not good for the customer and being convinced to buy somethin
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Capitalism is SUPPOSED to be a free choice.
This is not capitalism, it's post-capitalism where the goal is that private citizens don't (and can't) own anything anymore. Everything is a service.
This is all about warranty.. (Score:2)
The way I figure it, VW did their longevity and warranty cost calculations, set the horsepower and price, and then someone came back from R&D to say "We've got a couple extra settings you can tweak! You get extra horsepower and it's only a little more expensive in warranty costs!"
So they sell it as an add-on. Sure, the change is only software, but it's not too much different than they were already doing with things like APR tunes. Get your stage 2 kit installed by an independent or DIY? No warranty. Hav
Normal (Score:2)
BMW
BMW has been one of the most notable players in this space. They offer various features through their "ConnectedDrive Store" as one-time purchases or subscriptions. The most well-known example was their offering of heated seats as a subscription, which drew significant public backlash. While they have since backed away from making heated seats a subscription in some markets, they still offer a range of other features this way, including:
Heated steering wheel: This has been av
Hack it or find code to unlock it........ (Score:2)
I'm buying a VW ... (Score:2)
I drove one in high school. 36 horsepower is enough for anyone. And no kid should have a fully semiautomatic transmission in school anyway.
Excellent news for people on the fence (Score:2)
Well, I know one brand of car I will be buying (Score:2)
never. Long after this pantsload of a nickel and dime shakedown fails miserably, I will continue to remember that Volkswagen is the kind of company who would even consider attempting to cheat its own customers for what amounts to pocket change, so I won't be even approaching a dealership. Thanks for letting me know because I previously had been thinking of Volkswagen as trustworthy. I'm glad I've learned before I made a huge mistake.
Re: Stop this Slashdot. (Score:3)
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I come here precisely to avoid that sensationalist crap.
Your desire to avoid it explains why you clicked into the story and posted a comment.
Wait, what?
Slashdot is owned by a corporation on which an algorithm runs. And it is functionally the same as the algorithm behind every social media network: If people engage with it, deliver more of it.
Guess what you did by engaging with the content you say you don't want to see?
Re: Stop this Slashdot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly BBC are one of the more neutral and honest news reporters.
I guess if you want biased news that only echoes your own personal beliefs then, yeah, don't read their stuff.
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Whether the BBC is neutral or not, depends on what the BBC is reporting about.
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Interestingly BBC are one of the more neutral and honest news reporters.
Everything they say is true, it's what they omit that makes them biased.
Re: Does it include heated seats (Score:3)
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Extra engine power is only worth it when going above the speed limit,
If you differentiate once again by time, you'll find a physical phenomenon called "acceleration".
Einstein taught us that it can be experienced completely independently of any fixed speed limit.
Re:Does it include heated seats (Score:4, Informative)
>"Extra engine power is only worth it when going above the speed limit"
That is absolutely incorrect. ANY car can drive above the speed limit without issue. Increased power lets you accelerate faster, or haul/tow more.
>"If not, it's a scam to pay 7.99/month on-top of the extra engine speed."
It absolutely is a scam to charge a "subscription" to something already in the vehicle and ready for use that requires no upkeep on their part. Data services, map updates, things like that, might make sense. But otherwise, they need to pound sand.
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