GM Is Quietly Becoming a Subscriptions Company (businessinsider.com) 132
"General Motors has been pulling a Tim Cook and boosting its software and subscription business," reports Business Insider. During the automaker's Tuesday earnings call, executives said they're increasingly leaning on software subscriptions like OnStar and Super Cruise to generate high-margin recurring revenue long after customers buy their vehicles. GM says OnStar brought in about $800 million in the second quarter, while Super Cruise revenue grew about 70% year over year. From the report: GM says its software business keeps roughly 70 cents of every dollar it brings in. That's a rare level of profitability in the auto industry, as many car sales generate just four to 10 cents per sales dollar. [...] GM expects to add about 1 million OnStar subscribers this year, bringing the total close to 13 million. Super Cruise, GM's hands-free, eyes-on driving system, is growing even faster. GM added about 70,000 subscribers during the quarter and expects to end the year with more than 850,000. Revenue from the service increased about 70% from a year earlier.
And a lot of drivers are sticking around after the free period ends. GM said between 30% and 40% of eligible owners continue paying after their included three-year Super Cruise subscription expires. [..] "We do think we have tremendous levers, multiple levers of growth," Barra said on the call. "We definitely think there's a lot of opportunity at GM to grow, improve margins, and become less cyclical."
"Software and services are becoming increasingly important to how customers experience GM vehicles and how we deliver value beyond the initial purchase," a spokesperson previously told Business Insider. "As vehicles become more software-defined, we can introduce new digital experiences through updates and optional services rather than hardware changes."
And a lot of drivers are sticking around after the free period ends. GM said between 30% and 40% of eligible owners continue paying after their included three-year Super Cruise subscription expires. [..] "We do think we have tremendous levers, multiple levers of growth," Barra said on the call. "We definitely think there's a lot of opportunity at GM to grow, improve margins, and become less cyclical."
"Software and services are becoming increasingly important to how customers experience GM vehicles and how we deliver value beyond the initial purchase," a spokesperson previously told Business Insider. "As vehicles become more software-defined, we can introduce new digital experiences through updates and optional services rather than hardware changes."
Yeah, no (Score:3, Interesting)
They can spin this all they want, but only a small percentage of people are actually willing to pay for a subscription to their vehicle. Certainly not enough to sustain a business model around it for the long term.
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Re:Yeah, no (Score:5, Informative)
"OnStar brought in about $800 million in the second quarter"
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i wonder if they were never notified as an option they can choose not to pay for. built into the sticker/transaction like the other shady "extra warranty and gap coverage bullshit"
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I can't speak to it as I don't have a GM car, but do note they removed Android Auto and Apple Carplay from many of their vehicles, precisely to drive people to buy OnStar to have the big driving friendly displays be able to do the things many folks just started using their phone for when CarPlay/Android auto became a thing.
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Re: Yeah, no (Score:2)
I wouldn't, but I can imagine people willingly pay for OnStar.
It doesn't feel as dirty since it isn't just all sitting there. It reaches out to the cellular network. I can imagine people getting decent value for remote start that works in parking garages, and the accident help (people worry).
It doesn't feel like a subscription for a seat heater or super cruise which are both already there.
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Most probably don't notice the charges or are too lazy to call up and cancel. I guarantee it won't ever be as easy as click here to cancel.
Re: Yeah, no (Score:4, Insightful)
The trick is to not give them your credit card during the initial dealer walkthrough call. Nothing to renew.
Re:Yeah, no (Score:4, Insightful)
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You assume rationality. GM hopes to repeat the behavior of APPLE corpse .... and sell expensive transportation jewelry all gussied-up like a car. Body-by-Fisher now means fishing customers wallet for 70% profit.
And they're failing to remember that they're GM, not Porsche who might be able to get away with this shit because they make good cars and have a legion of fanboys (and they already do it, you're not even allowed to order the really high end Porkers unless you've previously bought several).
The problem the consumer faces is that they don't buy cars any more, so they don't own them... Meaning that all these subscriptions just get rolled into the monthly payments. This isn't so much of an issue for the perso
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If it's like Jeep, the salesmen are punished if customers don't sign up for the monthly services. Of course the first few months are always free and you can always cancel at any time they say.
Re: Yeah, no (Score:2)
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Not every dealer, just the shitty ones. When I bought my BMW I was not asked to buy tire protection, gap protection, or anything else. We negoitated a price for the car. I walked in, signed the paperwork, declined the white glove "BMW experience" and drove off.
Pay up (Score:2)
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Yes and No.
If it's something physical like heated seats...that's a hard no.
If it's something subject to ongoing development and improvement like FSD then probably yes.
I still GREATLY prefer one and done purchase but things like FSD are...immature. You can't just buy it like adaptive cruise control and it's limited but works as advertised.
I still hate *aaS nonsense but there are a few times where paying for the thing results in improvements that make it well worth it.
Fast forward a ... while. I can see FSD d
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In a world that isn't totally encrapified, self-driving should be a module kit you can get for basically any car that's built to an open standard where you just plug in the control module and the sensors, etc. into a bunch of standard receptacles and your car from any manufacturer will then have self-driving provided by the module from some other manufacturer. Seriously, a self driving system is so fragile that it can only as a built in from one specific manufacturer and its driving model can't work with a
Re: Yeah, no (Score:2)
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And dont be naive, other car companies are looking at this profit and salivating.
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There's no spin when reporting revenue figures. Also this is nothing new in the car industry. Subscription fees have been a profit centre big enough to sustain a business model around them for a decade now.
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only a small percentage of people are actually willing to pay for a subscription to their vehicle
TFS: "GM said between 30% and 40% of eligible owners continue paying after their included three-year Super Cruise subscription expires." That's more than a small percentage.
On the flip side, it means that 60-70% - well more than half - aren't continuing. They also don't define what "eligible owners" means.
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I think you'd be surprised. On this very site there were a few people saying they would pay a heated seats subscription because they live somewhere cold (way back when BMW announced their ingeniousness: https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org] - which they later u-turned on, btw).
Personally, I won't pay a subscription for something that's not costing *them* something per month. There's not much I want from my car manufacturer that costs them per-month. It was once that GPS maps was an annual purchase, but now we h
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It was once that GPS maps was an annual purchase, but now we have phone integration, that's not a thing any more. If they'd made their car infotainment systems better, perhaps we wouldn't need phone integration quite so much, but they didn't and so here we are.
GM has a 'fix' for that:
https://news.dealershipguy.com... [dealershipguy.com]
Why make infotainment systems better, when you can just make phone integration worse?
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This is why they removed Android Auto and Apple Carplay from their vehicles. They are betting people are so loyal to GM that they'll pay for OnStar instead of just using their phone apps on the big screens like everyone else does.
Emboldened by the fact that Tesla similarly dismisses that feature and people bought Tesla's just fine.
Seems to be working based on the numbers, and the fact that someone at work who is a supreme fan of GM who has always just bought GM is disappointed that his next car won't work
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In this way the car is your phone and the subscription to the Super Cruise is the phone's plan.
brakes only $4.99/mo or $50/year! (Score:5, Funny)
brakes only $4.99/mo or $50/year!
Re: brakes only $4.99/mo or $50/year! (Score:2)
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More likely is they take the brake pedal away entirely and give it to the computer. Which you in turn subscribe to, for amazing features like "accelerating" and "braking".
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brakes only $4.99/mo or $50/year!
"*Internet access required, with daily phone home. One time free brake push if outside of network range"
It's not worth $40/month (Score:2, Interesting)
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(99 * 12) / (5 * 52) = $4.57/day
It's really easy to burn up more than this on tolls, especially here in Florida. Yeah, you'd have to leave a bit earlier to use FSD as a substitute for toll roads, but most of the stress of dealing with traffic is actually having to do the annoying stop-and-go pedal dance.
I'm not simping for Musk here, heck, I don't even own a Tesla, but I'm just pointing out that people absolutely do already spend this kind of money just to get to their destination without the hassle of bei
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I don't entirely agree.
I'd say a fair amount of the stress is the stop go traffic, but a fair amount of the stress is the uncertainty of the amount of traffic and how long the journey will take. That stress can kick in in a taxi too when someone else is driving.
It's one of the things I especially dislike about city driving is the variance in how long journeys take.
Unfortunately you're talking about America, so you probably don't have low stress options.
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Whatever the company loses in MSRP discounts they'll claw back through monthly fees. Tesla buyers in 2026... the company sure knows its target market. I do hope the company stays afloat, and all those customers stay there, instead of contaminating the rest of the market with their burning desire for another monthly fee.
Another reason not to buy from Government Motors (Score:3)
And to buy an older car.
Perfect! Never buying a GM vehicle ever! (Score:2)
So that's it for GM. BMW already went that way, VW, and Toyota is starting to sniff out the subscription markets too.
I really wonder if there's going to be a car company out there that refuses to do this or everybody's going to be on the subscription bandwagon and we're all going to be looking for old non-smart vehicles.
Here comes the return of the carbureted cars. This is going to be great for the environment. But maybe the EVs from China will have enough people hacking them to make them at least free fro
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There's eventually going to be the Slate Truck, if you really want that early 90s throwback vibe. Personally, I'd rather have something a bit less spartan, even if it means that every once in awhile it nags me for not subscribing to OnStar. Different strokes for different folks.
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>"So that's it for GM. BMW already went that way, VW, and Toyota is starting to sniff out the subscription markets too."
Nissan already does it. They all do it, at least on some services. And if there are any that don't, they will soon. Once you spend a TON on a new vehicle with fancy features, you are stuck. Especially with the driver assist stuff that actually does rely on continued map and other updates. I will grant those services probably should be paid services. However, you are a captive audi
They don't even write good software! (Score:3, Interesting)
How many cars have you driven, that had elegant, well-crafted user interfaces in their software? Maybe Tesla? The rest of them write crappy UIs with menu trees that could only make a call center manager happy. (But don't worry, your call is very important to us.)
If they used the money to do it right, I'd be slightly less unhappy with the concept.
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I think part of the problem is that a lot of the people who design and manage user facing interfaces don't know how bad their stuff is.
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No. They'll just say "that's how it's supposed to be". What you'd need is to make them use stuff that's better. Tesla is pretty good, according to a friend. Make them drive Apple CarPlay or Android Auto fully enabled.
Re:They don't even write good software! (Score:5, Informative)
Tesla is awful due to the lack of physical controls where they would really make sense. It is an actively driver-hostile car. Other than the powertrain, which is amazing, the car is completely obnoxious. The door handles in particular are a huge problem and have been banned in China. Why would you intentionally make door handles that are super awkward to open rather than just pull? Why would you make someone dig through a menu to adjust the mirrors, or adjust the A/C vents and other controls? Trying to shift with the right stalk? Awkward and horrible. I think they thought it was sexy to just have a screen and nothing else, but in reality it just absolutely sucks. Before you say, "but have you owned one?" Yes, yes I have. It's my wife's current daily driver. And I avoid driving it like the plague.
Re:They don't even write good software! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I hate cars that have the often-used controls as touch-screen. I don't even like touch-screen radio controls. Give me a button to push or a knob to turn.
But then, I drive a stick shift, so my opinion doesn't count. :-)
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The absolutely most boneheaded Tesla UI decision was putting the speedometer on the infotainment. Anecdotally, driving around central Florida I almost never see a Tesla driver doing the usual "speed limit +5" - they're always either flying like a bat out of hell, or driving like Mr. Magoo. The worst ones are the drivers who alternate between both: they go slow as shit until someone tries to pass them, then they take off like a maniac, then begin slowing down again - pretty much the sort of behavior you mi
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The absolutely most boneheaded Tesla UI decision was putting the speedometer on the infotainment.
It would have been better to project it on the windshield if they wanted to be cool.
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Tesla is awful due to the lack of physical controls where they would really make sense. It is an actively driver-hostile car.
It is also dangerous as it makes you take your eyes off the road .... yes, it should only take a second -- but you know how it is, you often cannot find what you are looking for as quickly as you thought and before you know it you have driven 1/4 mile NOT looking at the car in front -- what happens if it were to brake suddenly ?
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Well, I love my tesla y. I don't like the company much, but I love almost everything about the car, especially the tesla-specific design decisions.
My favorite thing about it is the fact that the accelerator pedal is a speed control, rather than aping the behavior of pumping more gas into the engine. I'd be very unhappy going back to a car where I have to hit the brake pedal constantly.
All the controls I use while I'm driving are mapped to the steering wheel (most of them by default), so I never need to
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My favorite thing about it is the fact that the accelerator pedal is a speed control, rather than aping the behavior of pumping more gas into the engine. I'd be very unhappy going back to a car where I have to hit the brake pedal constantly.
Technically I basically had that some time around 30 years ago. It wasn't the gas pedal though, it was on the steering wheel as part of cruise control.
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One thing that drives me crazy is that there is a large contigent of people who think the accelerator and the brake are part of a binary system. That when they stop accelerating they must touch the brake. Especially when you are following them on long highway drives and it's just brake light, accelerate, brake light, accelerate, etc.
Learn to control the acceleration so you do not need to touch that brake except to actually stop!
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I think they thought it was sexy to just have a screen and nothing else, but in reality it just absolutely sucks.
Even with a screen and nothing else, it shouldn't be difficult to adjust the mirrors or air conditioning.
Arguable at startup, they should remind you, "Would you like to adjust your mirrors?"
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Maybe Tesla?
A few years back when my partner and I test drove a Model 3, I think we spent more time Googling things than actually driving the damn car. I'm sure once you get past the learning curve it's not so bad, but ultimately neither of us wanted to deal with that. For all the crap Chevy gets over "bad software", they did a damn good job just making the Bolt be a normal car that happens to be powered by electrons rather than dinosaur juice. That was what ultimately sealed the deal.
Also, back then the Bolt had Ca
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Yep, CarPlay is good because it was built by...not a car company.
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>"How many cars have you driven, that had elegant, well-crafted user interfaces in their software? Maybe Tesla?"
Tesla blows it by having no dashboard, few physical controls, and having the horrible "tablet on a stick" look. They admittedly have good software/interface, but then ruined it with the physical implementation. Had they stayed with the original model S concept- a nicely INTEGRATED center panel and with a real dashboard display and good physical controls, I would have considered them. As such
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Tesla has one of the worst UIs. Gear shift on a touch screen?
MG has a decent UI. Physical buttons for important stuff, and you can program two of the steering wheel ones to do various things.
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Never driven a Tesla (or Indeed any electric car), so would you care to elaborate? I assumed electric cars don't have gears!
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Most EVs don't have gears, although some have fake software gears to simulate driving a fossil. A bit like the fake engine noises in some exceptionally silly cars.
Well, most EVs do have a fixed reduction gear, because it's more efficient to run the motor at higher speed. No clutch though.
But you do still need a forward, reverse, and neutral "gear" selector of some sort. Most cars have a knob or lever. Tesla has a swipe on the touch screen. Combined with their now retired yoke instead of a steering wheel, pa
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Oh yeah I forgot about reverse (and N), I rarely drive automatics these days. That's insane! What's weird is it seems to be the higher end cars which lean more heavily into worse (i.e. screen based) controls. I get semi-regular sampling via hire cars of what's going on, and I've started to kind of prefer when I get the model I hired, rather than the more expensive sub (which is the majority of the time if you pick the cheapest, it seems). Also currently less of that shit with vans.
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It doesn't help that the hardware it runs on needs to be both as cheap as possible and locked down quite early in the vehicle development cycle, which means that it's going to be old and slow on day one of sales.
It would make sense for the infotainment/vehicle UI box to be treated as a "wear part" like brakes and tyres, with a standardised, plug-in interface so it can be replaced and upgraded over the life of the vehicle.
Of course, because it would make sense - and cost a fraction more per unit to produce -
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"how we deliver value beyond the initial purchase" (Score:3)
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They said the quiet part out loud.
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Suckers (Score:5, Interesting)
So they're taking all your data, selling it, and making you pay for the privilege? Must be a nice business if you have zero scruples.
Why do you need OnStar? Who would want to steal a GM car? All the GM brands are at the very bottom of Consumer Reports reliability index for 2026.
OnStar uses cellular service to connect, so if you have an emergency, either both OnStar and your cell phone work, or neither work. So there's no advantage to using OnStar rather than just dialing 911. 911 services are allowed access to your phone's GPS location regardless of settings.
It just seems like a pork package to sell along with the clear coat. Not to mention the theft of your data without compensation, whether you subscribe or not. You have to physically disable the modem to avoid that.
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You have to physically disable the modem to avoid that.
And nobody knows how to do that, and if they did there's no guarantee the car would keep working. I bring this up to prevent the quoted statement from making someone think that "disabling your car modem is a thing" people do... it isn't, despite many -- like myself -- very much wanting to do so.
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despite many -- like myself -- very much wanting to do so
Have you bothered to hit the bay, get the service manual for your vehicle, and try to find out what it would take?
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Why do you need OnStar? Who would want to steal a GM car? All the GM brands are at the very bottom of Consumer Reports reliability index for 2026.
Sounds like they get repaired a lot. Which means there's a big market for parts. Many car thefts are to strip them for parts.
You didn't think people steal cars to drive around in themselves, did you?
Re:Suckers (Score:4, Informative)
What else are you going to buy though? Trump banned their rivals who make better cars.
Wait until your door hinges go here (Score:2)
What is to prevent them, but US?
Fuck OnStar and surveillance capitalism (Score:2)
The enshitification of your car (Score:2)
Wait until you start paying more per month on your car subscription than your car mortgage.
Subscriptions (Score:2)
Subscriptions in today's world are bullshit. Keep your crap GM.
As a GM EV owner (Score:2)
I would pay a fixed fee to make sure I never get any of their broken software updates.
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Because I'm not against all connectivity. Downloading the maps for offline use is useful, for example. Also, I would like to some day receive the non-broken security-related updates, if they ever get around to figuring that out. Or rollback capability, failing that. Which really should be the law in any connected device.
Another case for the "Dumb Car" to return. (Score:2)
The smarter the vehicle, the dumber the driver. That has been me observation for more than 30 years now. It's going to be a driving force behind a resurgence of garage enthusiast and older drivers taking things into their own hands. Ripping out GPS and satellite options, installing old-school radios with MP3 players and CD readers, etc. Good old key locks without a phone app option are still preferred by some of us.
I don't get the hands-free driving (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just too old school, but I really don't get the hands free craze. You can't browse your phone, read a book or really do anything but stare straight ahead. I guess it would be helpful in stop and go traffic but that's about it.
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That's not "value beyond the initial purchase" (Score:2)
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Evidently they do at least have a rationale for that.
Instead of LIDAR in every car, they push LIDAR maps that they maintain by regularly driving the supported roads.
Of course, a LIDAR unit in the car would bring it back to a one-time purchase making sense, but initially that was too expensive, and now... well... they like the recurring revenue....
Optimisation. (Score:2)
GM says its software business keeps roughly 70 cents of every dollar it brings in. That's a rare level of profitability in the auto industry, as many car sales generate just four to 10 cents per sales dollar...
Is GM exiting hardware and switching to software vehicles?
Will their upcoming model compete with Grand Theft Auto?
Super Cruise et. al. (Score:2)
Big Difference from Apple (Score:2)
Smaller customizations (Score:2)
I'm not opposed to things like paying (one time) for a customized dashboard and screen experience. I have a Garmin watch and the custom watch faces for ~$3 are pretty frigging cool. 3rd party devs can build faces/skins/apps that can access the hardware safely through APIs. I have a 2015 Ford and the cloud service that used to provide software updates and vehicle health checks is shut down. A tiny cloud server node was too expensive for Ford to maintain or migrate to their current servers so they could keep
Remember GMAC? (Score:2)
GM sold their profitable finance arm GMAC 20 years ago, even while struggling financially. Some executive will sell the subscription service to a third party for a quick buck soon enough.
Quietly? (Score:2)
Their CEO made it very clear in a keynote years ago that services is where they're headed and expected it to be a big growth area. General Motors announced $5.4 billion in revenue from OnStar and Super Cruise in 2025. It's not like they're doing any of this quietly.
The 2021 target for GM’s in-car subscription/services revenue, GM said it could reach up to $25 billion by 2030.
There's nothing "quietly" about it.
https://www.gmarabia.com/en/ho... [gmarabia.com]
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10... [techcrunch.com]
The only want to lease cars (Score:2)
That's what they want, rent-seeking behavior.
I have a Chevette (pronounced SHOVE-IT) once. I will NEVER buy GM again. (Bought it one year old. In five years, replaced a coil spring, the alternator, maybe the starter, and, oh, yes, TWO transmission rebuilds, one paid for by a class action lawsuit).
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Good luck in the rust belt. Cars here last about 20 years tops.
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From HP to GM. Same shit, different brush (brush available only via subscription). No thank you.
Not going to buy a car from GM if I have to rent it too.
These Chinese cars are looking better and better value all the time. I wonder how much spyware they have? More or less than the US cars?
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Hyundai has a decent setup for this. The only subscription would be BlueLink(the system where you can use an app to get information about your car and such) after three years/36000 miles. Hyundai also has the higher end cars with BlueLink+, where you get the service for the life of the vehicle without any limitation or additional fee. Hyundai also has embraced Android Auto/Apple Car Play, so they don't push you to using THEIR system when your phone provides a probably better service.
I agree with you, a