Automakers are increasingly obsessed with turning everything into a subscription service in a bid to boost quarterly returns. We’ve noted how BMW has embraced making heated seats and other fea…
Mine just lapsed yesterday and I refuse to pay $20 a month for their subscription service. It was cool for the free trial, but nothing in this is worth $20 per month.
In a car? What exactly does the subscription enable? I probably would pay $20/mo if we’re talking the difference between base model and the gee wiz model, but only if it’s the “car stuff”…like I wouldn’t have any real interest in shit like wifi hotspot and movie screens, but If it enables Pandora/xm, heated seats and steering wheel, collision detection, adaptive cruise… I’d be up for that. I’d probably go $5/mo on adaptive cruise alone tbh.
The real question was brought up in the article though… The question of wether that potential residual revenue is left out of the original MSRP. Are we selling all cars at base model price, and getting the value of all the options from just those who pay for them… Or, are we selling every car at “fully loaded” price, since they’ve all had all the work and materials put in to all potentially be a “fully loaded” vehicle…
I believe it’s the latter, in which case they are, in fact, simply ripping everyone off. The non-subscribers pay for options they can’t use because they won’t subscribe, and the subscribers pay for those options twice.
Of course, right to repair might completely fuck the whole plan at some point. Locking out options would require locking out third party repairs, and that might make the concept untenable if it runs afoul of right to repair laws, and I’d bet at some point it will.
Basically you’ll lose adaptive cruise control, remote start and a bunch of other features that cost the manufacturer literally nothing and give the end user no added benefit other than an illusion of ownership.
Why the fuck they think they can do this is absolutely horseshit. It’s like Verizon wanting an extra 30 a month to use the built in already existing hotspot function on my phone. Fuck off Verizon.
If idiots quit paying for them, they’d stop.
Mine just lapsed yesterday and I refuse to pay $20 a month for their subscription service. It was cool for the free trial, but nothing in this is worth $20 per month.
In a car? What exactly does the subscription enable? I probably would pay $20/mo if we’re talking the difference between base model and the gee wiz model, but only if it’s the “car stuff”…like I wouldn’t have any real interest in shit like wifi hotspot and movie screens, but If it enables Pandora/xm, heated seats and steering wheel, collision detection, adaptive cruise… I’d be up for that. I’d probably go $5/mo on adaptive cruise alone tbh.
The real question was brought up in the article though… The question of wether that potential residual revenue is left out of the original MSRP. Are we selling all cars at base model price, and getting the value of all the options from just those who pay for them… Or, are we selling every car at “fully loaded” price, since they’ve all had all the work and materials put in to all potentially be a “fully loaded” vehicle…
I believe it’s the latter, in which case they are, in fact, simply ripping everyone off. The non-subscribers pay for options they can’t use because they won’t subscribe, and the subscribers pay for those options twice.
Of course, right to repair might completely fuck the whole plan at some point. Locking out options would require locking out third party repairs, and that might make the concept untenable if it runs afoul of right to repair laws, and I’d bet at some point it will.
Basically you’ll lose adaptive cruise control, remote start and a bunch of other features that cost the manufacturer literally nothing and give the end user no added benefit other than an illusion of ownership.
Why the fuck they think they can do this is absolutely horseshit. It’s like Verizon wanting an extra 30 a month to use the built in already existing hotspot function on my phone. Fuck off Verizon.
That seems spendy. I pay $8.25/mo for detailed traffic data and cellular connectivity (including music and video streaming).
I’m not sure I’d pay much more for that given that I have a cell phone.