Mercedes locks faster acceleration behind a $1,200 annual paywall(theverge.com)
theverge.com
Mercedes locks faster acceleration behind a $1,200 annual paywall
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price
356 comments
I totally agree.
I just made a note on my phone today about how in future if there wasn’t some kind of a law to protect “owners” of hardware they “purchased” from cross promotion or added inconveniences due to upselling services I would be quite sad.
For e.g. the experience of backing up your iPhone photographs to a external hard disk could be A LOT better if Apple was satisfied with the money they make from selling the device and didn’t want to sell us their iCloud service.
I so hate growth at all cost mindset that is visible in every business these days. I wish investors would just get used to lower growth rates.
I just made a note on my phone today about how in future if there wasn’t some kind of a law to protect “owners” of hardware they “purchased” from cross promotion or added inconveniences due to upselling services I would be quite sad.
For e.g. the experience of backing up your iPhone photographs to a external hard disk could be A LOT better if Apple was satisfied with the money they make from selling the device and didn’t want to sell us their iCloud service.
I so hate growth at all cost mindset that is visible in every business these days. I wish investors would just get used to lower growth rates.
> growth at all cost
Capitalism.
It used to be about making a great product, and people would buy it.
Then it became "We can generate a fake demand with various psychological tricks" to get people to buy it.
Then it became "Give away the razor and charge $$$$$$ for the blades".
Then it became "Buy the thing and subscription and save!"
Then it became "Buy this crippled thing so we can sell you the subscription for recurring income" <- This is where we're at.
Point being, it's not about making a great product. It's about using emotional tricks to get people to buy a thing AND a subscription, to get what 10y ago would have been a lump-sum you-own-it thing.
Capitalism.
It used to be about making a great product, and people would buy it.
Then it became "We can generate a fake demand with various psychological tricks" to get people to buy it.
Then it became "Give away the razor and charge $$$$$$ for the blades".
Then it became "Buy the thing and subscription and save!"
Then it became "Buy this crippled thing so we can sell you the subscription for recurring income" <- This is where we're at.
Point being, it's not about making a great product. It's about using emotional tricks to get people to buy a thing AND a subscription, to get what 10y ago would have been a lump-sum you-own-it thing.
When we calculate inflation do we calculate this factor? That a product has become more expensive to buy, more expensive to maintain, more expensive to run and you have to pay for features you used to get as part of the product purchase.
Where's "convince government to build a moat around our industry" fall on your timeline?
That's the brown smear underlining the whole thing.
I don't think it appears on the timeline because it is something every company does when they get an opportunity. When a company had a chance 50 years ago to do it, they did it. When a company today gets a chance to do it, they do it.
That's not a step - it's whenever you are large enough or have the right connections to do that. I was talking about large trends of how capitalist thought in the USA is going.
And at this moment in time, the "best" strategy is to milk customers with recurring purchases. And it turns out the value-add didn't work. So feature-removal-and-sell-back recurring purchase is the current phase.
We're seeing that everywhere in IOT, gadgets, kitchen consumer gear, vehicles. Basically, it's the manufacturers exerting control post-purchase with the implicit threat that they can and will brick your stuff.
To put bluntly, we need government oversight over these realms. First-sale doctrine needs to cover "functionality sold at bill of sale". "No bundling" (of additional services that "complete" a thing) also needs to be strongly enforced. And if/when companies do stuff later and remove features (PS3 for an easy example), that they need to be dealt with as if a hacker did that - as C-level ordered felonies with prison, direct massive compensation to the wronged parties, and massive fines (company-ending if need be).
And at this moment in time, the "best" strategy is to milk customers with recurring purchases. And it turns out the value-add didn't work. So feature-removal-and-sell-back recurring purchase is the current phase.
We're seeing that everywhere in IOT, gadgets, kitchen consumer gear, vehicles. Basically, it's the manufacturers exerting control post-purchase with the implicit threat that they can and will brick your stuff.
To put bluntly, we need government oversight over these realms. First-sale doctrine needs to cover "functionality sold at bill of sale". "No bundling" (of additional services that "complete" a thing) also needs to be strongly enforced. And if/when companies do stuff later and remove features (PS3 for an easy example), that they need to be dealt with as if a hacker did that - as C-level ordered felonies with prison, direct massive compensation to the wronged parties, and massive fines (company-ending if need be).
Still the devices I currently own are the best devices I ever had. And the services I subscribe to are incredible services that never even existed before.
Free markets are not always providing perfect solutions, but I am absolutely sure government intervention could only worsen the situation, never improve it.
Free markets are not always providing perfect solutions, but I am absolutely sure government intervention could only worsen the situation, never improve it.
Considering I'm not talking about you personally, nor do I know what things you personally have, that sort of dismissal is pretty pointless.
> Still the devices I currently own are the best devices I ever had.
"Own" - that's the key word here where the contention is. If the entity you bought this thing from still retains control over your thing, that's a rental.
> And the services I subscribe to are incredible services that never even existed before.
Considering you're not naming said "incredible services", it's irrelevant to dispute.
> Free markets are not always providing perfect solutions, but I am absolutely sure government intervention could only worsen the situation, never improve it.
Absolutely sure? That sounds extremely over-simplistic to reduce every possible legislation and governance down to "always sure government intervention worsens the situation".
And part of my recommendations are not needing new laws, but maintaining product truth-in-advertising in the face of remote access. And frankly, if I put in remote control, sold the machine, and then remotely destroyed it, I'd be brought in for felony hacking charges.
But really, the level of discourse of "guvernment baaaadddd" is damned distressing, and unfortunately a result of Reagan's very successful campaign to say that, defund public facing gov orgs, and then point at lack of performance for underfunded orgs, thus doing another round of underfunding.
> Still the devices I currently own are the best devices I ever had.
"Own" - that's the key word here where the contention is. If the entity you bought this thing from still retains control over your thing, that's a rental.
> And the services I subscribe to are incredible services that never even existed before.
Considering you're not naming said "incredible services", it's irrelevant to dispute.
> Free markets are not always providing perfect solutions, but I am absolutely sure government intervention could only worsen the situation, never improve it.
Absolutely sure? That sounds extremely over-simplistic to reduce every possible legislation and governance down to "always sure government intervention worsens the situation".
And part of my recommendations are not needing new laws, but maintaining product truth-in-advertising in the face of remote access. And frankly, if I put in remote control, sold the machine, and then remotely destroyed it, I'd be brought in for felony hacking charges.
But really, the level of discourse of "guvernment baaaadddd" is damned distressing, and unfortunately a result of Reagan's very successful campaign to say that, defund public facing gov orgs, and then point at lack of performance for underfunded orgs, thus doing another round of underfunding.
IMHO a clear example of govt intervention being beneficial is the EU enforcing USB C for charging, and before that, USB for phones charging. Compared to the complete mess, inconvenience and waste of virtually every single model of phone requiring a proprietary charger.
But of course there are a zillion other examples, if you bother to look, it's just that those benefits disappear into the fabric of society.
But of course there are a zillion other examples, if you bother to look, it's just that those benefits disappear into the fabric of society.
To understand why you’re wrong ask yourself: would USB-C even exist if some global government would’ve succeed in mandating micro USB chargers as the EU tried in the past?! We’d all be stuck with the wold's worst connector.
Luckily usb c sucks less, but: What company will now have any reason to research a better connector to replace usb c when it’s not allowed to put it on the market?! Any innovation in this area was made illegal in the EU. Luckily we still have USA not yet succumbing to the madness.
These kinds of shortsighted decisions are why the EU stopped growing and innovating and started falling behind while becoming dependent on cheap Russian energy.
Even if well meaning and well written (two big ifs), the actual price of regulation is extremely high, it’s stagnation. But nobody realizes it because that lost opportunity cost forever disappears into the fabric of society…
Luckily usb c sucks less, but: What company will now have any reason to research a better connector to replace usb c when it’s not allowed to put it on the market?! Any innovation in this area was made illegal in the EU. Luckily we still have USA not yet succumbing to the madness.
These kinds of shortsighted decisions are why the EU stopped growing and innovating and started falling behind while becoming dependent on cheap Russian energy.
Even if well meaning and well written (two big ifs), the actual price of regulation is extremely high, it’s stagnation. But nobody realizes it because that lost opportunity cost forever disappears into the fabric of society…
nope.
Of course if you mandate a very narrow standard, completely inflexibly, you may have this kind of problem.
But from where I am, it looks like the 'swashbuckling free market' has stagnated due to monopoly power (Apple lightning), whereas the 'evil plodding government' has ensured compatibility, reduced waste, gauging, etc, while accommodating the incredible evolution of the USB standard.
Of course if you mandate a very narrow standard, completely inflexibly, you may have this kind of problem.
But from where I am, it looks like the 'swashbuckling free market' has stagnated due to monopoly power (Apple lightning), whereas the 'evil plodding government' has ensured compatibility, reduced waste, gauging, etc, while accommodating the incredible evolution of the USB standard.
The free market was doing just fine, thank you very much. It converged by itself into two pretty good standards (none of the previously EU-recommended micro-USB abomination) - one private one open but each having a big enough market to make sure there was very little of that much-pretended "waste". On the contrary - the e-waste next year when millions of Apple users have to throw away perfectly fine cables and charges will be absolutely gigantic.
Apple will have no problem complying as they already had a separate European nano SIM model. Or maybe they were ready to switch to USB-C anyway (a standard they helped develop), as they did with iPad Pros and MacBooks. While us users will swallow the cost as always while bitching about downgrading to USB-C.
But now innovation in this domain was made illegal. There is no way a company will invest in researching a new connector when they cannot legally bring it to the market. So Europe is becoming dependent on American creativity in yet another area. A small and maybe negligible one, of course, but this is a symptom of a larger disease: the EU is voting to mandate stagnation. And the worst part when outlawing innovation is this: you don't even know what you are missing. Because nobody is allowed to invent that future anymore.
Apple will have no problem complying as they already had a separate European nano SIM model. Or maybe they were ready to switch to USB-C anyway (a standard they helped develop), as they did with iPad Pros and MacBooks. While us users will swallow the cost as always while bitching about downgrading to USB-C.
But now innovation in this domain was made illegal. There is no way a company will invest in researching a new connector when they cannot legally bring it to the market. So Europe is becoming dependent on American creativity in yet another area. A small and maybe negligible one, of course, but this is a symptom of a larger disease: the EU is voting to mandate stagnation. And the worst part when outlawing innovation is this: you don't even know what you are missing. Because nobody is allowed to invent that future anymore.
>Free markets are not always providing perfect solutions, but I am absolutely sure government intervention could only worsen the situation, never improve it.
We don't live in anything remotely resembling a free market. Tens of thousands of pages of government regulations govern every facet of our commercial markets. The only question is how these regulations should be written.
We don't live in anything remotely resembling a free market. Tens of thousands of pages of government regulations govern every facet of our commercial markets. The only question is how these regulations should be written.
What would change your mind?
Same things that would change anybody's mind: logical arguments and real-world examples.
Let me guess, there aren't any logical arguments, and no real-world examples that apply?
There are plenty of both but most are supporting my current beliefs, that is why I still have them.
I could just as well ask people who disagree with you and they would say the same thing, so that just says people find examples and arguments they already agree with. It's a bias indicator, which isn't really worth much.
If you wanna be really cynical, then thats not a step the company takes, politicians are quite willing to do it for them, and all by themselves.
There's a degree of symbiosis here. Politicians may be willing to seek such opportunities out on their own, because it helps their constituents (short-term, at the expense of others), or at least creates an appearance of it, which helps them and their party.
You can literally configure a Mac with a couple of clicks to offload every image from an iPhone to whatever folder you want locally. It's honestly hard to think of a way it could possibly be made easier.
Where it becomes hard is if the photos only exist on icloud. I have a good 60gb i cannot move off icloud. First party tools dont work. The download website apple provides for icloud data doesnt work. Photos app crashes to desktop. Third party command line interface tools don’t work. I’m at a loss. These data are being held hostage.
Backing up iPhone photos to an external disk is pretty easy. It's not the happy path because most people cannot handle their own backups.
this is false. Apple does not support this. If they did, you could connect a USB drive to your phone or tablet and save the photos.
To some extent this was eventually solved by third party vendors laboriously creating lightning flash drives and creating an app to talk to them.
But it is definite that you cannot backup your phone. Even apple's backup method is crippled.
I would like an image backup - where you could back up every bit of phone data - but apple gets in the way of that.
To some extent this was eventually solved by third party vendors laboriously creating lightning flash drives and creating an app to talk to them.
But it is definite that you cannot backup your phone. Even apple's backup method is crippled.
I would like an image backup - where you could back up every bit of phone data - but apple gets in the way of that.
You can have it automatically generate an image over WiFi to a computer with an external drive. I mean, it requires iTunes, but it's trivial.
But compare that to an Android phone, where I have no idea how to get access to anything more than pictures without ADB.
But compare that to an Android phone, where I have no idea how to get access to anything more than pictures without ADB.
I don't believe you can create an image even with itunes.
afaict it doesn't back up apps and app data. You can restore your phone, but the apps download again and app data is lost.
I believe this means if you are on version 10 of an app and 11 is the latest, a restore will upgrade you. And it you have say kindle books downloaded, you will have to re-download them again.
afaict it doesn't back up apps and app data. You can restore your phone, but the apps download again and app data is lost.
I believe this means if you are on version 10 of an app and 11 is the latest, a restore will upgrade you. And it you have say kindle books downloaded, you will have to re-download them again.
This is where Android shines. I have everything on my phone daily backed up to my personal Nextcloud server. If I ever get in a bind, with a few gestures I can wipe my whole phone and then later restore everything. One can alternatively use Syncthing to sync files to a PC.
Well, I suspect you are rooted for this and a whole bunch of app complain about rooting. I have android and appreciate the ability to backup, but it's infuriating what apps are doing.
I am not rooted, but I am using GrapheneOS which is technically a fork of Android. I am using the built in Seedvault for app backup to Nextcloud. Files are synced with Nextcloud client.
Can you just connect a external disk into the iPhone and click on "Backup" or it requires more than that?
They make special external disks (that may require an iOS app). I bought some for a friend.
But you can also have it connect to a computer over wifi and auto-backup. Does Google let you do that?
But you can also have it connect to a computer over wifi and auto-backup. Does Google let you do that?
No, but you also can't do that with a linux computer or any other device. You can easily copy and paste all of the photos onto a computer though.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying, but idevicebackup2 does exactly that.
What's stopping me from setting up a Linux computer to do that?
Not if you want to avoid itunes or icloud.
I mean, "avoiding backup software on your computer" seems like a big ask for organized backups.
But, yeah, I have lightening drives that connect directly to download pictures onto (well, purchased as a gift).. They even also have USB to be read in a computer.
But, yeah, I have lightening drives that connect directly to download pictures onto (well, purchased as a gift).. They even also have USB to be read in a computer.
If you have macOS you don't need either, just plug your iPhone open up "/Applications/Image Capture.app" and it will show your photos. You can select and drag and drop to a disk and delete them all from this app.
Having it happen automatically is what I was after, and that isn’t particularly easy to achieve. There must surely be a better way than my nasty hack, but I do now have automatic backups of iPhone photos onto a nas:
A VM running macOS and a script. Open Photos.app and sync with ‘Download Originals’ checked. Quit Photos.app and rsync the folder ‘Originals’ out of the app bundle and onto a NAS. Once finished, reopen Photos.app.
It’s quite horrible getting the script to run as permissions get tricky with chrontab, so I used Lingon X to schedule it.
A VM running macOS and a script. Open Photos.app and sync with ‘Download Originals’ checked. Quit Photos.app and rsync the folder ‘Originals’ out of the app bundle and onto a NAS. Once finished, reopen Photos.app.
It’s quite horrible getting the script to run as permissions get tricky with chrontab, so I used Lingon X to schedule it.
Maybe try it with an app on the phone instead? I've been using Synology's photos app to automatically upload everything in my photos library to my NAS for a couple of months now, and it's been seamless. Other apps, like PhotoSync, seem to offer similar functionality in a platform-independent way.
Thank you - I’ve had this suggested before but just couldn’t get it to work. I’ll have another go as that is obviously way better (and saves running a very large VM).
Modern versions of iTunes and modern iOS versions can be set up so that whenever they are on the same network iTunes automatically backs up over WiFi in the background. Then it's just a matter of a cron job pushing the files to the NAS.
That’s not a million miles off what I’m doing. It’s unhelpful that there isn’t a built in way to get images out of Photos.app as downloading a full library can use a lot of storage.
My bad, I misunderstood. Do you do all of this with an AppleScript? I would be really interested to look at this if you have it hosted on a repo somewhere.
You can use an adapter:
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD821AM/A/lightning-to-us...
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD821AM/A/lightning-to-us...
Image Capture.app, which is built in to macOS, is very no-nonsense and works great.
If Apple was satisfied with the money they were making, they wouldn't be Apple. They'd be another irrelevant consumer technology company. It is only due to that ruthless mindset that they have gotten where they are today.
To give them their due, they do a good job of at least appearing to offer superior service through vertical integration - as a long-time Android user, I am probably going to make the switch at the iPhone 15 release to make the most of this while it lasts.
Car companies can't offer anything close; this subscription features thing from Intel, Mercedes and BMW is bold-faced grifting and needs to be stamped out with extreme prejudice.
Car companies can't offer anything close; this subscription features thing from Intel, Mercedes and BMW is bold-faced grifting and needs to be stamped out with extreme prejudice.
Running your own software on your own iPhone requires a $99 a year subscription. Just for code signing, it's basically pure profit, and there's no practical way around it.
It's a classic masterpiece of platform gatekeeping: Getting money for doing nothing, but being the only one who can do it.
It's a classic masterpiece of platform gatekeeping: Getting money for doing nothing, but being the only one who can do it.
Mercedes used to have high resale value due to durability. They even commissioned an internal study (when deciding if they should cheap out to compete with companies like Nissan) the study found that car companies that have high resale values have higher profit margins.
Locking quality behind a subscription is 100% incompatible with that pattern. Some short-sighted executives just sold Mercedes’ long-term future for a couple extra bucks.
Just blacklist and ignore them, they’ll figure it out eventually.
Locking quality behind a subscription is 100% incompatible with that pattern. Some short-sighted executives just sold Mercedes’ long-term future for a couple extra bucks.
Just blacklist and ignore them, they’ll figure it out eventually.
This is another great but underrated statement.
Instead of endlessly debating if Mercedes should have done this or not, vote with your wallet. if you dont agree with what they did dont buy the product.
If enough people dont buy it, they will change. it isnt like Mercedes has a lock on the market like you see in other areas.
Instead of endlessly debating if Mercedes should have done this or not, vote with your wallet. if you dont agree with what they did dont buy the product.
If enough people dont buy it, they will change. it isnt like Mercedes has a lock on the market like you see in other areas.
I've already decided the same, and my current vehicle is a 2015, before they started this new wave of nonsense.
I drive a truck. I think I'm going to get my favorite body style of F150 (late 70s/early 80s) and put a brand new engine in it, and whatever else it needs to make it 100%. I don't need any tech except one of those things that turns AUX into FM radio.
When I bought this truck, it replaced a 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 318,000 miles (512,000km). I can live without luxury. I'll miss my heated steering wheel, though.
I drive a truck. I think I'm going to get my favorite body style of F150 (late 70s/early 80s) and put a brand new engine in it, and whatever else it needs to make it 100%. I don't need any tech except one of those things that turns AUX into FM radio.
When I bought this truck, it replaced a 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 318,000 miles (512,000km). I can live without luxury. I'll miss my heated steering wheel, though.
As a young man I used to drive a 1980s Ford Ranger. It had manual transmission, an AM/FM radio, shitty A/C, bare metal interior, crank windows, and a bent driveshaft that meant it could really only safely go about 50 mph. You had to carry a few gallons of water in the bed in case the radiator needed a refill.
It was genuinely, with no sarcasm, my favorite vehicle I ever owned. It was mine and it felt like freedom. (Also, with no upholstery, no amount of smoking could stink it up, so an extra helping of freedom).
I miss the shit out of that busted old pile of junk.
It was genuinely, with no sarcasm, my favorite vehicle I ever owned. It was mine and it felt like freedom. (Also, with no upholstery, no amount of smoking could stink it up, so an extra helping of freedom).
I miss the shit out of that busted old pile of junk.
For someone considering this, to expound on I don't need any tech except…
• depending on your era the radios are easily replaceable with something that has aux in and bluetooth.
• towing insurance, the kind that actually pays for the tow, not the garbage my insurance includes which will pay part of a really expensive tow leaving you with more than you will find if you shop around.
• a flexible schedule.
• a greater than average tolerance for vehicular death.
I use a 1990s F250HD when I need a truck, love it, can't stop to put fuel in it without someone coming over to talk truck stories. It has more miles on it than the Artemis space capsule. But, it does strand me from time to time (water pump bearing, transmission, instant total brake failure on a downhill grade into a contested intersection with 4 tons of boat on the hitch…)
As much as I use it for its truck super power, I would be money ahead to sell it and just rent Home Depot/Menards truck for in town use and an Enterprise 3/4 ton for long distance towing. But, its "my truck", and I'll keep it until the next transmission or engine.
• depending on your era the radios are easily replaceable with something that has aux in and bluetooth.
• towing insurance, the kind that actually pays for the tow, not the garbage my insurance includes which will pay part of a really expensive tow leaving you with more than you will find if you shop around.
• a flexible schedule.
• a greater than average tolerance for vehicular death.
I use a 1990s F250HD when I need a truck, love it, can't stop to put fuel in it without someone coming over to talk truck stories. It has more miles on it than the Artemis space capsule. But, it does strand me from time to time (water pump bearing, transmission, instant total brake failure on a downhill grade into a contested intersection with 4 tons of boat on the hitch…)
As much as I use it for its truck super power, I would be money ahead to sell it and just rent Home Depot/Menards truck for in town use and an Enterprise 3/4 ton for long distance towing. But, its "my truck", and I'll keep it until the next transmission or engine.
>instant total brake failure on a downhill grade into a contested intersection with 4 tons of boat on the hitch…
You're free to drive into a tree of your own accord, but please don't let your personal choices kill my girlfriend or mother. If you drive an old vehicle, especially if it's a large truck used for towing, ensure before any drive that the brakes will not fail, and that you have the requisite backups required by local law.
You're free to drive into a tree of your own accord, but please don't let your personal choices kill my girlfriend or mother. If you drive an old vehicle, especially if it's a large truck used for towing, ensure before any drive that the brakes will not fail, and that you have the requisite backups required by local law.
I totally agree! The truck was recently safety inspected for the state, and brake systems are supposed to fail front and back independently. Front and the rear failed in different ways, though the front failure was precipitated by the extra pressure when the rear failed. The mechanical emergency brake was fine.
Safety features and emissions regulations might put a dent in that as a long-term plan.
Old cars are nearly always grandfathered in to those kind of things. In my state we have yearly inspections, but they are waived if you have an """antique""" which is 25 years old or if you go through the work to get it certified as a "hot rod" type vehicle, IE a custom build.
pre 2008 models are your best option, a bunch of privacy violating electronics have been mandated in the US since then. Many of them have confirmed backdoors
if it wasn't for these regulations I think there would be a huge market for "dumb" cars that just have the essentials without a bunch of added stuff. Same goes for TVs, I' love to buy a dumb flat screen TV
at this point seems like corporations are using dystopian sci-fi for ideas and inspiration rather than as something to avoid. Stuff like this a few years ago was literally parody material, now it's actually happening
if it wasn't for these regulations I think there would be a huge market for "dumb" cars that just have the essentials without a bunch of added stuff. Same goes for TVs, I' love to buy a dumb flat screen TV
at this point seems like corporations are using dystopian sci-fi for ideas and inspiration rather than as something to avoid. Stuff like this a few years ago was literally parody material, now it's actually happening
Nobody is forcing you to plug a smart TV into Internet and no smart TV has the capability to talk to 5G free/marketing channels yet.
Some TVs are known to look for open WiFi networks in order to connect to the internet and send data back home.
Which ones? The vague "Some TVs" screams FUD.
Past conversations about this on HN suggest that this is almost certainly a complete fabrication, not something that has actually been documented.
Past conversations about this on HN suggest that this is almost certainly a complete fabrication, not something that has actually been documented.
It's alright, the quality of non-luxury makers has never been better and honestly, a top model Hyundai, Honda or Toyota is still pretty comfy and nice.
But what’s preventing those companies from adding subscription features?
The notion of value plus their clientele. Same reason they currently offer luxury features for so cheap. They could poach a lot of business by simply not adding these things.
Except Toyota already came up with a subscription to start your car over on https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/12/22831105/toyota-subscrip...
I was ready to purchase a Rav4 this year but went with Ford instead precisely because of this. I have no reason to believe Ford won't _eventually_ follow suit but at least, for now, I don't have to pay to use the remote start.
They already do. A modern corolla will lose access to remote start after an initial free subscription period.
Comfy and nice and also packed with "features" that monitor all manners of your activity to phone home and report. I don't want a car that has tires that spy on me and report my activity to the tire company.
Exactly the reason I've always avoided European luxury cars. Imagine buying a full car for a hefty price and having to keep paying extra to use the features you already bought
Like Tesla might do with their upgraded autopilots and seat heating? They have also started talking about subscriptions for these, don't know if they actually have implemented it yet..
I think all luxury manufacturers will experiment with this unfortunately. Best you can do is don't buy into it...
I think all luxury manufacturers will experiment with this unfortunately. Best you can do is don't buy into it...
I think there's a case to be made for autopilot subscriptions; once autopilot finally does what is says on the tin.
These things require access to accurate and up-to-date road and traffic info, need updates to stay compliant with local regulations, and may (need to) include insurance.
These are all factors that nudge towards a monthly subscription, instead of a one-time purchase. Once the seller goes bust, you wouldn't be able to use your 'purchase' anyhow.
These things require access to accurate and up-to-date road and traffic info, need updates to stay compliant with local regulations, and may (need to) include insurance.
These are all factors that nudge towards a monthly subscription, instead of a one-time purchase. Once the seller goes bust, you wouldn't be able to use your 'purchase' anyhow.
>These things require access to accurate and up-to-date road and traffic info
Which they will probably steal from the regular drivers, so you will be effectively paying for your own data.
Which they will probably steal from the regular drivers, so you will be effectively paying for your own data.
Tesla also has a paid acceleration boost option in their app and its more expensive than $1200.
It is a one-time $2000 upgrade on my car. Dunno about others, but the subscription being a "for the life of the vehicle" purchase seems like the lousy part of this deal.
Only available on the Model 3 LR AWD.
And this wasn't a feature when it first came out, but I wonder if Tesla planned it from the beginning, or if it's something they decided to start offering only after people started noticing that the motors and battery on the LR AWD were the same as the Performance and started asking for a software unlock.
And this wasn't a feature when it first came out, but I wonder if Tesla planned it from the beginning, or if it's something they decided to start offering only after people started noticing that the motors and battery on the LR AWD were the same as the Performance and started asking for a software unlock.
Available on Model Y LR as well
Haven't they already done something along those lines where some options are per-owner and transferring the vehicle will remove the option?
If you sell private party, or trade it to a non-Tesla dealership, then all options will follow the vehicle.
If it ever gets back into Tesla's hands, they have the option to remove the features.
There WAS a case where someone bought a used Tesla from a non-Tesla dealership that was sold with FSD and Tesla then removed the FSD, and there was a lot of outrage behind it, but like many cases of outrage, it was based on a misunderstanding. That car was never supposed to have FSD. There was a bug at some point that gave FSD to cars that weren't supposed to have it, and that car was sold before the bug was fixed, removing FSD, but the dealer sold it as having FSD because at the time, it did. Of course, IMO, Tesla should have just gone ahead and granted FSD in order to save face instead of generating a ton of negative PR and creating a massive amount of misconceptions.
If it ever gets back into Tesla's hands, they have the option to remove the features.
There WAS a case where someone bought a used Tesla from a non-Tesla dealership that was sold with FSD and Tesla then removed the FSD, and there was a lot of outrage behind it, but like many cases of outrage, it was based on a misunderstanding. That car was never supposed to have FSD. There was a bug at some point that gave FSD to cars that weren't supposed to have it, and that car was sold before the bug was fixed, removing FSD, but the dealer sold it as having FSD because at the time, it did. Of course, IMO, Tesla should have just gone ahead and granted FSD in order to save face instead of generating a ton of negative PR and creating a massive amount of misconceptions.
No, but it's considered. What you may have heard is car returned and feature being removed when sold to someone else.
> I think all luxury manufacturers will experiment with this unfortunately.
And not so luxury as well, they might start by giving you the features and financing that by playing/showing you the ads and giving the incentive to pay. I imagine in not so distant future even the microwaves for plebs will have ads.
And not so luxury as well, they might start by giving you the features and financing that by playing/showing you the ads and giving the incentive to pay. I imagine in not so distant future even the microwaves for plebs will have ads.
Tesla already provides a faster acceleration software upgrade. Mercedes just copied them.
Tesla's acceleration boost upgrade is a one-time fee though!
Yup, the costs for parts, maintenance and potential repairs for a lot of luxury cars has always been a running joke. Hard to use most of the features if you can't fix the car to run.
I think this might target you in a weird way.
This will affect used car sales, maybe like used video games with activation codes and the like.
This will affect used car sales, maybe like used video games with activation codes and the like.
My 2 yo car shows 47MPG and its safety features (e.g. adaptive cruise control and the ability to stay in lane) are more addictive than I expected. A 20 yo car strikes me as unrealistic extreme even though I drove my previous one for 10 years myself.
The EQS without this option is still a very desirable car, mind you.
I suspect this is merely an experiment to see if people buy into this stuff (Hint: I believe they won't).
I suspect this is merely an experiment to see if people buy into this stuff (Hint: I believe they won't).
I'm with you. Of course, if I already owned one I would be searching the net up and down on how to crack the feature without paying :)
Seems like something pretty easy to make an aftermarket "fix" for
I could easily afford one, but I would rather buy and own a car than have to rent like this.
I get it, however unlike BMW's heated seats, increased performance can wear out parts of the car faster.
Say a clutch that would normally last 7 years and costs $7,000 for parts/hours lasts half as long if users do regular full throttle accelerations to 60 MPH (like say an on ramp)?
Say a clutch that would normally last 7 years and costs $7,000 for parts/hours lasts half as long if users do regular full throttle accelerations to 60 MPH (like say an on ramp)?
Well there’s an upside. Automobiles in America should obviously be speed limited to 75mph, but that’s politically and commercially impossible. If this were normalized, we could sort of get better safety as a side-effect.
In the US, there's plenty of places with a speed limit of 80: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_Sta...
And many more places with 75 - which people effectively treat as 80.
And many more places with 75 - which people effectively treat as 80.
There are also private roads without speed limits.
Speed is a poor metric for safety and speed limits have a history of being set at levels optimal to generate revenue, not optimal for taxpayer convenience or safety.
The speed-unlimited sections of the German autobahn have far fewer accidents per million miles travelled than any US highway, in spite of the fact that many people are routinely doing 150+ mph / 250+ kmh on a daily basis through those stretches.
If you're arguing from an environmental perspective, just remember that even if the entirety of the USA and western europe hit net zero carbon emissions tomorrow, it would still be impossible to avoid 2° C of global warming thanks to India and China alone, to say nothing of the rest of the world.
I forgot which study it comes from, but I read that several dozen Chinese coal-powered industrial cargo ships produce more CO2 than all North American personal automobile emissions combined.
The speed-unlimited sections of the German autobahn have far fewer accidents per million miles travelled than any US highway, in spite of the fact that many people are routinely doing 150+ mph / 250+ kmh on a daily basis through those stretches.
If you're arguing from an environmental perspective, just remember that even if the entirety of the USA and western europe hit net zero carbon emissions tomorrow, it would still be impossible to avoid 2° C of global warming thanks to India and China alone, to say nothing of the rest of the world.
I forgot which study it comes from, but I read that several dozen Chinese coal-powered industrial cargo ships produce more CO2 than all North American personal automobile emissions combined.
Try spending a few minutes to see the "climate debate" here in canada.
I'm not a climate denier, and we should do more to improve things but what would the impact be if 32 million people cut back?
We already have massive taxes on our gas, and now we have a "carbon charge" on top of this.
if canada's consumption fell to zero would the world notice?
If we really want climate change, we need to stop focusing on small consumer usage and look where the real problem areas.
Convincing people in Saskatoon to buy electric cars, which are powered by coal plants is not going to "save the planet".
Helping remove coal as an energy source globally will.
I'm not a climate denier, and we should do more to improve things but what would the impact be if 32 million people cut back?
We already have massive taxes on our gas, and now we have a "carbon charge" on top of this.
if canada's consumption fell to zero would the world notice?
If we really want climate change, we need to stop focusing on small consumer usage and look where the real problem areas.
Convincing people in Saskatoon to buy electric cars, which are powered by coal plants is not going to "save the planet".
Helping remove coal as an energy source globally will.
Removing coal as an energy generation source in the west is a step in the right direction, but without real enforcement mechanisms against China, India, and other hyper-polluters, none of our efforts matter, ultimately. It's a nihilistic view, but unfortunately it's also the reality. Toothless agreements like the PCA, which don't even see China or India setting a firm date on when their "peak carbon" will be (after which their emissions start decreasing) simply aren't going to be enough if we want earth to be a hospitable planet for human life in 2100.
> Automobiles in America should obviously be speed limited to 75mph
Why? There are speed limits greater than that in a few states. The flow of traffic in Southern California is often even faster.
Why? There are speed limits greater than that in a few states. The flow of traffic in Southern California is often even faster.
> The flow of traffic in Southern California is often even faster.
Which is exactly the problem GP wants to fix.
I'm more worried about the growing pedestrian deaths since vehicles have no requirement, like in Europe, to be as safe as possible when hitting pedestrians.
Which is exactly the problem GP wants to fix.
I'm more worried about the growing pedestrian deaths since vehicles have no requirement, like in Europe, to be as safe as possible when hitting pedestrians.
> Which is exactly the problem GP wants to fix.
But it's a good thing that we should make sure can continue, not a problem that needs to be fixed.
But it's a good thing that we should make sure can continue, not a problem that needs to be fixed.
If the speed limit was 25mph it would be even safer. And if cars were abolished all together nobody would ever die from a car accident. But life isn't about maximizing safety.
Yeah, normal people largely do what they ought and rich idiots get to pay and get a pass. What a lovely future.
It's also possible for a person to drive on private roads with no speed limits. It may not be common, but a vehicle's speed shouldn't be limited unless there's a way to remove that limit.
I agree there should be a limit to speed and size. We've been okay putting restrictions on guns for decades. 2020 Firearm deaths: 45k, 2020 Vehicle traffic deaths: 40k.
You could combine those deaths , and double the combined figure, and you'd still be nowhere near the number of annual deaths attributable to medical errors: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su...
Reminders of scale aside, I posit that the limit for vehicles needn't be speed or size, but braking distance. If a manufacturer can make a 6600 pound SUV that stops from 75 mph in the same distance that a 3300 pound sports car with track brakes and extra grippy, super-wide tires, brakes from 75, I say more power to them.
Until then, this metric will naturally lead manufacturers to downsize, and for the ones who still produce SUV's anyway, they will need to be as good at stopping as regular cars, which might make them more cost-prohibitive and dissuade their ownership via market pressure.
After all, it's not speed or size that cause automotive fatalities, it's cars being unable to stop in time before impacting other vehicles, pedestrians, or impassible barriers.
Reminders of scale aside, I posit that the limit for vehicles needn't be speed or size, but braking distance. If a manufacturer can make a 6600 pound SUV that stops from 75 mph in the same distance that a 3300 pound sports car with track brakes and extra grippy, super-wide tires, brakes from 75, I say more power to them.
Until then, this metric will naturally lead manufacturers to downsize, and for the ones who still produce SUV's anyway, they will need to be as good at stopping as regular cars, which might make them more cost-prohibitive and dissuade their ownership via market pressure.
After all, it's not speed or size that cause automotive fatalities, it's cars being unable to stop in time before impacting other vehicles, pedestrians, or impassible barriers.
Note that I did not actually claim that it was the third leading cause of death, just that it eclipses auto deaths and firearm deaths combined and doubled.
It’s a subject that gets quite hot quite fast, but as tactfully as possible: Looking in from the outside, the restrictions on gun sales in the US are pretty tame compared to a lot of other countries.
Robust "right to repair" legislation can't come soon enough. Giving owners the right to load aftermarket software/firmware on their car will "fix" these kinds of business models.
Something that touches power-train needs to be ASIL-D grade. For a good reason.
When sold by the manufacturer, sure. When modded by the final consumer, I am less convinced. Sure, a misbehaving car can be a hazard to those around it as well as its driver, but we already accept a huge amount of that in the name of personal freedom. Why not a bit more for those among us who choose to tune and hack their vehicles?
I'm firmly on this side. The single most dangerous part of the car is the driver. You can do basically the exact same damage with a standard car at highways speeds using nothing but the steering wheel and accelerator.
And it happens all the time. Functionally - I don't see much difference between a misbehaving control module and a driver having a stroke.
You can also solve both problems with a single stroke by making public transportation effective and preferable in places where density is likely to make this a problem (cities).
And it happens all the time. Functionally - I don't see much difference between a misbehaving control module and a driver having a stroke.
You can also solve both problems with a single stroke by making public transportation effective and preferable in places where density is likely to make this a problem (cities).
> Functionally - I don't see much difference between a misbehaving control module and a driver having a stroke.
There’s a huge difference: one can be reasonably prevented. Unfortunately we can’t reliably prevent people from having strokes.
There’s a huge difference: one can be reasonably prevented. Unfortunately we can’t reliably prevent people from having strokes.
And you're also going to require this for all other mishaps on the road that we can reasonably prevent?
Legally binding regulations for auto maintenance? Legal stops on the road for tire wear checks? Legal scrapping of cars that don't pass certain safety standards? Legal checks for dementia and vision for the elderly?
Basically - why is this one the one that you draw the line at? What makes it special? Most folks can agree that neither the driver nor the public want a vehicle with a malfunctioning control module. It's not like there are misaligned interests here. Tuning should be expected to work just as well and any other after-market modification. Are you concerned that it provides more torque, or more speed? Because the same thing is true of just buying a different car...
Should a sports car be illegal because it has more torque?
Should we ban red cars because - statistically - they're more likely to be involved in an accident?
Should no one be allowed to drive a subcompact because crash mortalities are nearly double those of the average vehicle?
Why? Why does this require regulation that you're proposing? What warrants the loss of control for the individual, in a case where it's pretty clear interests are aligned, and there are dozens of other nearly identical risks?
Legally binding regulations for auto maintenance? Legal stops on the road for tire wear checks? Legal scrapping of cars that don't pass certain safety standards? Legal checks for dementia and vision for the elderly?
Basically - why is this one the one that you draw the line at? What makes it special? Most folks can agree that neither the driver nor the public want a vehicle with a malfunctioning control module. It's not like there are misaligned interests here. Tuning should be expected to work just as well and any other after-market modification. Are you concerned that it provides more torque, or more speed? Because the same thing is true of just buying a different car...
Should a sports car be illegal because it has more torque?
Should we ban red cars because - statistically - they're more likely to be involved in an accident?
Should no one be allowed to drive a subcompact because crash mortalities are nearly double those of the average vehicle?
Why? Why does this require regulation that you're proposing? What warrants the loss of control for the individual, in a case where it's pretty clear interests are aligned, and there are dozens of other nearly identical risks?
>Unfortunately we can’t reliably prevent people from having strokes
Nonsense, we can implement draconian licensing laws and Orwellian medical record sharing laws to keep the at risk off the roads. The peasants can have all the strokes they want, just not on the roads.
(The above is satire but it's proximity to viewpoints that aren't satire should make people uncomfortable.)
Nonsense, we can implement draconian licensing laws and Orwellian medical record sharing laws to keep the at risk off the roads. The peasants can have all the strokes they want, just not on the roads.
(The above is satire but it's proximity to viewpoints that aren't satire should make people uncomfortable.)
Or require redundant driving controls and a backup driver always present, if the main driver has a stroke the co-pilot takes over and drives. Where there's a will there's a way.
Or take it to the limit and make driving so inconvenient that nobody drives, thereby solving the problem once and for all.
Or take it to the limit and make driving so inconvenient that nobody drives, thereby solving the problem once and for all.
The cool thing is we can choose where to arbitrarily draw lines between acceptable and not acceptable.
I’d say we can choose to place that line somewhere between “regulating modifications to cars” and “draconian health examinations for licensing”.
In your satirical scenario the methods needed in order to prevent strokes while driving are far less reasonable than the methods needed to regulate modifications to critical systems of cars, from feasibility of implementation to the effects on personal privacy and liberty. Therefore I think we can pretty easily distinguish the two and they are not really that similar.
I’d say we can choose to place that line somewhere between “regulating modifications to cars” and “draconian health examinations for licensing”.
In your satirical scenario the methods needed in order to prevent strokes while driving are far less reasonable than the methods needed to regulate modifications to critical systems of cars, from feasibility of implementation to the effects on personal privacy and liberty. Therefore I think we can pretty easily distinguish the two and they are not really that similar.
The point I was trying to highlight which predictably went over some heads is that just because you can prevent 99.99% of something doesn't mean that would not be an absolutely asinine endeavor with little payoff.
Medical events, mechanical failures, software failures, they're all in the long tail of "rare causes of accidents". The fat part of the curve is made up of various flavors of willful dumb driver behavior. It is pure foley to direct more resources at those problems than the bare minimum needed to look like you're "doing something" so that the people who don't understand how likely these events are are placated. The bulk of resources spent toward safety should be allocated toward reducing dumb things drivers do.
Medical events, mechanical failures, software failures, they're all in the long tail of "rare causes of accidents". The fat part of the curve is made up of various flavors of willful dumb driver behavior. It is pure foley to direct more resources at those problems than the bare minimum needed to look like you're "doing something" so that the people who don't understand how likely these events are are placated. The bulk of resources spent toward safety should be allocated toward reducing dumb things drivers do.
> The single most dangerous part of the car is the driver.
this is only because we have incredibly high safety standards when it comes to cars.
this is only because we have incredibly high safety standards when it comes to cars.
I'm incline to agree, but the driver is the most dangerous because we _assume_ that the when the driver pushes the gas or the breaks they will work.
In the age of the accelerator and break going to software systems instead of mechanical systems, it is 100% possible to crash that software and all the sudden you cannot break.
In the age of the accelerator and break going to software systems instead of mechanical systems, it is 100% possible to crash that software and all the sudden you cannot break.
> Functionally - I don't see much difference between a misbehaving control module and a driver having a stroke.
We have total control over not installing aftermarket safety critical software, which may or may not allow a driver to break.
We have total control over not installing aftermarket safety critical software, which may or may not allow a driver to break.
We've had after market solution to modify the power train of combustion engines for a long time, I remember ones that used a palm pilot. Once it is yours, you should be able to do what you want, especially on such a large ticket item.
isnt there the idea of a car being 'street legal?' we already have an incredible amount of regulation on how you are able to modify your car. You shouldnt be able to do anything you want to your car and expect to use it on public roads.
In the US as long as you don't touch the emissions system you'd be hard pressed to run afoul of anything as long as you're not taking some specific look and chasing it to the extremes (super tall trucks, cars with tires sticking way out, absurd headlights, etc).
Very few places have restrictions beyond your basic safety equipment (seat belt, airbags), turn signals, reflectors, being installed and working properly.
Sure, but what's being suggested is making modifications within those parameters.
You can tinker with the powertrain but it still has to pass smog.
You can tinker with the powertrain but it still has to pass smog.
Smog isn't a requirement in a vast majority of US counties, and even in the ones where it is required, finding a shop that will pass you for it even without a catalytic converter is fairly trivial. Further, I've never heard of anyone getting ticketed outside of California for having smog noncompliance.
Sure, some jurisdictions have decided to have different standards. What's your point?
Rolling coal is a thing and you can take a vehicle to a place around the corner from the test center for a $100 'tune up' to make it pass.
You're describing fraud, which is an issue orthogonal from standards compliance.
If you're worried about people surreptitiously breaking the law then it doesn't matter what the law is because those people are breaking it regardless.
If you're worried about people surreptitiously breaking the law then it doesn't matter what the law is because those people are breaking it regardless.
> Sure, a misbehaving car can be a hazard to those around it as well as its driver, but we already accept a huge amount of that
"Well we shouldn't" is also a very reasonable response to this. Cars should have speed and acceleration governors. The main reason they don't is that they haven't, but in this case "personal freedom" is basically just the enjoyment of the driver.
There are very very few other domains where we allow people to risk harm and death to other nonconsenting nonparticipants just because it's enjoyable to them. We should bring cars in line with our other social norms, not increase the degree to which they are an outlier.
"Well we shouldn't" is also a very reasonable response to this. Cars should have speed and acceleration governors. The main reason they don't is that they haven't, but in this case "personal freedom" is basically just the enjoyment of the driver.
There are very very few other domains where we allow people to risk harm and death to other nonconsenting nonparticipants just because it's enjoyable to them. We should bring cars in line with our other social norms, not increase the degree to which they are an outlier.
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It's legal to install an aftermarket turbo, swap the engine, lift the car by a few feet. Or repair your powertrain with zip-ties.
It's not quite as straight forward when it comes to ECU reprogramming/tuning. While it seems legal to modify an ECU or use an aftermarket ECU, states like California now won't allow cars with these sorts of mods to pass smog tests, and there's nothing to stop manufacturers from voiding your warranty for soft-modifying the ECU. It's a small leap for states to decide that not having the latest ECU firmware causes a failed smog test or even an "emissions fine" regardless of the actual exhaust composition.
> states like California now won't allow cars with these sorts of mods to pass smog tests
Thankfully, a lot of us live in better-governed states than California. And even if it is illegal where you live, stuff you own shouldn't try to enforce laws against you.
Thankfully, a lot of us live in better-governed states than California. And even if it is illegal where you live, stuff you own shouldn't try to enforce laws against you.
> and there's nothing to stop manufacturers from voiding your warranty for soft-modifying the ECU.
Wouldn’t the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act still apply?
Wouldn’t the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act still apply?
Generally speaking, yes, unless a dealer believes they can blame your modification for the issue. The ECU affects the entire powertrain, so there's incentive for the dealer to blame the mod for even just a cracked engine mount, while counting on you paying for a repair as opposed to filing a lawsuit.
After all, your engine must have been running hot and accelerated the wear on the mount. Oh, logging shows it wasn't? Must be a malfunctioning thermostat. That'll be $3,000 for the mount, the thermostat, and the labor. Not including any extra charges, fees, surcharges, taxes, or overcharges.
Car dealers are no different from insurance companies. Whether it's warranty or insurance, they make money by denying claims. The ECU is enough of a black box that practically anything critical can be blamed on it if it's not using factory settings.
After all, your engine must have been running hot and accelerated the wear on the mount. Oh, logging shows it wasn't? Must be a malfunctioning thermostat. That'll be $3,000 for the mount, the thermostat, and the labor. Not including any extra charges, fees, surcharges, taxes, or overcharges.
Car dealers are no different from insurance companies. Whether it's warranty or insurance, they make money by denying claims. The ECU is enough of a black box that practically anything critical can be blamed on it if it's not using factory settings.
Many ECUs are not equipped with adequate tamper detection to detect having been modified, and then flashed back to stock before returning to a service center. This an extremely common practice in the auto enthusiast community.
Wouldn’t they need to demonstrate that the ECU modifications _caused_ the damage? Of course they have incentive to get out of the warranty, but isn’t the whole point of the act to prevent them from getting out of it _unless_ they can demonstrate your mods to the ECU caused the damage?
Technically, yes in the US, but that does not mean that they can't still deny you claiming a modification did it. You could then take them to court but here's the rub there.
Consider, how much just a single lawyer cost per hour I don't think it would be worth it a lot of the times unless the entire car was basically destroyed or something very expensive has failed to have enough value to justify it. Otherwise the repair is gonna be a lot times in a similar ballpark cost wise (for most cars) as a law suite.
-Edit- Moreover if the case is not decided quickly or settled it could also end up costing a lot more.
Consider, how much just a single lawyer cost per hour I don't think it would be worth it a lot of the times unless the entire car was basically destroyed or something very expensive has failed to have enough value to justify it. Otherwise the repair is gonna be a lot times in a similar ballpark cost wise (for most cars) as a law suite.
-Edit- Moreover if the case is not decided quickly or settled it could also end up costing a lot more.
Okay sure but in that case the dealer/manufacturer is willing to _lie_. I.e. to claim that your actions caused it without any proof. At that point everything is a bit out the window. They could simply make up any justification to deny your claim if they're willing to lie. I don't really see what's so special about the ECU in this case.
Apple will won't honor their warranty if you jailbreak your phone which is kinda similar to modding the firmware on ECU. Do you think car companies are going to be any different if they can get away with it.
In the case of Apple it's pretty hard to justify the court costs for a 1000 dollar device. So Apple rarely has to prove that the Jail break was the cause of the failure. They technically can't deny warranty claim if a modification was not the cause of the failure. However, Apple operates basically by default for almost all failures if Jail Broken you get no warranty which is technically not legal.
In the case of Apple it's pretty hard to justify the court costs for a 1000 dollar device. So Apple rarely has to prove that the Jail break was the cause of the failure. They technically can't deny warranty claim if a modification was not the cause of the failure. However, Apple operates basically by default for almost all failures if Jail Broken you get no warranty which is technically not legal.
> They could simply make up any justification to deny your claim if they're willing to lie.
Yes, but only if they think they can get away with it. This kind of thing happens all the time.
Arguably, the fact that the ECU was modified is evidence enough. It's pretty difficult to argue that an aftermarket stereo head unit, or air intake, or "ooga" horn caused engine damage. That would be a fairly easy win in court if the dealer is foolish enough to think anyone would buy that explanation.
Remapping an ECU is very different. If an ECU is remapped, that likely means the engine is operating outside of the intended parameters, and dealers would probably argue that the ECU is not intended to be modified by 3rd parties. From their perspective, why should they foot the bill for damage caused by changing how the engine functions? The dealer can deny your warranty claim because they know there's a 99.9% chance you won't fight it, and that you'll probably lose anyway if you do.
In the case of Mercedes and their paywall for faster acceleration, they could argue that any "hack" to enable faster acceleration is not only a form of piracy but that a hack could lead to dangerous situations; when say a bit is flipped to enable the acceleration, but the rest of the conditionals in the programming aren't aware of this change, the behavior of the vehicle can't be entirely predicted.
I don't necessarily agree with any of that reasoning, but this is how car companies not only defend their ability to deny warranty but extract more revenue from its customers going forward into the digital future.
Yes, but only if they think they can get away with it. This kind of thing happens all the time.
Arguably, the fact that the ECU was modified is evidence enough. It's pretty difficult to argue that an aftermarket stereo head unit, or air intake, or "ooga" horn caused engine damage. That would be a fairly easy win in court if the dealer is foolish enough to think anyone would buy that explanation.
Remapping an ECU is very different. If an ECU is remapped, that likely means the engine is operating outside of the intended parameters, and dealers would probably argue that the ECU is not intended to be modified by 3rd parties. From their perspective, why should they foot the bill for damage caused by changing how the engine functions? The dealer can deny your warranty claim because they know there's a 99.9% chance you won't fight it, and that you'll probably lose anyway if you do.
In the case of Mercedes and their paywall for faster acceleration, they could argue that any "hack" to enable faster acceleration is not only a form of piracy but that a hack could lead to dangerous situations; when say a bit is flipped to enable the acceleration, but the rest of the conditionals in the programming aren't aware of this change, the behavior of the vehicle can't be entirely predicted.
I don't necessarily agree with any of that reasoning, but this is how car companies not only defend their ability to deny warranty but extract more revenue from its customers going forward into the digital future.
Sounds like a great case to forcefully open-source it in court, so that all parties may inspect it.
And naturally, case law as well.
And naturally, case law as well.
> Wouldn’t the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act still apply?
The act is intended to allow voiding the warranty after modding the ECU (even though the act predates ECUs and so doesn't mention them). Well your radio warranty would probably still apply, but modding the ECU has potential to damage the engine, and therefore the engine is out of warranty if you touch the ECU code.
The act is intended to allow voiding the warranty after modding the ECU (even though the act predates ECUs and so doesn't mention them). Well your radio warranty would probably still apply, but modding the ECU has potential to damage the engine, and therefore the engine is out of warranty if you touch the ECU code.
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I thought for something to void the warranty, it actually had to cause the damage, not just have potentially been capable of doing so.
It is very difficult to mod an engine in a way that will not cause damage. Sometimes the damage won't show up for many years.
You're talking about the possibility of maybe eventually causing some kind of damage, but isn't the important question whether it caused the specific damage that the owner wants to be repaired under warranty?
It’s actually not legal to drive a car on the highway with cut brake lines
How?
There are dozens of closed source microcontrollers and one big central unit involved in making this happen. Surely any decent tech company has the ability to safeguard their components against tampering like that. "Right to repair" doesn't give you access to the source code, devkit and flashing hardware.
And do you really want to mess with a central component of your drive by wire system?
And do you really want to mess with a central component of your drive by wire system?
? Cars are currently the only US sector already covered by existing right to repair legislation.
Wait before they start complaining about "car piracy" and how they can't afford to stay in business unless they do all of this stuff and show you ads on your windshield while driving.
I mean you already here such arguments from smart TV makers and their fans as well as in other industries.
The real truth is all of this stuff would be fixed if a new standard and baseline was set for them so none of them have to do any of this stuff to survive. They'll find other ways to compete.
I mean you already here such arguments from smart TV makers and their fans as well as in other industries.
The real truth is all of this stuff would be fixed if a new standard and baseline was set for them so none of them have to do any of this stuff to survive. They'll find other ways to compete.
>so none of them have to do any of this stuff to survive
They aren't doing those things to survive but for extra profit. That said TV ads is the reason their prices have dropped so much and can block them by simply not connecting them to the internet. You still get a superior dumb monitor for their cost.
They aren't doing those things to survive but for extra profit. That said TV ads is the reason their prices have dropped so much and can block them by simply not connecting them to the internet. You still get a superior dumb monitor for their cost.
One thing I do not see being mentioned, perhaps I missed it, is the potential for 3rd parties to financially benefit from this in the future.
I envision insurance companies running batch queries against Mercedes future API to determine which drivers have unlocked higher speeds and then adding a "High Risk" fee/tax to their policy. Mercedes could charge for access to this API and who knows what it could be used for.
Even more dystopian would be a future where governments can access some API that allows them to Geo-fence drivers into an approved area after a traffic conviction or limit the drivers speed. The more evil side of that coin would be access to a secret encrypted application API bug to stuck throttle accident dissenting voices.
I envision insurance companies running batch queries against Mercedes future API to determine which drivers have unlocked higher speeds and then adding a "High Risk" fee/tax to their policy. Mercedes could charge for access to this API and who knows what it could be used for.
Even more dystopian would be a future where governments can access some API that allows them to Geo-fence drivers into an approved area after a traffic conviction or limit the drivers speed. The more evil side of that coin would be access to a secret encrypted application API bug to stuck throttle accident dissenting voices.
We already have some sentencing that allows drivers with a series of DUIs to be allowed to have a limited license which permits them only to drive to/from work, medical appointments, and specific categories of shopping and to, if stopped, breath-test below epsilon BAC at all times.
Having technology aid in enforcing those sentences (such as the breath-test ignition interlock required by some sentences) seems OK to me. I think I'd include geo-fencing into that same level of balancing society's interests and the freedom of someone convicted of multiple DUIs.
Having technology aid in enforcing those sentences (such as the breath-test ignition interlock required by some sentences) seems OK to me. I think I'd include geo-fencing into that same level of balancing society's interests and the freedom of someone convicted of multiple DUIs.
If you have multiple DUIs, you should absolutely not be allowed to drive until you’ve been proven sober for a long time (many years). And honestly, even one DUI is enough to remove your driving privileges for years in my opinion. There’s no excuse for driving once you’ve had alcohol. You can just choose not do it, it’s not like you can accidentally drive after having too much alcohol.
We should have significantly better public transit, to make this more humane. But so many people drive dangerously and cause huge amounts of deaths. I think a better long-term fix is to have good public transit so that people have better options and don’t feel like they need to drive everywhere.
We should have significantly better public transit, to make this more humane. But so many people drive dangerously and cause huge amounts of deaths. I think a better long-term fix is to have good public transit so that people have better options and don’t feel like they need to drive everywhere.
Without good transit though...
And of course this is motivation for drunks to oppose transit, if there is minimal transit the law is more likely to take away a license. Minimal transit of course it so bad you wouldn't use it unless after 5 DWIs you have no other options, and that punishment means everyone else sees no value and so won't vote to expand it.
Your city needs a serious transit redesign in favor of getting as many people as possible on because it is a better option (cheaper and not much less convenient). Then get those riders to support expansions. Good luck though.
And of course this is motivation for drunks to oppose transit, if there is minimal transit the law is more likely to take away a license. Minimal transit of course it so bad you wouldn't use it unless after 5 DWIs you have no other options, and that punishment means everyone else sees no value and so won't vote to expand it.
Your city needs a serious transit redesign in favor of getting as many people as possible on because it is a better option (cheaper and not much less convenient). Then get those riders to support expansions. Good luck though.
I agree with this prima facie. My cynical view based on my own witnessing of history is what concerns me. When people are required to install an interlock, that makes sense and is a good balance of enforcement and allowing a person to still function in society.
My concern is that when such a process starts to utilize a simple remote computer interface, it will just be a matter of time when the scope of such controls are broadened and abused by humans, or worse, by some machine learning that makes decisions based on calculated risk rather than an in-person court hearing. Maybe this never happens, I surely hope it doesn't. Over time I have lost confidence in people to do what is right vs. what is easy.
Another concern is that computers will set the Geo-fenced parameters by specific GPS limits that cut off some streets required for access to work or the store without implementing soft-limit buffer zones. At least I could see people accidentally leaving out such a safety feature and then the former DUI convict crosses over an arbitrary line, their car signals the police, the police press a button, car pulls over and driver is off to jail thus forcing that person to feed the prison industrial complex even more.
In short, when they implement this, there had best be a buffer-zone warning alert to keep drivers away from the edge. [1]
[1] - https://youtu.be/ChgNB_7bcOU?t=88
My concern is that when such a process starts to utilize a simple remote computer interface, it will just be a matter of time when the scope of such controls are broadened and abused by humans, or worse, by some machine learning that makes decisions based on calculated risk rather than an in-person court hearing. Maybe this never happens, I surely hope it doesn't. Over time I have lost confidence in people to do what is right vs. what is easy.
Another concern is that computers will set the Geo-fenced parameters by specific GPS limits that cut off some streets required for access to work or the store without implementing soft-limit buffer zones. At least I could see people accidentally leaving out such a safety feature and then the former DUI convict crosses over an arbitrary line, their car signals the police, the police press a button, car pulls over and driver is off to jail thus forcing that person to feed the prison industrial complex even more.
In short, when they implement this, there had best be a buffer-zone warning alert to keep drivers away from the edge. [1]
[1] - https://youtu.be/ChgNB_7bcOU?t=88
It's not going to be for people convicted of multiple DUI's.
> Even more dystopian would be a future where governments can access some API that allows them to Geo-fence drivers into an approved area after a traffic conviction or limit the drivers speed
That doesn’t seem dystopian at all. Drivers are expected to follow the law but kill tens of thousands of people annually and injure at least an order of magnitude more. Requiring a high-powered bit of heavy equipment to be geofenced like a 20 pound rental scooter often is would save a city’s worth of lives and billions of dollars every year, and it’s not doing anything outside the democratic process which sets traffic laws in the first place. It also does so without any of the well-founded concerns that traffic enforcement will be inconsistently applied to different ages, ethnicities, income levels, etc. and would have zero privacy implications.
That doesn’t seem dystopian at all. Drivers are expected to follow the law but kill tens of thousands of people annually and injure at least an order of magnitude more. Requiring a high-powered bit of heavy equipment to be geofenced like a 20 pound rental scooter often is would save a city’s worth of lives and billions of dollars every year, and it’s not doing anything outside the democratic process which sets traffic laws in the first place. It also does so without any of the well-founded concerns that traffic enforcement will be inconsistently applied to different ages, ethnicities, income levels, etc. and would have zero privacy implications.
Tesla already does this.
They snoop at how you drive your car - and take appropriate action with their tesla insurance company.
Additionally, they do the same thing for "self-driving" firmware - not allowing you to use it unless you are a "safe driver"
They snoop at how you drive your car - and take appropriate action with their tesla insurance company.
Additionally, they do the same thing for "self-driving" firmware - not allowing you to use it unless you are a "safe driver"
This should be more publicized!
I was shopping for a new car couple months ago and skipped Tesla because I don’t like Elon as a person. I certainly would not buy a car that does that!
I was shopping for a new car couple months ago and skipped Tesla because I don’t like Elon as a person. I certainly would not buy a car that does that!
> API to determine which drivers have unlocked higher speeds and then adding a "High Risk" fee/tax to their policy.
That already exists. It's the horse power figure on the sticker.
That already exists. It's the horse power figure on the sticker.
Since the 60's, those kids modifying their mustangs for extra horsepower have not had these problems.
If we "assume good intent", what if this is akin to overclocking in the computer world? Yes, the motors can physically do it, but it increases drivetrain warranty repairs 15%.
At that point, this seems like simple hedging "Sure, you can go faster, might burn out the motors, but we'll replace them under warranty".
At that point, this seems like simple hedging "Sure, you can go faster, might burn out the motors, but we'll replace them under warranty".
Why can that not simply be captured as a cost to the user at time of purchase? Why does it need to be a subscription?
Why do they need a fucking green man (circuit chip) in a car I own that obeys only their remote services to unlock this feature?
Basically - Either I own the fucking thing, in which case I have all the keys, or I'm just licensing access. Let's not fuck around with this awful gray area where companies try to weasel out of consumer protections.
Why do they need a fucking green man (circuit chip) in a car I own that obeys only their remote services to unlock this feature?
Basically - Either I own the fucking thing, in which case I have all the keys, or I'm just licensing access. Let's not fuck around with this awful gray area where companies try to weasel out of consumer protections.
For sure if you own the car, you can modify it.
Tesla has been doing something similar for a while on the extended range model 3 where you can pay a one time fee to get a boost in performance.
Interestingly, there is a Canadian company that has reversed engineered what happen when it is unlocked and is selling a device that you plug on the car CAN bus and you get the same performance boost. They obviously sell this for less that what Tesla charges and as far as I understand, the only risk is that you might void your warranty if Tesla "catches" you doing it.
So I kind of agree that it seems similar to getting a factory approved chip tuned. When you chiptune your ICE car, you will often pay several hundred euros for a shop with the right hardware to modify your car (and loose your warranty). In this case, if the setting change is increasing failure rate but your warranty is not affected maybe it's not such a bad deal.
Tesla has been doing something similar for a while on the extended range model 3 where you can pay a one time fee to get a boost in performance.
Interestingly, there is a Canadian company that has reversed engineered what happen when it is unlocked and is selling a device that you plug on the car CAN bus and you get the same performance boost. They obviously sell this for less that what Tesla charges and as far as I understand, the only risk is that you might void your warranty if Tesla "catches" you doing it.
So I kind of agree that it seems similar to getting a factory approved chip tuned. When you chiptune your ICE car, you will often pay several hundred euros for a shop with the right hardware to modify your car (and loose your warranty). In this case, if the setting change is increasing failure rate but your warranty is not affected maybe it's not such a bad deal.
> Why does it need to be a subscription?
this is an attack on the used car market
this is an attack on the used car market
Correct - In my opinion it's pure rent-seeking behavior. There is no benefit to the buyer, and it dramatically erodes the concept of the first-sale doctrine.
It's quite intentional - it's bad behavior - I'd like it see it made fucking illegal as soon as possible.
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We're in this weird period where manufacturers have realized that software controls on embedded circuits allow them to retain far more control over devices than they should ever be given the right to have.
The last stop on this train is clearly digital slavery - you own nothing, everything around you is a subscription or licensed access. The moment you stop paying - the device degrades, not because it has to, but because it's the stick they use to beat more money out of you.
I want legislation passed fucking yesterday that states that I must be provided ALL of the damn keys to a device when I buy it. I don't give a fuck whether that key is physical or digital. I get them all, or the manufacturer gets fucked out of existence.
It's quite intentional - it's bad behavior - I'd like it see it made fucking illegal as soon as possible.
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We're in this weird period where manufacturers have realized that software controls on embedded circuits allow them to retain far more control over devices than they should ever be given the right to have.
The last stop on this train is clearly digital slavery - you own nothing, everything around you is a subscription or licensed access. The moment you stop paying - the device degrades, not because it has to, but because it's the stick they use to beat more money out of you.
I want legislation passed fucking yesterday that states that I must be provided ALL of the damn keys to a device when I buy it. I don't give a fuck whether that key is physical or digital. I get them all, or the manufacturer gets fucked out of existence.
Because most people don't sit there doing 0-60 in 2.2s, but would like a car they don't have to drop off prematurely at the garage for a drivetrain overhaul?
If that is the case you should get the choice, enable the feature for free but lose warranty, enable and keep warranty at the subscription cost, and then enables automatically for free once warranty is up.
I don’t know of a way that a manufacturer and a consumer could allow a buyer to voluntarily “lose warranty” with a software toggle installed and offered by the manufacturer, without running into complications with the laws around automobile lemon laws. One constructed example to demonstrate the problem might be, “They claim to have provided a switch that voided the warranty and my three year old flipped it in the car’s mobile app when I wasn’t paying attention, I want a full refund for my car now”.
To me, the current subscription model seems like you are trading the "joy" of paying extra money for the reward of greater engine wear. Maybe the increased performance is worth it for some, but the economics doesn't make sense.
That is why it can make sense. If you prefer the longer engine life, then the system will limit you so you get that. If you prefer the performance, then pay for it.
The above assumes - probably incorrectly - that Mercedes will repair the car as part of this, and thus the increased cost mostly represents their costs in more repairs needed. If you have to pay for repairs, then it should be a one time fee.
The above assumes - probably incorrectly - that Mercedes will repair the car as part of this, and thus the increased cost mostly represents their costs in more repairs needed. If you have to pay for repairs, then it should be a one time fee.
Yes and no. People who know what they're doing will replace failure points proactively - upgrading cooling systems, upgraded connecting rods, stronger wrist pins, etc. I had a car pushing 900+ WHP that had fewer powertrain issues than my buddy's stock 240 BHP truck.
Generally, modding anything beyond the ECM / TCM / PCM will be visible to the service center and claims will be denied.
If you stick to software alone, you're generally not looking at more than maybe 15-50 hp difference in most cars, depending on your starting point (you're getting a small percentage increase, so more powerful cars will see more of an increase).
Most ECM / PCMs do not have adequate tamper protection to detect being modded and then flashed back to stock, which is a common practice in the auto enthusiast world, and leads to people who technically shouldn't be getting repairs under warranty to get them.
Newer ones are getting better at detecting this.
Generally, modding anything beyond the ECM / TCM / PCM will be visible to the service center and claims will be denied.
If you stick to software alone, you're generally not looking at more than maybe 15-50 hp difference in most cars, depending on your starting point (you're getting a small percentage increase, so more powerful cars will see more of an increase).
Most ECM / PCMs do not have adequate tamper protection to detect being modded and then flashed back to stock, which is a common practice in the auto enthusiast world, and leads to people who technically shouldn't be getting repairs under warranty to get them.
Newer ones are getting better at detecting this.
"... leads to people who technically shouldn't be getting repairs under warranty to get them."
They can only deny a warranty if the modification caused the damage. However, they can claim it did and deny you even if it's not true.
Leaving you basically only two options payup or pay lawyers and court fees ect.. to sue them.
They can only deny a warranty if the modification caused the damage. However, they can claim it did and deny you even if it's not true.
Leaving you basically only two options payup or pay lawyers and court fees ect.. to sue them.
100% it's this.
I've been in the room when making this exact kind of product proposal (not MB). The pushback from drivetrain and electrical on warranty, repair, battery life etc was intense and directly related to future satisfaction. Sure, you can push the envelope on the spec, but it does tend to come at a cost.
Say they give this option for free... And it reduces the battery life/capacity by 10% over the course of a year. Pretty sure people would be clutching their handbags in horror.
You buy a car with a spec. Aftermarket mods are definately a thing to increase that spec, and they've been around for a while, both for ev and ice. They've always been available at a cost. This time it's from the MFG and we all lose our minds.
I've been in the room when making this exact kind of product proposal (not MB). The pushback from drivetrain and electrical on warranty, repair, battery life etc was intense and directly related to future satisfaction. Sure, you can push the envelope on the spec, but it does tend to come at a cost.
Say they give this option for free... And it reduces the battery life/capacity by 10% over the course of a year. Pretty sure people would be clutching their handbags in horror.
You buy a car with a spec. Aftermarket mods are definately a thing to increase that spec, and they've been around for a while, both for ev and ice. They've always been available at a cost. This time it's from the MFG and we all lose our minds.
FYI; intel is pushing a subscription model for … cpus.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-finalizes-intel-on-d...
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-finalizes-intel-on-d...
This is incorrect. It’s a one time only fee.
This is the only circumstance in which it would be acceptable to me as an owner of that hardware.
Why would you assume good intent for an obvious money grab? When people obviously behave in bad faith we have an ethical obligation to call them out.
Mercedes is behaving badly. Don’t apologize for them.
If there were an acceptable reason for this, they could have said it here: https://shop.mbusa.com/en-us/connect/pdp/Acceleration-Increa.... They chose not to, which means either there is no danger associated with this change, or there is and they're selling a dangerous add-on without informing customers.
"Wears out your car faster" isn't necessarily dangerous to the occupants.
Yeah, this isn't necessarily a gouge. Could be a pretty cool way to expose design decisions/wear envelope to the end user.
I prefer the one-time purchase to subscription models for big-ticket purchases though. I don't like the mental overhead involved with addons.
I prefer the one-time purchase to subscription models for big-ticket purchases though. I don't like the mental overhead involved with addons.
I'd pay a flat fee for faster acceleration, but not a recurring fee.
If this were the justification, then why can't you have it for free at the end of the warranty period?
I wonder when Tesla, Mercedes, etc will figure out that micro transactions for this is a way more lucrative approach.
I’m way more likely to pay let’s say $300 to enable this feature for the weekend to impress a visiting friend or hell at a light next to an annoying BMW M owner that you suddenly need to smack down.
Make it a more affordable impulse buy, they’ll make a ton more money that way.
I’m way more likely to pay let’s say $300 to enable this feature for the weekend to impress a visiting friend or hell at a light next to an annoying BMW M owner that you suddenly need to smack down.
Make it a more affordable impulse buy, they’ll make a ton more money that way.
"You're about to crash into a semi truck. Pay $25 one time 'advanced braking' fee to avoid crash?"
“Sorry your payment has been declined. Airbags and seatbelts have been reverted to the default economy mode and 911 auto-call has been disabled.
Your engine will be shut off if you fail to update your payment information.“
Your engine will be shut off if you fail to update your payment information.“
This sadly already exists: https://www.vice.com/en/article/93yyyd/this-motorcycle-airba...
That sounds like a wrongful death lawsuit waiting to happen.
Interestingly, Boeing had an indicator for an angle of attack sensor mismatch on the 737 Max, but it was an optional accessory.
At least that was an actual optional part, and not softlocking functionality the plane already had behind a paywall.
Why is whether or not they pre-install the optional part an important distinction?
Because if they pre-installed it, then it was included with the purchase. Once you sell something to someone, you shouldn't get to charge extra money for using it.
This reminds me of a HN thread about BMW from 4 months ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32068791
Shhhh, they'll see this.
[deleted]
Your car has stats you can increase by getting items from a loot box system. Only $10 a "pull".
I just threw up a little in my mouth. Frankly, I can see it coming in the future, perhaps in a join release with a future Call of Duty game.
Click here to link your car, phone and playstation together to enable cross platform loot.
Click here to link your car, phone and playstation together to enable cross platform loot.
Or they could enable all features and you'd receive an itemized monthly bill for all the times or minutes you used a given feature. "Accelerator pressed to the floor 18 times, $xxx. Radio playing for 3h45m, $xxx"
My Model 3 was enabled for “performance” just by software download. Supposedly the motors are binned for performance but they are the same motors, at least the 2018 models.
0.25$ every pot hole
> impress a visiting friend or hell at a light next to an annoying BMW M owner that you suddenly need to smack down
You are the annoying car owner.
You are the annoying car owner.
Please don't give them ideas.
I predict this will get regulated away within a few years. Some states are already doing it, as they should.
Right. New Jersey made news a week ago by drafting regulation against such nonsense.
Yep,
Discussions are here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33277445
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33325026
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33277445
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33325026
they had a loophole for "services" though...
Dupe from 2 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33692285
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33692285
The hardware world has been taking notes from the software world the last few years.
It reflects the continual lowering of manufacturing costs compared to design costs. When we're talking about heated seats there's maybe $2 worth of a resistor + wiring to heat them. At some point it's cheaper to make them all heated and reduce your SKUs & design cost.
In the long run customers aren't going to pay more. The auto industry is highly competitive and that competition will keep profit margins in check.
In the long run customers aren't going to pay more. The auto industry is highly competitive and that competition will keep profit margins in check.
We're going to come full circle.
In the olden days they used common parts because the manufacturing and the tracking of the parts in your inventory system was expensive.
Now we're gonna push to reduce part counts because the cost of the engineer and the amortized cost of corporate process in which he works are expensive.
In the olden days they used common parts because the manufacturing and the tracking of the parts in your inventory system was expensive.
Now we're gonna push to reduce part counts because the cost of the engineer and the amortized cost of corporate process in which he works are expensive.
I think it's more that as software continues to "eat the world"[1], problems that only exist in the software world are becoming more and more pervasive in other areas of our lives. Even though this paywall affects hardware, I'll bet it's implemented in software.
[1]: https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world...
[1]: https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world...
Also, food for thought: this means that any effective legal solutions to these problems in the hardware world could probably also be applied to solve those same problems in the software world.
The "right to repair" movement, for example, seems on the surface to be closely analogous to freedom 1 of the Free Software Foundation's four essential freedoms[1].
[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms
The "right to repair" movement, for example, seems on the surface to be closely analogous to freedom 1 of the Free Software Foundation's four essential freedoms[1].
[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms
> I'll bet it's implemented in software.
That would be an accomplishment if they did it in hardware. ;-)
That would be an accomplishment if they did it in hardware. ;-)
I'm picturing a dollar bill slot on the dash like a vending machine.
The "golden screwdriver" is attributed to IBM mainframe techs from many years ago. Nothing new here except the drivetrain.
I think it's OK to experiment with new forms of monetization, as long as you're not ripping off customers. Here in Berlin VW e.g. operates a car-sharing service using a fleet of ID.3/ID.4's, where you simply pay for a car by the minute, with two different prices for driving (20-30 cents/minute) and parking (9 cents/minute). You can simply drive and then leave the car on any public parking spot (no payment necessary). Often, cars are located just 2-4 minutes walking distance away. I used that so much, but unfortunately VW seems to have decided it's not profitable enough and they recently sold it off to a competitor with worse pricing.
So I guess subscriptions alone don't cut it, you still need to sell the car as well. That said I heard from multiple people that car manufacturers earn most of their money with the service and spare parts for cars (not sure if this is still true) and that the buying price is even slightly subsidized. So from that perspective adding a subscription on top of the purchase price makes sense. In the end people will decide whether it makes sense to pay for that, and I think there will be enough competition in the premium segment, so consumers can just chose to take their money somewhere else if an offer is not good.
So I guess subscriptions alone don't cut it, you still need to sell the car as well. That said I heard from multiple people that car manufacturers earn most of their money with the service and spare parts for cars (not sure if this is still true) and that the buying price is even slightly subsidized. So from that perspective adding a subscription on top of the purchase price makes sense. In the end people will decide whether it makes sense to pay for that, and I think there will be enough competition in the premium segment, so consumers can just chose to take their money somewhere else if an offer is not good.
They used to have this in Seattle (Car2Go (Merc), and ShareNow (BMW)) but they had a messy back-and-forth acquisition, shutdown, then apparent resurgence?
I used to love Car2Go. I read that the only reason it was around was so BMW/Merc could meet the fleet emission requirements in the US, and once they were able to meet that without selling a bunch of cars to Car2Go/ShareNow there was no reason to keep losing money on it.
I'm not sure which is running the car rentals near me, but they keep getting tagged like the scooters do which is sorta a bad look.
> As global sales for new cars have fallen in recent years, car manufacturers have pivoted toward selling software updates and features as subscriptions to generate a continuous revenue stream long after a car has been purchased.
Are we surprised here? MB’s leadership has one primary goal: satisfying shareholders and the broader market.
We’ve been in a race to the bottom for a long time now. Inferior construction, cheap parts, overseas labor (or for the car market, labor in the US, Canada, or Mexico but also because of cost optimization).
This is the latest in a long line of cost cutting measures and patterns where the customer ultimately loses. I’m not even mad at Mercedes Benz. They know the game they’re playing, and this is what it takes I suppose.
My son in law bought a new C Class a few months ago. He and my daughter were very pleased. Now me, I’m an old goat, and so when I saw a massive iPad on the center console instead of buttons, I’d tell you that car wouldn’t be my first choice. And they had me sit in it and try it out. It is certainly a nice looking interior, but I pressed on the passenger side dashboard area and on the armrest between the front seats. I heard plastic crackling noises. It’s all plastic, even though it looks like some much superior metallic material. It was just some skin/vinyl on top of plastic.
How well will it hold? Time will tell, but it goes to show you the generation gap. I think he said he paid upwards of $50k for the car. With all the plastic, I can never see myself paying that much money for a vehicle. But hey, Mercedes Benz has a market for these things, and so it’s reasonable to believe that no matter what I think of the $1,200 subscription, there’s a market for that too.
Are we surprised here? MB’s leadership has one primary goal: satisfying shareholders and the broader market.
We’ve been in a race to the bottom for a long time now. Inferior construction, cheap parts, overseas labor (or for the car market, labor in the US, Canada, or Mexico but also because of cost optimization).
This is the latest in a long line of cost cutting measures and patterns where the customer ultimately loses. I’m not even mad at Mercedes Benz. They know the game they’re playing, and this is what it takes I suppose.
My son in law bought a new C Class a few months ago. He and my daughter were very pleased. Now me, I’m an old goat, and so when I saw a massive iPad on the center console instead of buttons, I’d tell you that car wouldn’t be my first choice. And they had me sit in it and try it out. It is certainly a nice looking interior, but I pressed on the passenger side dashboard area and on the armrest between the front seats. I heard plastic crackling noises. It’s all plastic, even though it looks like some much superior metallic material. It was just some skin/vinyl on top of plastic.
How well will it hold? Time will tell, but it goes to show you the generation gap. I think he said he paid upwards of $50k for the car. With all the plastic, I can never see myself paying that much money for a vehicle. But hey, Mercedes Benz has a market for these things, and so it’s reasonable to believe that no matter what I think of the $1,200 subscription, there’s a market for that too.
I used to feel the same way as you about large touch screens in cars as the main interface in place of physical tactile buttons but I've come to accept that's just the way it is now and if you're looking to buy a new car it'll be hard to avoid. I think some cars (like bmw) have found decent compromise with physical buttons for frequently accessed things like climate or seat warmers.
Don't even get me started on Teslas which is essentially a tablet with a large car-shaped case around it.
Don't even get me started on Teslas which is essentially a tablet with a large car-shaped case around it.
bmw has also removed physical buttons for climate and heated seats in idrive8. it's an unfortunate step backward, but it's also not as bad as people on the internet will tell you.
F*ck faster acceleration though. The 0 to 100 kph in 2 seconds trend is absurd and dangerous. We should lock all that behind a regulatory wall.
Yeah put acceleration more than neccessary for road use into a track-only mode. IIRC, elderly driver mashed the pedal in a Tesla and it needed just a few feet to cause a bad accident. Also a tire-wear limiting function. Tire makers should be making less microplasticky tires instead of chasing the demands of EVs which are heavier and far torquier than ICE cars.
Rimac is about to ship a car with a top speed lower than the 412kph (258mph) its capable of. It has a speed governor which employees unlock after ensuring safe condition of vehicle and track.
Rimac is about to ship a car with a top speed lower than the 412kph (258mph) its capable of. It has a speed governor which employees unlock after ensuring safe condition of vehicle and track.
I always understood speed to be the main problem, not acceleration. If you're going to lock something behind regulation, shouldn't it be speed?
Speed will make accidents worse (deadlier). Acceleration will make accidents more likely. Sports cars flooring it from a stop, losing traction and hitting a telephone pole is like a whole genre of YouTube videos.
Acceleration does not make accidents more likely (well, technically, without the ability to accelerate, it'll be impossible to have a car crash, I guess?). Risky behavior makes accidents more likely. Not being able to control your machinery and still trying to push it to its limits makes accidents more likely. Here the problem is people who behave anti-social and ego-centrical. But that's behavior we like to generally encourage and then fix it by adding regulations around the most stupid things.
> Sports cars flooring it from a stop, losing traction
Traction control prevents this these days.
It still happens, of course, because idiots WANT to spin their tires and so turn off the traction control. But spinning tires != going fast. Usually sports cars flooring from a stop are interested in speed, not tire smoke, so the TC is still on.
That said, I know in my Model 3 Performance, I've floored it from a traffic light in the rain and had very little spin. It's insane how effective traction control is in an EV.
Traction control prevents this these days.
It still happens, of course, because idiots WANT to spin their tires and so turn off the traction control. But spinning tires != going fast. Usually sports cars flooring from a stop are interested in speed, not tire smoke, so the TC is still on.
That said, I know in my Model 3 Performance, I've floored it from a traffic light in the rain and had very little spin. It's insane how effective traction control is in an EV.
It is not the speed that kills, but the sudden deceleration hitting a tree.
Joking aside, acceleration can be a real problem. I ride a lot my motorcycle to work, shopping etc. I am closing to an intersection, I see a car that has to yield and when I am close enough, I am pretty sure I will not be hit even if the car is not yielding, which happens quite often (many drivers don't see motorcycles or ignore their rights). With a very high acceleration, the risk of getting hit is a lot higher.
Joking aside, acceleration can be a real problem. I ride a lot my motorcycle to work, shopping etc. I am closing to an intersection, I see a car that has to yield and when I am close enough, I am pretty sure I will not be hit even if the car is not yielding, which happens quite often (many drivers don't see motorcycles or ignore their rights). With a very high acceleration, the risk of getting hit is a lot higher.
This is an interesting question. If you’re accelerating and take your foot off the gas pedal, the car continues to accelerate until braking is applied. So if you accelerate very quickly to the speed limit, there would be a likely situation where you pass the desired speed unless you get on the brakes, which requires reaction time.
But yeah - I don’t necessarily agree with regulating it away for safety - people need to have personal responsibility. But regulations could make car companies optimize for other variables though (like distance and economy) which could be good.
But yeah - I don’t necessarily agree with regulating it away for safety - people need to have personal responsibility. But regulations could make car companies optimize for other variables though (like distance and economy) which could be good.
> If you’re accelerating and take your foot off the gas pedal, the car continues to accelerate until braking is applied.
No it doesn't.
No it doesn't.
I have procrastination mode on my account so I needed to create another account to respond.
Re-reading that, I didn’t write very clearly - and thankfully my car doesn’t require braking to stop accelerating indefinitely.
What I meant was, in a combustion engine, there is still some acceleration that occurs as the engine drops from 6-7k RPM down to idle. If you’re running acceleration from 0-60 in 2 seconds, that continued acceleration after you take your foot off the gas and the engine runs down to idle may be another 10 mph. In my experience, acceleration for a combustion engine to hit its best time is usually pedal to the metal and isn’t a smooth stop at that exact top speed (which would require letting off the gas ahead of reaching the top speed so you don’t overshoot).
In context of the parent and regulating speed vs acceleration, my point was that fast acceleration can lead to people overshooting the intended speed / speed limit.
That said, power delivery for electric motors (that would be in the 2-3 second 0-60 range) may not have this ramp-down period, so acceleration would stop immediately (and maybe slow down aggressively with regenerative braking).
Re-reading that, I didn’t write very clearly - and thankfully my car doesn’t require braking to stop accelerating indefinitely.
What I meant was, in a combustion engine, there is still some acceleration that occurs as the engine drops from 6-7k RPM down to idle. If you’re running acceleration from 0-60 in 2 seconds, that continued acceleration after you take your foot off the gas and the engine runs down to idle may be another 10 mph. In my experience, acceleration for a combustion engine to hit its best time is usually pedal to the metal and isn’t a smooth stop at that exact top speed (which would require letting off the gas ahead of reaching the top speed so you don’t overshoot).
In context of the parent and regulating speed vs acceleration, my point was that fast acceleration can lead to people overshooting the intended speed / speed limit.
That said, power delivery for electric motors (that would be in the 2-3 second 0-60 range) may not have this ramp-down period, so acceleration would stop immediately (and maybe slow down aggressively with regenerative braking).
> there is still some acceleration that occurs as the engine drops from 6-7k RPM down to idle.
Not in any vehicle I've operated. The moment I pull off the throttle completely, it stops flowing any more than idle speed fuel mixture into the motor. Without that combustion power, it starts to act more like an air compressor almost immediately, causing negative force output. It is taking energy from the crank to try and compress a mixture which, when combusted (if even combustable, most likely not), results in less expansive force than the force it took to compress. This is even more pronounced at high RPMs as that action happens more times every second.
If I let go of the throttle on my motorcycle at 9krpms and like 70mph or whatever it feels like I pressed hard on my rear brake instantly, for all intents and purposes. You'll feel your weight get thrown forwards immediately.
If your car continues to accelerate after you've taken your foot off the gas something is wrong with your car.
Not in any vehicle I've operated. The moment I pull off the throttle completely, it stops flowing any more than idle speed fuel mixture into the motor. Without that combustion power, it starts to act more like an air compressor almost immediately, causing negative force output. It is taking energy from the crank to try and compress a mixture which, when combusted (if even combustable, most likely not), results in less expansive force than the force it took to compress. This is even more pronounced at high RPMs as that action happens more times every second.
If I let go of the throttle on my motorcycle at 9krpms and like 70mph or whatever it feels like I pressed hard on my rear brake instantly, for all intents and purposes. You'll feel your weight get thrown forwards immediately.
If your car continues to accelerate after you've taken your foot off the gas something is wrong with your car.
Appropriate username.
You need to fix the broken spring in your accelerator pedal.
If you take your foot off the gas, acceleration should effectively stop, right? F=ma, so with mass held constant and the only forces being friction, a is actually slightly negative. So max speed happens as soon as you release the gas pedal.
I'd love to delegate that part of driving to my car. Automatically maintain speed limit (+5 mph or so, or I'll be tailgated the whole way home) and following distance to the car in front of me. I'll just cover the brake and tap it if I see something wrong in front, at which time it can revert to manual speed control.
Bonus points for maximum performance acceleration without overshoot to the speed limit if I am the first one stopped at a red light when it turns green.
Adaptive cruise control is awesome, but the implementations I've used are unaware of the road's speed limit.
Bonus points for maximum performance acceleration without overshoot to the speed limit if I am the first one stopped at a red light when it turns green.
Adaptive cruise control is awesome, but the implementations I've used are unaware of the road's speed limit.
There's 2 behavior sets:
1. Low speeds, the car will accelerate a bit to where it moves at idle speed. (Usually very slow. Like 2-3 MPH.)
2. High speeds: If you lift off the accelerator, the car will slow down. In a manual transmission car, this slowdown is much more pronounced, and can often be used instead of the brakes in non-emergency slow deceleration conditions. In an automatic the slowdown is less, but still there.
1. Low speeds, the car will accelerate a bit to where it moves at idle speed. (Usually very slow. Like 2-3 MPH.)
2. High speeds: If you lift off the accelerator, the car will slow down. In a manual transmission car, this slowdown is much more pronounced, and can often be used instead of the brakes in non-emergency slow deceleration conditions. In an automatic the slowdown is less, but still there.
> the car continues to accelerate until braking is applied.
Unless you're going downhill this defies our known understanding of physics.
Unless you're going downhill this defies our known understanding of physics.
To be fair, the car is accelerating, just accelerating in a direction opposite from the current forward movement, resulting in a decrease of the vehicle's current speed.
Probably not what they meant in that comment though.
Probably not what they meant in that comment though.
I think it can be dangerous in a closed space, such as a garage, near a wall or inside a parking lot.
Everything that’s possibly dangerous should be taxed! Only allow the technocrats to determine what the masses should do.
Going outside or even climbing my stairs is possibly dangerous, so you mean the government should get a cut of everything? Oh wait…
Damn right!
Why can't I burn my garbage in downtown San Francisco, instead of having to pay The Man? And if my homebrew wiring job torches down the neighborhood, well, my house, my rules, bucko.
Why can't I burn my garbage in downtown San Francisco, instead of having to pay The Man? And if my homebrew wiring job torches down the neighborhood, well, my house, my rules, bucko.
What the masses have to pay. Taxed means you gotta have more wealth.
What is worse is it is self reinforcing. Accidentally flooring will push you back and keep your foot floored until you end up in a shopping mall
Unless you're in reverse, it's literally the exact opposite of what you said: the acceleration will try to pull your foot off the pedal.
The acceleration pushes your back into the seat, and you brace yourself by pushing your foot harder against the floor (gas pedal). It's an instinct thing, not a physics one.
But that's not the acceleration doing that. That's you doing that.
Tomato tomato
As a child I drove a lawnmower where the acceleration caused you to lean back, moving the levers back causing you to go in reverse, shoving you forward, causing you to drive forward, ...
It was actually the acceleration causing the back and forth (threw me off the seat before I let go causing it to stop).
It was actually the acceleration causing the back and forth (threw me off the seat before I let go causing it to stop).
motorcycle yes (fingers roll back on throttle), car not so much.
On the one hand, this causes a deeply ingrained negative reaction in me.
On the other, people have been paying hundreds (thousands?) of dollars for digital tunes to reflash their ECU to add more horsepower/torque for years now.
That is a one time fee as opposed to a subscription, so maybe therein lies the problem.
On the other, people have been paying hundreds (thousands?) of dollars for digital tunes to reflash their ECU to add more horsepower/torque for years now.
That is a one time fee as opposed to a subscription, so maybe therein lies the problem.
As long as the car manufacturer isn't selling the tunes, that doesn't really offend my sensibilities.
Arbitrarily restricting capability just so the manufacturer can make more money is the problem.
Arbitrarily restricting capability just so the manufacturer can make more money is the problem.
This is what Volvo does with their Polestar upgrades already, with the only difference that it's a one time fee.
think there is an underlying fundamental difference here, the factory tuning of an ECU is meant to work okay for most conditions, that be the car and weather or whatever, that process is adding on something, fine tuning combustion but for an electric car, it's totally subtractive, the car would have that acceleration if they didnt arbitraraly block it
Ignoring the cost for a second, I don't want max possible acceleration all the time. Modern gas pedals are already sensitive enough, no reason to need an even lighter touch in stop+go traffic.
You fix this by putting a setting in the infotainment system that says "Eco mode". My mom's Rav4 has this functionality, it's not exotic.
At first blush i'd be happy to save the money. But I could save even more, and save on gas, by having a less powerful motor in the first place.
You could save even more money by not buying a Mercedes
Non ICE cars have far lower service needs → lower revenue for dealers → expect to see more subscriptions to offset.
That is mostly a myth. The ICE doesn't have regular oil changes, but you still need to rotate the tires at the same intervals. There are a few oil leaks and such that you miss out on, but the shocks will still wear out over time (maybe sooner as EVs tend to be heavier). Odds are the body of the car will wear out before the engine/transmission will need major work.
Even ignoring that, by the time the engine needs expensive maintenance it is old and likely to go to an independent mechanic.
While there is warranty issues, there will be such with electric motors and their controllers as well.
Even ignoring that, by the time the engine needs expensive maintenance it is old and likely to go to an independent mechanic.
While there is warranty issues, there will be such with electric motors and their controllers as well.
Oil changes in my ICE are now about $100 almost everywhere I go, other than Walmart which is like $75 (probably more these days, haven't been in years). 6 quarts of synthetic plus an oil filter. Two oil changes a year means $200/yr on oil changes. Not massive, and I agree with the EV cost premium it'll take a lot of oil changes to offset the price of the EV on oil changes alone.
However, the ICE is about to need a valve clearance adjustment this year or early next year. It is not that old of a car, but it still supposed to be done every 60,000mi on my car. There's another $300. It should probably also have a coolant flush and a transaxle fluid drain/fill/inspection. Another $400ish in maintenance. This year's ICE-exclusive maintenance budget is now at $900, assuming everything's fine with things like vacuum hoses and fuel lines and what not. It is not guaranteed they're fine; there's a reason why the manual tells you to inspect them every so often. And I imagine most people probably have no idea what they're looking at, so unless they're paying someone to inspect it that work probably isn't being inspected right.
If you're only getting oil changes on your car, you're probably not following the OEM maintenance schedule on your car.
My EV-only maintenance cost for the life of the car so far? $0. I'll need a gear oil and coolant drain and fill at 130,000mi, but other than that there's nothing scheduled other than things the ICE will need too (tires, suspension, wipers, brakes, etc.)
However, the ICE is about to need a valve clearance adjustment this year or early next year. It is not that old of a car, but it still supposed to be done every 60,000mi on my car. There's another $300. It should probably also have a coolant flush and a transaxle fluid drain/fill/inspection. Another $400ish in maintenance. This year's ICE-exclusive maintenance budget is now at $900, assuming everything's fine with things like vacuum hoses and fuel lines and what not. It is not guaranteed they're fine; there's a reason why the manual tells you to inspect them every so often. And I imagine most people probably have no idea what they're looking at, so unless they're paying someone to inspect it that work probably isn't being inspected right.
If you're only getting oil changes on your car, you're probably not following the OEM maintenance schedule on your car.
My EV-only maintenance cost for the life of the car so far? $0. I'll need a gear oil and coolant drain and fill at 130,000mi, but other than that there's nothing scheduled other than things the ICE will need too (tires, suspension, wipers, brakes, etc.)
Does your car actually need a valve adjustment? I thought all cars for quite a number of years already were all hydraulic lifters, which don't need adjustment.
Hyundai/Kia Lamba II 3.3L V6 GDI being driven in some of the "extreme" circumstances, e.g., lots of short trips. Service interval on valve adjustment is 60,000mi according to the book. I'll overshoot that by a few thousand miles by the time it actually gets done though, holidays are a hell of a time to try and get the car in to a shop.
There's definitely millions of cars on the roads which don't have hydraulic lifters.
And while hydraulic lifters increase the interval time for adjustment the preload may still need adjustment throughout a hydraulic lifter's life.
There's definitely millions of cars on the roads which don't have hydraulic lifters.
And while hydraulic lifters increase the interval time for adjustment the preload may still need adjustment throughout a hydraulic lifter's life.
Tesla is doing the exact same for years, where are the Verge articles about it?
Interesting that it is not even mentioned once, on the other hand the accent on "German auto manufacturer" is loud and clear
Also Intel shamelessly wants to join https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/22/intel_reveals_paid_xe...
I don't understand why these companies try to sabotage themselves, do they want to buyback their stocks for cheap?
Interesting that it is not even mentioned once, on the other hand the accent on "German auto manufacturer" is loud and clear
Also Intel shamelessly wants to join https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/22/intel_reveals_paid_xe...
I don't understand why these companies try to sabotage themselves, do they want to buyback their stocks for cheap?
At least with Tesla it's slightly less bad. Their acceleration boost is a one-time purchase, not a subscription.
Apart from the choice of burning goodwill in their engines, if controlling the accelerator is technically possible then ridiculously lethal remote hacking is also possible.
Its obviously retarded, but I'm not so worried, most cars are gargantuan 10M+balls of decades old C that no one understands, and no one has ever audited or gone through to fix warnings. Almost everything is communicated along joint databuses typically can, which sends everything everywhere by default. They are so ridiculously easy to hack you can do it over wifi or bluetooth it should not have in the first place, but the sound system is no doubt connected to the airbag. However, if you have physical access to the system the opportunities are endless, and for every engineer that tries to fix security issues, you have three like the guy who tried to argue that his fantastic innovation of partial self implemented 16 bit encryption would make the can secure. For these reasons I dont expect a single one of the old car companies to achieve secure code in our lifetime, meaning sure, it will be a little inconvenient, but when was the last time you used a browser without an adblocker.
Most people fail to see that BEV's will eventually be much cheaper than ICE cars. This in turn will mean a huge drop in revenue and profits for car companies. They know this and are therefore (trying) to switch over to subscription based schemes.
Obviously these will all fail. I suspect the Chinese will make dirt cheap BEV's which have very finite lifetimes (in the order of a decade or less) to offset the drop in revenue and for Western car makers to follow suit in making similar junk-cars.
Just the other day the Ford CEO exclaimed that a BEV would require 40% labor to make [1]. Think of the savings that would bring!
[1]: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/11/16/ford-ceo-40-less-labor-...
Obviously these will all fail. I suspect the Chinese will make dirt cheap BEV's which have very finite lifetimes (in the order of a decade or less) to offset the drop in revenue and for Western car makers to follow suit in making similar junk-cars.
Just the other day the Ford CEO exclaimed that a BEV would require 40% labor to make [1]. Think of the savings that would bring!
[1]: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/11/16/ford-ceo-40-less-labor-...
This sort of practice is soon to be disallowed in New Jersey, if I understand correctly:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/new-jersey-legislators-aim-to-...
https://www.thedrive.com/news/new-jersey-legislators-aim-to-...
I'm optimistic about electric cars, but pessimistic when the companies producing them are the most craven financializers like this.
Sometimes I wonder if there would be a market for a "maximally analog electric car" where, for example, the accelerator pedal is a potentiometer.
Sometimes I wonder if there would be a market for a "maximally analog electric car" where, for example, the accelerator pedal is a potentiometer.
>"maximally analog electric car" where, for example, the accelerator pedal is a potentiometer.
What else do you think is being used for accelerator pedals?
What else do you think is being used for accelerator pedals?
I think they're referring to the end result mimicing user input. Right now most cars are "drive by wire" where your pedal input is just one of many factors in the computer's "input by committee" before the final acceleration is sent to the motor controller.
I'm probably referring to the wrong component, yeah, but what I'm imagining is a car with no digital intermediaries between the pedal and the power going through the wheels.
Nobody uses a potentiometer as a throttle pedal because they may fail in any position. 2 or 3 potentiometers are used, and only upon agreement of the signals do they propel the vehicle. That's why the pedal has digital electronics in it, and you don't have some dumb potentiometers wired straight to an ADC input on the ECU.
Devil's advocate: this is market segmentation, similar to Tesla limiting range using a software toggle[1].
Having a a capability engineered into a product but making it unavailable to a subset of consumers in the lower price bucket has a long history.
I do not endorse the practice, but there's a tendency to sell things at prices the market will bear, with little basis on unit production cost. I must say, the HN crowd is typically more sanguine about SaaS and the virtues of recurring revenue when the subject is a software company. I'm more of a boxed-software/buy-it-once guy, but that ship seems to have sailed.
1. I became aware of this when Tesla temporarily unlocked additional range for Florida residents so they could flee a hurricane
Having a a capability engineered into a product but making it unavailable to a subset of consumers in the lower price bucket has a long history.
I do not endorse the practice, but there's a tendency to sell things at prices the market will bear, with little basis on unit production cost. I must say, the HN crowd is typically more sanguine about SaaS and the virtues of recurring revenue when the subject is a software company. I'm more of a boxed-software/buy-it-once guy, but that ship seems to have sailed.
1. I became aware of this when Tesla temporarily unlocked additional range for Florida residents so they could flee a hurricane
You know, this is why I'll basically never have interest in the cost, anxiety or headache of owning a "nice" car. Paid software features that add basically no value are another reason I continue to not care.
Current VW from 2012 is going strong, other than a bit more oil and some paint fixes I haven't had to put much money in.
My next car will likely be a Hyundai or Toyota in the "gold" tier suggested for the Comma 3.
Props to MB for finding another way to grift rich people and suckers who are financing the car to pretend to be rich!
Current VW from 2012 is going strong, other than a bit more oil and some paint fixes I haven't had to put much money in.
My next car will likely be a Hyundai or Toyota in the "gold" tier suggested for the Comma 3.
Props to MB for finding another way to grift rich people and suckers who are financing the car to pretend to be rich!
Actually there's less new to it than it seems like.
Even in the past multiple models shared the same engine with minor modifications to offer different performance at different price points. E.g. a C180, C200 and C250 all used the same 1.8l engine. You paid more to get its full potential - and the extra cost was far more than the number of modifications to the base engine.
Now it seems like the extra cost just moves from a one-time bump to a subscription model.
Even in the past multiple models shared the same engine with minor modifications to offer different performance at different price points. E.g. a C180, C200 and C250 all used the same 1.8l engine. You paid more to get its full potential - and the extra cost was far more than the number of modifications to the base engine.
Now it seems like the extra cost just moves from a one-time bump to a subscription model.
Could probably position it has insurance for wear and tear
How do you justify BMW also charging $18/month for heated seats?
You also have the option of paying up front for the optional heating. This has long been a pay-ahead-of-time option that you had to specify before the car was manufactured. They are now giving you the option of having a subscription instead, and putting the hardware in the car. In reality, nothing has changed because the same pay-ahead option is still there.
Does that answer your question, or is my answer not clickbaity enough?
Does that answer your question, or is my answer not clickbaity enough?
> In reality, nothing has changed because the same pay-ahead option is still there.
That is not true. In the past you have owned a car you bought. Who is going to pay for seat heating if a seat has to be replaced? Who is paying for the fuel caused by the extra weight for stuff you didn't want. What happens if you decide to modify the car you own and run the seat heating yourself?
That is not true. In the past you have owned a car you bought. Who is going to pay for seat heating if a seat has to be replaced? Who is paying for the fuel caused by the extra weight for stuff you didn't want. What happens if you decide to modify the car you own and run the seat heating yourself?
This is complete nonsense. In the past it was normal to have that extra weight in your car and no seat heater button because you didn’t pay for it.
I'm not the OP, but it doesn't answer my question - what's their excuse for preventing me for using an existing feature in a product that I purchased?
It's not fully "your vehicle" if they control the software:
https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57
You can pay a recurring subscription fee to access features that they own.
https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57
You can pay a recurring subscription fee to access features that they own.
Greed. “Why get some of your money when I can get all of it?”
What's changed is now I physically have heated seats and can't use them.
That business model isn't new. It is common for cruise control modules to be installed in all vehicles and "enabled" with a certain steering wheel having extra buttons.
Having the functionality restricted behind a missing button etc isn't new. For example, it's the same with engines where the same block is used across different performance variants when used with the uprated parts... The new bit is being charged monthly for access. If you don't pay, they remotely disable the functionality.
That’s been common for like… the past 50 years?
I don't believe that justification for one thing necessitates justification of another, tangentially related thing.
I don't agree with either thing being paywalled, but I also can see nuance on things being paywalled; if there is a legit service cost to the manufacturer associated for example.
I don't agree with either thing being paywalled, but I also can see nuance on things being paywalled; if there is a legit service cost to the manufacturer associated for example.
Different type of insurance, I wonder if anyone would underwrite with better insurance rates if you don't have the faster acceleration? Easier when random features aren't subscriptions that can be turned on/off on a monthly basis.
Doubtful.
There are tons and tons and tons of things that HN type crowds like to think are good predictors of something but are really way below the noise floor.
There's way lower hanging fruit, like buying access to ALPRs data for "problem" stretches of road. IDK if insurance companies have openly admitted to doing that yet but the ALPR data sellers market as though it's a use case their customers have...
There are tons and tons and tons of things that HN type crowds like to think are good predictors of something but are really way below the noise floor.
There's way lower hanging fruit, like buying access to ALPRs data for "problem" stretches of road. IDK if insurance companies have openly admitted to doing that yet but the ALPR data sellers market as though it's a use case their customers have...
Most premium brand cars are leased, not bought. In this scenario it makes perfect sense to tax an increase in performance as it will increase the wear on the car.
This is another copy paste article on the subject that offers no details just to spark outrage and clicks. If the tax also applies to bought and payed units feel free to rage. But until some real journalism clears that up...
This is another copy paste article on the subject that offers no details just to spark outrage and clicks. If the tax also applies to bought and payed units feel free to rage. But until some real journalism clears that up...
This applies to owners and is an attempt to redefine 'ownership' of vehicles such that 'ownership' becomes a debt-like instrument entailing a stream of cash flows to Mercedes after you have 'purchased' your vehicle.
You can see the option for yourself here:
https://shop.mbusa.com/en-us/connect/pdp/Acceleration-Increa...
It would also apply to leased vehicles but to your point is not nearly as offensive there given you already have car as a service as the underlying model.
You can see the option for yourself here:
https://shop.mbusa.com/en-us/connect/pdp/Acceleration-Increa...
It would also apply to leased vehicles but to your point is not nearly as offensive there given you already have car as a service as the underlying model.
With a gasoline engine you can always use higher-octane fuel whenever you want, and that full-performance feature being included with the original purchase price is a part of the automotive experience since like forever.
Anything less is bound to be despised as an anti-consumer effort.
Anything less is bound to be despised as an anti-consumer effort.
I have now been convinced to put the work into keeping my 25 year old truck running.
Are there other products that were traditionally a one-time purchase that transitioned to subscription model successfully besides software? You can at least make the case that an online service requires an on-going cost.
It's already the case that driving a newish Mercedes is like having a bumper sticker:
I Have Too Much Money and Not Enough Taste
Buying one is like opening a vein. You've given permission for them to take all they want.
I Have Too Much Money and Not Enough Taste
Buying one is like opening a vein. You've given permission for them to take all they want.
> Not Enough Taste
Debatable...
Debatable...
I'll enter the debate.
For those that do admire the reputation of Mercedes for being tastefully done, if they can actually afford the newish model of their dreams, wouldn't it show even better taste to purchase a vintage model instead?
Made back when the company was profiting from selling its own brand of luxury & performance rather than renting it out directly.
Makes you think there must be other designed-in compromises that would never have been acceptable when the executives were still focused (by tradition if nothing else) on making the major purchase itself be as satisfying as possible.
It may be the same company, and technology has certainly advanced, but today's executives themselves are not as advanced as people used to be in previous decades.
This is a plain ordinary decision-making deficiency.
Remember at one time a Mercedes plant was doing extremely well simply manufacturing the vehicles and letting any aftermarket leasing be handled by third parties. Now it's plain to see they're struggling to squeeze the consumer in ways that are simply distasteful compared to higher-class operation under more respectable higher-performance executives in earlier times at the same company.
It's a slippery slope, first you're raking it in simply building luxury homes and selling them for market price. If that's not enough then leveraging what's built by renting out the same asset instead of parting with it is a consideration but it involves a lot more financing arrangements. There's always been more to be made through financial work without having to build anything new, so eventually you reach peak time-sharing.
I like executives and engineers who are effective enough to prosper without any predatory shenanigans, whether financial or not.
That's something I just never developed a taste for.
For those that do admire the reputation of Mercedes for being tastefully done, if they can actually afford the newish model of their dreams, wouldn't it show even better taste to purchase a vintage model instead?
Made back when the company was profiting from selling its own brand of luxury & performance rather than renting it out directly.
Makes you think there must be other designed-in compromises that would never have been acceptable when the executives were still focused (by tradition if nothing else) on making the major purchase itself be as satisfying as possible.
It may be the same company, and technology has certainly advanced, but today's executives themselves are not as advanced as people used to be in previous decades.
This is a plain ordinary decision-making deficiency.
Remember at one time a Mercedes plant was doing extremely well simply manufacturing the vehicles and letting any aftermarket leasing be handled by third parties. Now it's plain to see they're struggling to squeeze the consumer in ways that are simply distasteful compared to higher-class operation under more respectable higher-performance executives in earlier times at the same company.
It's a slippery slope, first you're raking it in simply building luxury homes and selling them for market price. If that's not enough then leveraging what's built by renting out the same asset instead of parting with it is a consideration but it involves a lot more financing arrangements. There's always been more to be made through financial work without having to build anything new, so eventually you reach peak time-sharing.
I like executives and engineers who are effective enough to prosper without any predatory shenanigans, whether financial or not.
That's something I just never developed a taste for.
Good analysis.
An old Mercedes has class. A new Mercedes is just vulgar.
An old Mercedes has class. A new Mercedes is just vulgar.
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I think the next question is, forget battery life, how long do I get security updates for and will the newest releases slow down my car’s functionality like a new iOS update…
The only reason this doesn’t bother me is because I don’t care about faster acceleration. Now if they start charging for Apple CarPlay it’s a different story…
I guess I should buy that old project car I want, it might be my last chance to have a car where I don’t have to drink a can of verification Mountain Dew!
Imagine having to pay this in 20 years when its a $5000 used mercedes
Isn't this common practice literally everywhere in the software industry? They spend additional engineer hours on a feature that isn't generally needed, then they sell it only for the people that need it, and want to pay for it?
Software has subscription because software usually puts out new versions periodically with new functionality and fixes. Car companies’ subscriptions seem to be rent on existing features that never change.
It would be easier to swallow if it’s a rent-to-own model.
It would be easier to swallow if it’s a rent-to-own model.
Or the functionality is there because of physics so the spend additional engineer hours to build a pay wall around non-critical but desirable characteristics because the amount of money they will collect annually will exceed the amount they spend building the paywall and associated support infrastructure.
Functionality of your PC is also there 'because of physics'. You paid for the RAM, CPU, and electricity to run it. There is a lot of software in cars and ECUs. The mapping and tuning industry exists because there is a lot of knowledge and expertise to extract the most out of the 'physics'.
There could be an argument for open source ECU mapping tables and other software. But, the reason is the same as reasons for OSS, not that the customer has paid for the 'physics' that already exists.
There could be an argument for open source ECU mapping tables and other software. But, the reason is the same as reasons for OSS, not that the customer has paid for the 'physics' that already exists.
If I just want an (electric) car that gets me to work and back home safely, I think I should like optional subscriptions. Hopefully it makes the base model more affordable.
Are these OTA updates or paywalls? If the latter, it's time to hack.
Never buying a Mercedes.
It's an awful reality, but there is more money to make when targeting rich people than there is money to make products than benefits normal people.
You often see this in startups and business plans and models. Same for whale users.
This says a lot about capitalism.
You often see this in startups and business plans and models. Same for whale users.
This says a lot about capitalism.
Eh, there’s money to be made everywhere. Costco and McDonalds make a lot of money too.
Certainly adding arbitrary “upgrades” or higher end models specifically to milk less discerning consumers has proven to be a good business strategy.
I could see laws against arbitrary software gates limiting hardware gaining traction though. I’d like to hope that the manufacturers who don’t use these tactics win out naturally though
Certainly adding arbitrary “upgrades” or higher end models specifically to milk less discerning consumers has proven to be a good business strategy.
I could see laws against arbitrary software gates limiting hardware gaining traction though. I’d like to hope that the manufacturers who don’t use these tactics win out naturally though
Economies of scale mean that it's frequently less expensive to manufacture only the top configuration with the most features, and then turn features off in software. Broadly, I think that price discrimination is good because it allows the cheaper version of things to exist and be sold at a lower profit margin than a company would otherwise be willing to sell for.
For example, the 2022 Ford Maverick XL was not available with cruise control, but it's only locked out in software. All cars have computer controlled throttles now, so cruise control is a software-only feature with no additional hardware.
Some other hardware that's commonly limited by software is CPUs, GPUs, and such. I had a triple core AMD CPU that I unlocked into a quad core, and an ATI GPU that I reflashed into a higher model. This has become less possible as manufacturers start using lasers to destroy parts of their own product instead, so that hackers can't re-enable disabled functionality.
If laws came around to prevent software from being used to limit hardware functionality, that's what we're going to start seeing: more money and effort spent to intentionally remove or destroy things from products. That sucks compared to just switching it off in software.
For example, the 2022 Ford Maverick XL was not available with cruise control, but it's only locked out in software. All cars have computer controlled throttles now, so cruise control is a software-only feature with no additional hardware.
Some other hardware that's commonly limited by software is CPUs, GPUs, and such. I had a triple core AMD CPU that I unlocked into a quad core, and an ATI GPU that I reflashed into a higher model. This has become less possible as manufacturers start using lasers to destroy parts of their own product instead, so that hackers can't re-enable disabled functionality.
If laws came around to prevent software from being used to limit hardware functionality, that's what we're going to start seeing: more money and effort spent to intentionally remove or destroy things from products. That sucks compared to just switching it off in software.
Yes it does, but not in support of your thesis.
Angry Birds made a fortune by targeting every phone user for 79p. Apple far more so by putting a phone in millions of pockets. Amazon makes money based on lots of small transactions by non-rich people. Bugatti makes money by targeting a few rich people. You can go big, but have a few customers, or go small and have loads. This is why we have any products to buy - you can do well selling to all sorts of income levels. You just need the right product at the right price.
Angry Birds made a fortune by targeting every phone user for 79p. Apple far more so by putting a phone in millions of pockets. Amazon makes money based on lots of small transactions by non-rich people. Bugatti makes money by targeting a few rich people. You can go big, but have a few customers, or go small and have loads. This is why we have any products to buy - you can do well selling to all sorts of income levels. You just need the right product at the right price.
More FOMO to milk whales doesn't bother me at all.
I own a bunch of AMGs and this seems fairly reasonable to me.
It’s always trivial to squeeze more power out of these cars with software modifications. The cars do not come out of the factory like that because of reliability concerns.
To me this just reads like manufacturer-warrantied chiptuning. The interesting question will be whether or not this can actually compare with external chiptuners when it comes to performance.
HN doesn’t like subscriptions, but 1.2k/yr for a warrantied high quality tune from the manufacturer would be a great deal compared to what is available right now.
It’s always trivial to squeeze more power out of these cars with software modifications. The cars do not come out of the factory like that because of reliability concerns.
To me this just reads like manufacturer-warrantied chiptuning. The interesting question will be whether or not this can actually compare with external chiptuners when it comes to performance.
HN doesn’t like subscriptions, but 1.2k/yr for a warrantied high quality tune from the manufacturer would be a great deal compared to what is available right now.
Electric motors don't have valve timing or fuel ratios or anything that would normally require a chip tuning.
This is thousands of dollars of year to change the MAX_TORQUE_ALLOWED to a different value already tested, nothing more.
This is thousands of dollars of year to change the MAX_TORQUE_ALLOWED to a different value already tested, nothing more.
Turning up MAX_TORQUE_ALLOWED will almost always increase failure rates.
Selling a warrantied MAX_TORQUE_ALLOWED increase makes perfect sense.
Of course, it’s tough for us to know without getting someone to leak internal numbers.
Selling a warrantied MAX_TORQUE_ALLOWED increase makes perfect sense.
Of course, it’s tough for us to know without getting someone to leak internal numbers.
This requires you to keep paying long after you're out of warranty - not that car warranties are worth much anyway
This is how it starts. Look at the game industry for how it ends up. Usually not good for the consumer.
“Slippery slope” is generally a poor argument, especially without strong evidence regarding it’s existence.
If they fuck this up and piss off their customers, that’ll just mean that BMW or VAG will take the sales instead.
If they fuck this up and piss off their customers, that’ll just mean that BMW or VAG will take the sales instead.
No. Because of market power, if they can rake in more money with pricing strategies like this, BMW and VAG can also raise their prices.
Not really. They can try, but there is also the used market which is much less likely to fall for this.
The used market will probably demand to know if this was ever enabled so they can pay less for your abused car.
The used market will probably bypass cars with heated seat subscriptions (at least where it gets cold) to the point where they have to make it permanent just to keep the trade in value high enough that the old owner can afford the next car.
The used market will probably demand to know if this was ever enabled so they can pay less for your abused car.
The used market will probably bypass cars with heated seat subscriptions (at least where it gets cold) to the point where they have to make it permanent just to keep the trade in value high enough that the old owner can afford the next car.
Saying that saying something is a slippery slope is a fallacy is itself a fallacy
Somehow I don’t recall using the word “fallacy” at all.
Cool. That’s irrelevant since you accused the OP of the slippery slope fallacy. That accusation, and the stating that all slippery slopes need extreme proof, is known as “the slippery slope fallacy” fallacy
No, I did not accuse anyone of any fallacy.
You should learn to read and understand English before making yourself look like a complete idiot by autistically screeching about fallacies.
I’ll hold your hand: Not all slippery slopes are fallacious, I never suggested that the one presented earlier was. I suggested that without supporting evidence it’s a weak argument, that’s strictly different than calling it an outright fallacy.
You should learn to read and understand English before making yourself look like a complete idiot by autistically screeching about fallacies.
I’ll hold your hand: Not all slippery slopes are fallacious, I never suggested that the one presented earlier was. I suggested that without supporting evidence it’s a weak argument, that’s strictly different than calling it an outright fallacy.
There are easier ways to admit you’re wrong than ad hominems. Cheers
>There are easier ways to admit you’re wrong than ad hominems. Cheers
You’re just demonstrating that you don’t even know what ad hominem means.
“edgyquant is an idiot; therefore he is wrong” is an example of an ad hominem.
“edgyquant is an idiot” is merely a statement of fact
How does it feel being so pathetic that you have to substitute “insult” with “ad hominem” in a desperate attempt to seem smart?
The world will be a better place once you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness, hopefully that day arrives soon.
You’re just demonstrating that you don’t even know what ad hominem means.
“edgyquant is an idiot; therefore he is wrong” is an example of an ad hominem.
“edgyquant is an idiot” is merely a statement of fact
How does it feel being so pathetic that you have to substitute “insult” with “ad hominem” in a desperate attempt to seem smart?
The world will be a better place once you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness, hopefully that day arrives soon.
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Except this slope is so worn down from use that EA had to install stairs.
I will be contrarian and say that I’m fine with this. Fewer skus is better for efficiency, labor shortage issues, and the environment; if software enabled components enables this, so be it.
We don’t get upset when adobe or Apple hides software features behind pay walls, we shouldn’t be surprised if everyone starts doing it.
We don’t get upset when adobe or Apple hides software features behind pay walls, we shouldn’t be surprised if everyone starts doing it.
I would argue we do get upset when other companies do this. You wouldn’t want apple to give you a phone with 1TB of storage artificially limited to 256GB unless you pay a subscription fee.
> Fewer skus is better for efficiency, labor shortage issues, and the environment
Sure, but if it's cheaper to only make the better model, then they should just only sell it as such, rather than making something you own withhold features from you.
> We don’t get upset when adobe or Apple hides software features behind pay walls
Yes we do. Don't you remember the Pantone Photoshop story from less than a month ago?
Sure, but if it's cheaper to only make the better model, then they should just only sell it as such, rather than making something you own withhold features from you.
> We don’t get upset when adobe or Apple hides software features behind pay walls
Yes we do. Don't you remember the Pantone Photoshop story from less than a month ago?
With all these subscriptions and other crap being added to autos, seems I will be only buying very old cars. My current auto is pushing 20 years