They’re recouping the costs of hiring an in house orthodontist to fix all them buck tooth grills they made.

I’m driving BMW and use turning signals 🙈

Exactly, unless it needs the company to have server space or an internet connection then it’s not even close to something that should have a subscription.

I agree. Some subset of ADAS are using things like LIDAR mapping data that do incur ongoing cost. For example, Ford relies on road having recent LIDAR data to let you take your hands off. So they have a subscription, and if you don’t pay… Well it’s almost the same except your hands have to stay on. It is vaguely less competent, but still pretty much follows the lines/traffic on its own.

Of course their pricing is way more than I think will work out, but I can at least understand why a subscription fee is associated.

The argument I could maybe see is that their seemingly fine ADAS system is at higher risk of being hit with a mandatory recall down the road. Those generally ignore all warranty limitations (e.g suddenly having to replace airbags in 15 year old cars…), but might spare them the expense for those who lack the features, or at least the revenue from the users helps fund the possibility of converting a related recall.

More like “if this car is otherwise the best option, I’ll go for it, but your policies are actively having me court your compeititors and damaging brand loyalty.”

radio does suck, but its also a vital information system during emergencies. what liabilities does a manufacturer open themselves up to by refusing access to a potentially lifesaving device?

Also you have Chinese BYD making huge inroads in various markets now. They’re going to massively drop the price floor for features that are seen as luxury right now.

Good news!

Wow! Great! Nice! Anyway…

Peak car was 1990-1994, largely mechanical, little electronics and reliable as hell. My Merc from that time is built like a tank and everything is screwed together, not glued.

I think most importantly it was that they often didn’t have an infotainment with everything integrated in it and that regular cars still were mostly using double din head units which are perfect to swap out. It’s a standard that we should have kept but didn’t. ☹️

Ironically the BMWs here in Germany tend to use their signals in my experience

must be a pretty busy guy if he has to install them in all those cars

Funny thing is, they do help you. Sure, there’s assholes who see a signal as a sign that they need to speed up to prevent a lane change, but there are plenty of people who will see the signal and let you in, at least in my area. My own rule of thumb is if I don’t have to slam on my brakes to let you in, I’ll slow down for you, especially if you’re a semi.

Unless I know you pulled into an onramp lane just to skip ahead of the people not doing that bullshit when it’s stop and go level traffic. But it’s usually hard or impossible to tell who is an asshole and who is just using the onramp because they just got on the highway and I try to leave space for people just getting on.

Now kiss

!usernamechecksout@lemmy.zip

ain’t that a bargain ?

?

I was not taking issue with leases, just commenting on the notion of a cost over and above a lease/car payment.

It’s why I am considering availability of public transportation when house-hunting nowadays. When my car breaks down, I hope to be able to NOT buy a new one. Ideally, for the rare occasion that I need one in the future, I could rent one.

I think they need the smart features to get a 5 star safety rating.

Yes, and they will tell “Look! Consumer DEMANDED those smartcars! We are only replying to a demand!”

Subaru did this with remote start. Instead of just selling you the damn option you have to pay a subscription. Fuck that I’ll just walk outside and start the car…

Do you mean the old mechnical trip computer, or are you refering to trip with software-only features?

People were objecting to the subscription, but they should have been objective to the locked features.

Why though, if it’s cheaper? Do you rather pay for features you don’t use or pay to remove features?

The problem is all the other people voting the wrong way with their bigger wallets.

Mostly, but never discount the power of well-wielded shame

BMW parts are bonkers expensive. I have a Cooper and whenever something goes wrong the repair is stilly expensive. Mini may be BMW’s cheaper brand when you drive off the lot. But ownership costs outside of warrantee are BMW through and through.

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

Terry Pratchett said it best!

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money,” wrote Pratchett. “Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”

Yeah I don’t think the headline means they hated the heated seats, but that they hated the subscription.

Because - assuming you don’t reach your data cap every month - you might be sharing your leftover data with somebody else who’s getting it “for free” as far as They (the carrier/provider) are concerned. They can’t control who/what devices connect to your hotspot, so They assume every tethered connection is siphoning data to a non-customer entity, potentially disincentivising “the leech” from subscribing to their own data plan.

If They can steer “the leech” towards becoming a paying customer, then they can harvest (more) data & device activity from both users AND they have more active data plans (paying account holders) to boast about to their real customers - the shareholders - than they would have otherwise.

It’s pretty simple really, you just have to think like an executive who’s fiduciarily beholden to lining the pockets of shareholders (as opposed to a business owner trying to provide a useful & mutually beneficial service to their customers). The latter do exist in the corporate world, but they are few and far between when you’re a publicly traded S-corp like most (maybe all?) of the major providers. It’s just the banality of societally-accepted evil at its finest (and yes; utter bullshit)