But there is something wrong in the product planning if there are no vehicles outside the wave of "gadgetrification" ("Look, these come with holographic glove compartment. It's for your convenience. Yes, you pay for it").
In other words, CONSUMERS do not necessarily act in the interest of consumers.
That's what I am saying with "broken market, broken supply-demand system, non-rational and non-informed economic agents".
Bad products that sell are a reality since a long time.
What would your goal be, then? Only "good" products are able to be sold -- according to whom will this definition of "good" be decided?
I'm mainly playing devil's advocate here, but my point is that bringing value judgement into other people's decisions is not something I would regard as rational. People have their own reasons for doing things that I don't need to understand.
Rational agents. That quality is an abater of relativism.
> What would your goal be, then
Livability. That requires working systems, so that choice is still possible. In the current situation, there is in many vast territories no choice, in many areas (not just cars), and greatly suboptimal, very thin livability.
Again, livability "for whom?" Do you propose making cheap, accessible beachfront property a basic human right? Should we all live in equally-sized apartments given to us for free by the government? People do not all want the same thing.
Hi there.
> Again, livability "for whom?"
For the rational. The people who tend to dis-want electroshocking cutlery and miasmatic nail polish.
> Do you propose
That societies work on making citizens informed and rational, just like classic economic theory suggested and as is required for the common advantage.
I haven't seen an analysis of whether regulations preclude those controls being open source and giving the car owner full access. Of course the owner could make the car noncompliant in that case, but the owner can do that on current and past cars using a wrench.
Real dialogue:
> "Can we lower the volume of that artificial sound?" // "In the internal configuration; should we modify it, you lose the warranty".
Plus, we have heard rumors of "tampering detected: degraded mode activated, contact a service office".
Basically, one should avoid in general critical products shipped with kill switches (and in fact I also saw cars that had mulfunctioning kill switches and "shut down" randomly while running).
Also I'm trying to think of what role the computer plays in emissions other than ensuring stoichiometry.
When the engine is cold, the mixture needs to be rich or it won't start. Engines with carburetors use a choke for that - a valve that blocks some airflow so there's more vacuum, causing the engine to suck in extra fuel. Electronic fuel injection can be much more precise about this, minimizing the amount and duration of enrichment.
Changes in air pressure and temperature change the ideal air/fuel ratio. Driving over a mountain will make an engine without the ability to react to run at a suboptimal air/fuel ratio.
Catalytic converters require that the ratio be kept very close to optimal to operate effectively. A small deviation for an extended period of time will result in a large increase in emissions and may even permanently damage the catalyst.
Unfortunately the survey gave me no opportunity to explain how much the basic concept of them continuing to be up my business post-purchase pisses me off.
EDIT: I am keenly aware how cars work and don’t need eSplaining on them. I articulate my point better in a comment deeper in the thread. Apologies for my snark and vitriol over unnecessary and exploitative subscriptions coming off as somehow condoning VW-formulated petrol or Tesla-approved electricity.
I’m never - let me be clear - never going to condone proprietary bullshit like specialized gas or electricity or what-have-you. But if car dealers and makers really want recurring revenue, just take the pain out of maintenance and repairs via subscription. Most people I know of (across multiple income strata) would gladly pay for that peace of mind instead of fretting over a repair bill.
The costs of a true per-mile option which I can guarentee is available at 3am is not available where I live (taxis don’t fill this niche), so until then it’s
Capital (for the car amortised over say 3 years - I buy second hand and don’t worry about deprecation)
Time based price (insurance, tax, some maintenence)
Mile price (petrol, some maintenence)
Location price (top road, parking)
This encourages me to use the car more once I have it though, there should be a better way to smooth occasional use (which all travel is - 95% of the time my car sits idle even if I drive an hour a day)
So does this imply that if insurance companies charge higher rates for higher hp, that non subscribers incur higher costs for a feature that they don't get the benefit of?
They could either make two models (incurring the costs associated with having two different SKUs) and let people pay more for the one with more power or make one with intrinsically more power and let the people that don't want it pay less with it nerfed.
I would have thought that people (like me) that have spent our lives making a zero marginal cost product would understand the economics at work here.
The analogy to software is great though; nobody paying for software owns it, or even has the option to own it. This is not fully the case for physical things, and people are rightly angry about “owning” things without owning them.
I dont understand why people balk at car subscription for some feature, but perfectly fine with leasing a car => which is basically a car subscription driven to its logical end?
does it matter if you have to pay $700 to your bank for lease and separately $20 to VW for some feature?
would it matter if you had to pay $720 to your bank instead for full features???
You know what else VW can do: price each car at million dollar MSRP minimum, to make more money, but they dont do that. What do you think holds them from jacking up prices to $1 mln ?
Once you have bought the car, you are locked into paying the higher subscription costs, because the costs of switching are much higher than the increased subscription costs. There are no alternative suppliers for "increased performance" of your VW. Thus, the disincentive of lost sales is removed, and VW is not incentivised to keep subscription prices low.
(See also: Netflix)
Because that’s a choice with alternatives. This time they offer a “lifetime subscription”, not a purchase mind you! a subscription, next time they might not.
And since it’s a life subscription, does it transfer to the next owner? Or do they have to pay it again, a la Tesla? Will it get invalidated if I make a modification to the car?
I would also never lease a car.
I mean, lots of people here resent charging for software also!
It makes even more sense in EVs where you don’t have to be concerned with the performance of supporting components to the engine.
The difference here, is that it’s a subscription, not a one time upgrade, and as a result, not an upgrade you can sell on.
From the article, if you buy "lifetime" subscription, it persists.
> Auto Express, who first reported the story, said a lifetime subscription would be for the car rather than the individual - meaning the upgrade would remain on the car if it was sold on.
same with cars, same parts with one SKU, but various features turned on/off allows car OEMs to make different price offerings at different prices to capture larger part of the demand curve
It's as though, and now I know this sounds crazy, as though some bean-counter with a spreadsheet was actually the one determining price and features and not a team of engineers saying, "Here's what we can deliver competitively."
And while to a younger crowd, that might sound obvious, I would like to suggest that the older U.S. model (and now we're going back to the early days of the wireless, perhaps up to early Hewlett Packard times) was to beat your competition on price and features. You would never nerf a thing in your product line up.
Am I wildly off base here, naive, or have an ignorant reading of the history of U.S. Capitalism? I'm merely a layman so am happy to hear from someone who has studied this stuff.
A bit of a tangent, but I'm also reminded of the era when HeathKit was an option. My dad recalls at least that the HeathKit kits were not always inexpensive — but the completed consumer electronic project would be of very high quality. I know he but some of his early "hi-fi" equipment from HeathKit kits.
A recent headline decelared that China is run by engineers, the U.S. by lawyers. Perhaps it should have said the West is run by marketing.
I saw that current VW models feature very prominent (and IMO ugly, unibrow style) LED strips.
Does the car light up in a different color if you pay for the subscription?
I might at some point buy a second hand one. And VW has a lot of pretty decent EVs in the market that are trickling down to the second hand market at increasingly more attractive prices. Probably not my dream second hand car (I think they are kind of ugly) but they aren't horrible vehicles. I don't think I'll ever want to hand over cash to the oil industry voluntarily. I have driven rental petrol and diesel cars in the past. But it just feels a bit stupid to fill up a car for 50+ euros. A few years worth of money saved on not buying fuel easily adds up to a pretty nice budget for a modest second hand EV these days.
At least Tesla was using some sense of the "ship one battery and restrict it in software" for an actual tangible hardware good versus some software shenanigans in the VW camp (again).
Example: Acceleration Boost is a 2k one-time upgrade. Once you purchase it, you get it forever. EAP and FSD are the same: pay once, get for life. Those who purchased FSD before HW3 also got/get included driving computer upgrade. Of course this was done from Tesla to avoid backslash, but at the same time it was done without back-and-forth: they understood the situation and simply rolled it out.
FSD subscription makes sense because you purchase more "features", maybe for a limited time, for a much lower price.
If your daily driving is 20mi, you probably are fine with AP, and won't justify spending 4k on EAP, 8k on FSD or 100$/mo on the FSD subscription. But maybe if you trip for holidays for a few weeks, you can purchase the subscription for a couple months.
If you're daily driving 50+mi, or drive in very busy cities, I can see the 8k purchase offering some value if you want to keep the car more than 6 years (8k/100$ - 80 months, ~6.5y), and you can still try it out via subscription beforehand and decide to not pay the full price upfront.
Basically Tesla's model is mostly one-time license fee, except for FSD subscription to ease the access to software-powered features.
What VW is doing is selling you hardware, and then asking you to pay every month if you want to unlock its full potential. Honestly this should be illegal, a one-time fee should be the only way allowed. And I recognize they have the option of a one-time fee, but of course they're banking on people opting for the low-cost option and forget they have it active. EDIT: this is also the test bed for more subscription stuff, they want to see how people react to it. If there's no big backslash, expect more subscriptions to come.
> VW says the "optional power upgrade" will cost £16.50 per month or £165 annually - or people can choose to pay £649 for a lifetime subscription
Agree it sucks, but there is a lifetime option, just like with Tesla.
> And I recognize they have the option of a one-time fee, but of course they're banking on people opting for the low-cost option and forget they have it active.
I think the only time they remove FSD from resales is when they repurchase the cars to resell themselves and then strip the used ones of FSD/upgrades. With private-to-private, private-to-dealership or dealership-to-private ownership transfers, FSD stays with the car.
In most countries they also have "FSD transfer", which means that if you trade-in your current Tesla when purchasing a new one, your FSD "license" is transferred to the new car.
As far as I recall, I think this article is still valid on this topic: https://www.findmyelectric.com/blog/does-full-self-driving-f...
And we all know which way this is gonna go ;)
PS: Morally worse, only privatized water that used to be public free access, Nestlé-style. These people sure know how to win the public opinion.
But the situation is objectively worse than today because it doesn't just involve a "software defined car" but a "subscription defined car". Today you buy your specs and own them, you're not at the manufacturer's mercy on the monthly price.
I'm afraid it's just a matter of time until everyone does it. It only takes one company to go first and take the heat to make it mainstream, the rest will follow.
It might not happen this year, it might not happen this decade, but it will eventually happen.
Organizing your business in such an anti-consumer way is a huge liability, but executives who will have extracted all the wealth anyways will probably be long gone by then.
Very curious to know - are the efficiencies of scale being passed on, or is this just additional revenue for manufacturers?
Or enabling full power puts more load on the vehicle's components and costs the manufacture more in warrant and reduced resale values.
Suspect it is a bit of both, but without access to the books.
And someone at VW looked at this and said: amazing idea.
My single take from this is that batteries have become so cheap that you can put more in a car and still make a good profit.
It would have been nice if the savings would be passed on to the consumer.
It sounds to me like they're just limiting the kW output of the pack.
That's what he means by derating. Using the battery as if it were specced lower than it is. The deadweight is that you're hauling around a battery that is heavier than it needs to be if it were actually that spec.
Secondly, a 100kW battery is heavier than a 70-80kW one.
If you don’t pony up for the upgrade fee, you carry around all the time probably 50kgs of useless mass. More mass, less mileage.
Am smaller battery would weigh less than a bigger battery.
Because they de-rate the battery via software, you are carrying a bigger battery which weighs more than a smaller battery, while you only get the mileage of a smaller battery.
Hence, you have deadweight in your car.
300 miles per charge, 5000 charges, that's 1.5 million miles.
Giving people options how to pay for this is not a bad thing, as long as you can pay outright, per month, per mile, per unit delivered.
Note that here, subscription is just an option, you can also buy the permanent upgrade.
On the one hand, I appreciate the potential such data collection allows: proactive maintenance reminders, repair scheduling, TCO reductions, and even factory-line improvements by identifying flaws before they turn into class actions.
On the other hand, none of that is what they’re actually doing. It’s all about juicing revenue instead of reducing costs, and treating paying customers like loot pinatas to be clubbed repeatedly for dosh.
I’d like to believe there’s a market for smaller, simpler, EV-based “retro-inspired” cars that aren’t jam-packed with modems and sensors to phone home. Maybe someday I’ll be proven right.
Revenue and profit has gone absolutely nuts since subscriptions started and is clearly the way forward for them.
This model makes a lot of sense for software but none for hardware.
Adobe customers are indeed pissed off but they should fix that with lower prices and better terms, not going back to the old model that had them losing money.
Kind of remarkable how low the price earnings ratio is compared to magnificent seven stocks. Only Google gets stuck with a similarly pedestrian price earnings ratio.
Banks, mines, energy, rail, telecoms - companies that are making big profits right now and will be with us for decades to come, all priced like they're going to evaporate in a matter of years.
This might come close: https://www.slate.auto/en
Better idea --- forget Volkswagen.
This is just one example of anti-consumer antics bordering on extortion that have been building for a very long time.
The overall idea is simple --- reduce the sticker price to a competitive level and try to increase profits with prepaid maintenance, insurance, data collection and other "subscription" services. In VW's case, this appears to be an act of desperation.
Consumers don't have to "subscribe" to this sort of gamesmanship. There are alternatives --- as evidenced by VW earnings --- down almost 40% over the past year.
Now I trust them even less, if that's even possible .
So yeah, Ford, Nissan, etc., also did their cheating, but due to some loopholes they are all good :)
Just provide your proof of this to one of the millions of greedy lawyers out there and you can easily become rich.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/07/08/german...
https://www.theregister.com/2018/07/10/nissan_admits_falsify...
The difference is, some people say "VW, never again!", meanwhile they don't notice that all car manufacturers are probably guilty.
There is an old news article that said UK, French and German authorities argued to keep lax emissions testing (e.g. "they should be done while the car is going downhill!"), no doubt due to their car industry lobbyists, but since search engines suck now I can't find it anymore
Of course, most people drive on roads, so the non-drive wheels move, and most trips involve turns.
Since the emissions tests were conducted on a dynamometer, the average affected car would likely pass. Researchers did tests in real world conditions and found the emissions varied significantly.
And this subscription trend is exactly that, a common trend these days. It’s far from unique to VW.
Public transport (in the UK at least) cheats the system whenever they can too. So you’re probably best sticking to push bikes.
I have found that there are very few absolutes in life --- so use your best judgment.
In my judgment, European manufacturers have jumped on this bandwagon more than most. Probably out of desperation and necessity --- they can't compete solely on price.
As another example, Mercedes vehicles seem to be good for about 3 years before the planned maintenance (aka gouging) really starts kicking in. I've known people with $10K bills for the scheduled maintenance from a dealership --- for a 3-4 year old car that seems to be running just fine.
"Mercedes-Benz is one of the fastest depreciating car brands in the world!"
Something that should be simple like changing the battery is actually an intricate process on some models involving all sorts of resets and nonsense. A mistake can "brick" your car. I know someone who did this and had to have the car towed to the dealership where they were subjected to a good ole fashioned ($$$) reaming --- all for a dead battery.
https://www.mercedesmedic.com/mercedes-battery-replacement-d...
For me, a 5 year old Mercedes is just not worth the headache --- and again, this is by design IMO. If you choose to buy one for basic transportation, my advice is make sure you have a backup vehicle.
You can find them cheap enough so that if they have a major failure you just scrap it and find another one. If they last a few years, you have a comfortable solid car for way less than making payments and depreciation on a new one.
A lot has changed over 20 years. Just as an example, a lot of new Mercedes are now being equipped with Renault engines.
https://cartriple.com/mercedes-models-with-a-renault-engine/
E or S class only for what I'm talking about. And S are generally too complicated unless you can find one that's been really well kept up.
I think this is quite common with EVs especially, where the same motors are used in the base and performance models - they do normally add other stuff like bigger batteries etc too, but also cost a lot more than just 600 quid extra.
Even this isn't the whole story though, at least at the high end. The Model S Plaid has an extra motor but also uses different rear motors, designed to be more efficient at high RPM. And Tesla puts a lot of emphasis on parts commonality in general.
Example: Ford.
In many cases they ship 1 engine type and restrict it by software. This way they reduce manufacturing costs, I understand, it's just unfair that you have the same engine of someone with officially more horsepower and all you can do is cheat (with software that enables the feature) and hence say goodbye to your insurance.
At the time, the F-series came in the F-750 and F-850 models.
The motors are identical, the computers restrict the top end horsepower.
But, those aren’t the only differences. The 850 is more designed for off road than the 750. The bike is taller, large front wheel, spoked wheels.
I’m have the 750, the more street oriented version. But here’s the thing.
As they say in motorsports, there’s no replacement for displacement. My peak HP may be down to the 850, but I get all of the torque, which is one aspect that makes a motorcycle better to ride. Torque really helps with acceleration, and my bike will get to ludicrous speed quite handily.
Also in some jurisdictions, riders are limited by HP as to what bikes they’re allowed to ride due to tiered licensing. The 750 falls under one of those lines.
So I can’t speak to Ford, but I think the way BMW uses this in the F-series is quite reasonable on several levels.
The thing is - for mass production, it has become cheaper for a manufacturer to produce 1 engine type and block it with software rather then 2,3...N types and to allow people to choose.
The subscription model in my opinion makes sense, because you can also decide to unlock the feature entirely and it stays. If not, you can try and decide. It sounds reasonable to me - they didn't sell you 4 wheels and a steering wheel with "entry level" model that can be upgraded to "all in the entry model + car seats, radio" etc. We're talking about some very specific upgrades that make the car cost less by default and yet still good.
Who the hell needs 230HPs on a daily basis? So shrink that, make the entry model more reasonable, and let them upgrade if they want to.
I believe part of the rationale is that Euro A2 licenses permit a "restrictor kit" to reduce motor power below 47 hp, but only if maximum horsepower is less than 94 hp (double the limit). One can buy an F-800 with a restrictor, and then remove the restrictor once one has obtained the upgraded license.
Now, looking at the motor torque and power curves, most of that extra power comes in the high RPMs. In practical riding of BMW twins, I find that I rarely place the motor into the high RPMs, because the torque curve is nice and flat and there's plenty of pull in the low range :)
More aggressive tunings can also be harder on the engine. Factory tunes work a bit like binning and overclocking - the higher clocked CPUs are often selected for better quality control, and lower clocked CPUs are the same part, but with less rigorous quality control (or at least they don't have to pass at the same extreme high level).
So just like you can overclock a CPU, you can often overclock an engine... but if there are mild defects in the engine block the results can be disastrous.
This also affects fuel economy, which is regulated, and also affects consumer buying decisions. So optimizing the ECU tune for performance and for fuel economy are often somewhat different optimization points. For instance, BMWs have a button for "Eco/Comfort/Sport" mode, which among other things, can sometimes change the engine timings from a button in the cabin.
Just like underclocking a GPU can get 80% of the performance for a fraction of the power, and overclocking by 10% can use 20% more power, the same is true of the ECU timings.
That has more to do with their legacy ICE business than with their EVs. Their EV business is apparently growing quite nicely. And they have issues with tariffs in the US of course. But so do all their competitors.
> Consumers don't have to "subscribe" to this sort of gamesmanship.
But some happily do. Modern cars have a lot of software that defines their behavior and characteristics. Getting access to some of the feature flags is a natural control point. There's no need to introduce a lot of variation at the hardware level.
In the end you get what you pay for. If you can get a better deal for the same money, you should take it of course. Nobody stops you. Or if on the other hand horsepower doesn't really matter to you and you would mostly drive the car in economy mode, you might pay a bit less for a decent car. EVs offer a ridiculous amount of horsepower and torque. Limiting that a bit via software isn't that strange and actually necessary to prevent them from shredding their own tires. Conservative settings are better for the tires and limit the amount of wear and tear (and resulting warranty and insurance claims).
VW actually uses the same base platform for a lot of different cars and sub brands. At the hardware level there is far less difference than the amount of models would suggest. Any differences in driving experience are mostly software. And the cool thing with software is that you can change things. So, why not try to charge for that?
I personally wouldn't care about paying a subscription for stuff like this. But I appreciate some people might care enough to hand over some cash that don't necessarily have a lot of cash on hand to outright buy a more expensive model. And technically any car that has the option, is unmonetized potential. So, a subscription isn't the weirdest thing to tap into that potential. Many people lease their car anyway. So, they are already paying per month. Pay a little extra for some redundant fun on the daily commute. Or don't and pay a little less.
I don't think that's consumer hostile. Of course the FOMO for pointless features that this creates causes some people to get irrationally angry about the perceived injustice of somebody not giving them something on the cheap.
I think not. Sure there are features that people want and would pay for, but I'd bet given the option that a lot of people would prefer to pay a bit more up front then have a monthly subscription. Personally, I want that choice back. Every subscription like this is a shift of power from the consumer to a corporation with all those TOS that can be unilaterally changed at will and features that can be remotely disabled by some half-assed AI.
No one is taking that choice away from you, it is right there in the article. You can either pay the monthly subscription cost or pay the lifetime outright purchase cost (which is under $700 iirc), and it stays with the car forever (in case you decide to resell it later).
Unfortunately, this sort of thing is not limited to "pointless features".
The motor for the windshield wipers on some VW models cost $600 plus installation which is likely to be at least as much as the part itself.
So just buy an aftermarket part and install it yourself? Sorry, no can do. The wiper motor is computer controlled using a proprietary protocol protected by DMCA.
Maintenance is not just a "pointless feature".
Their EV business is a disaster. Expensive cars plagued by ugly software bugs (reset of instrument cluster during driving). The whole VW holdind is competing with themselves (Skoda, VW, Audi, Porsche, Cupra)
Passenger airline carriers and printer manufacturers have a similar model of using their flagship products (flights and printers) as loss leaders for their actual products (credit cards and ink).
This is how pharma works: pharma entities in the US dont make any profit, because they send royalty to the IP holder entity in Switzerland, where these royalty payments are taxes at the lowest rate possible and profits are sheltered that way from the US and EU taxation
https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/deadly-prices-pharma...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
They're going to do the same thing in Europe (where the US tariffs don't apply).
Subscription-based features that are already built into the car and only activated by software have been talked about since at least 2020.
Car companies have been leaning on (BS, IMO) software revenue since the days of the $100+ GPS data update sticks, at the latest.
I don't think this is the future any consumer wants, but it's the one we're gonna get from every industry where money can be turned on with the flip of a Boolean.
Car hacking will be normalized even more
We should be concerned of the increased possibility of malicious third-party hacking of other people's property.
And, I should not hack into my desk to open my drawers.
Of course, if you have a car 2.0+cc and 150HPs why would you care. But the opposite can be useful.
Why should you have to pay money each time you want to move that slider?
Still something distasteful about it but not quite as vampiric
The company ended up folding either way.
So it's an extra that you can try with a subscription and buy once, if desired. Seems fair to me.
In this case, all the cars have turbo and you pay to have it turned on or not. The cost of the turbo is in the cost of the normal car because the company would not sell it at a loss. You already paid for it, but aren't allow to use it. So you are driving around with this perfectly good and usable turbo that you paid for and can't use unless you paid some extra extortion money. This is abusive, wasteful, and should be illegal in my opinion. You should only be charged extra if it is in fact extra. Not something that is already there and withheld.
Car manufacturers already give you the same powerful engine that you can't afford/don't want to buy and "shrink" it with SW. If you jailbreak it, you lose the warranty and bye bye insurance.
You should not think that you're paying more for getting less. You should think that finally you can now enable more in your engine if you want to. Until today, you couldn't.
You just had to know that your car is more powerful than the papers say and live with that.
TFA already says the car is registered at the maximum power level regardless of the actual software cap. So you are _quite literally_ paying for it, at least in terms of increased insurance and taxes.
If, like TFA, they register the power output as larger than the actual one in order to give room to these "unlocks", then you basically have a vehicle which can do less than what its registration says, which people tend to notice and riot about (you pay more taxes and insurance).
In which country does the tax rate depend still only on volume?
The issue is not that you can do it, the issue (as stated in the VW article) is how to update your car papers to reflect the changes. You do it illegally with your friends? You can't. VW does it through the subscription? (I guess) allowed.
Don't ask me how, but when you buy such cars (with an engine that can support multiple configuration), you won't register your engine for something it is not. It's what's enabled to do. Simple example: you buy the ford ecoboost 1.0 100HPs. It won't be registered as the 150HPs model, although it's 100% the same hardware.
You know that you CANNOT tune your engine, without going through your state's motor vehicle department, right ??
If the manufacturer tunes the ECU via whatever method and as consequence lowers/raises the power, good for him, but the final maximum power number is what will appear on the registration, and only in case of huge negligence can he change it afterwards on sold cars.
> The issue is not that you can do it, the issue (as stated in the VW article) is how to update your car papers to reflect the changes. You do it illegally with your friends? You can't. VW does it through the subscription? (I guess) allowed.
As I have repeated in literally each one of the 3 messages I have written in this thread: TFA clearly says the register the car for the maximum unlocked power level. Which means you _are literally paying for the maximum power even if you don't unlock it_, in terms of insurance and tax.
> you buy the ford ecoboost 1.0 100HPs. It won't be registered as the 150HPs model, although it's 100% the same hardware.
That's unsourced bullshit. I'm not familiar with Ford US cars, but Wikipedia clearly lists that the different models _are differently sized_.
But, even if it was true, and software was used as in the interlock mechanism, Ford would have to register these engines as with their maximum, unlocked power, and that's something people tend to notice.
Ps: Just to be clear, it's not 1 engine type installed in all the cars from the same brand. It's more of a family type, to reduce costs.
[0]: a 2016 (!!) article https://www.automotive-iq.com/powertrain/articles/engine-dow...
It doesn't say about manufacturers using the same physical engine, and/or having software interlocks for engine power, which would imply that on paper (and on registration) you have an engine paid for X power that can only do Y (with Y < X). People would riot if they noticed such things, as like on what is claimed on TFA.
> One of the best-selling examples of ‘downsizing’ is Ford’s 1.0-litre EcoBoost petrol engine, which is available with outputs of 99bhp, 123bhp and 138bhp, meaning it effectively replaces 1.4, 1.6 and even some 1.8-litre engines from the past.
> Other advances include the way the fuel is introduced into the engine, with powerful computers and software controlling fuel injection to the millisecond and allowing the engine to shut down in traffic where stop and start is fitted.
They understood that with SW you can provide multiple configurations for the same engine. This I know for sure it's the case of Ford Ecoboost 1.0.
What was the point of doing this prior to selling a subscription to unlock it?
1) Build engine with $market_leading_horsepower.
2) Throttle engine so that base models of a car have $market_leading_horsepower - $throttle_amount.
3) Price discrimination for enthusiasts removes the throttling back to the original $market_leading_horsepower while also saving the effort of having to design a faster engine.
Is there no extra cost associated with machining the faster engine? That is, would manufacturing a slower engine for the base model not be any cheaper than just building the fastest engine they can into all models?
There probably is but it's much less than the cost of having different engines for different performance specs of the same model of car (which is very common).
In reality cramming a little more air through the thing is no big deal because it'll be within the fudge factor of all the other parts.
Nobody is engineering a clutch to within an inch of it's life on a 200hp shitbox, they'll use the same clutch as the 300hp version of the same engine. Yeah the trans shifting tune will be different but that doesn't necessarily mean that the components in it are different.
There are/were legitimate considerations for this too--I've had a few GTIs that ended up 'tuned.'
Typical failures on tuned cars, past a certain power, level were clutches (both in MT and DSG models) and probably other ancillary components.
I'm sure there's also lifespan calculations for components at the stock power levels too. Probably a shorter lifespan/the projected failure rates only account for the stock output etc etc.
I can think the way I want to think. I'm not going to pretend that I'm not paying more and getting less when that is what's happening!
> You just had to know that your car is more powerful than the papers say and live with that.
Or I voice my opposition to this sort of bullshit in the hopes that enough like-minded people can gather enough force to make it change for the better.
So it's questionable to me that you believe you're paying more.
You're just getting better hardware, but it doesn't mean it would be cheaper it it was specifically crafted for your needs. (= I buy 100HP and my engine supports only 100HPs).
I say that's great, its better than my minimum requirements.
Then they say, 'well actually, we are willfully sabotaging this engine with software so that it will never ever give you more than the minimum, but are still charging you for the full cost of its manufacture plus markup'.
And I say, why would you deliberately make my engine worse. Just let me use it the way I want.
And they say, because by sabotaging your engine we can make other people pay even more markup for the same engine. It's the philosophy that instead of charging more for making something better, we charge more for not making it worse. Like the mafia would charge you money to not bomb your small business.
Car manufacturer thinks of the cost of the engine as something like research + development + testing + sourcing + manufacturing lines + materials for all engines produced + labor for all engines produced. So for the manufacturer profits are total revenue of units sold minus total costs. To maximize profits they need to identify market segments and figure out the best way to sell into them, in some cases by selling one physical model at different price points.
If a manufacturer only targeted your market segment with a model you wouldn't get a cheaper car, you'd most likely get roughly the same car for the same price. (Ignoring design/feature compromises made to try to address one model to multiple market segments)
Not that I agree with VW or holding features behind a subscription. Just that we can understand the unit economics of why. And anyway subscriptions for hardware features are a different matter entirely.
'Do you want to pay extra for the non-cracked windsheild?
'But the cars on the lot all look fine, no cracks'
'Unless you pay us $100, we will smash your windshield with a hammer before giving it to you. You also have to pay that $100 every month from now on, else the TOS says we can come to your house and smash your windshield. This has been shown to maximize our profits.'
The example seems a bit contrived and exaggerated. I don't think many people see things that way. A car with a suboptimally-tuned engine isn't equivalent to a car with a smashed windshield. The latter isn't even legal to drive.
Also, thanks to the internet, you can know exactly the power output of the specific model and trim (perhaps even the specific vehicle) you'll be buying before you even step foot onto a lot.
And yes you can know these things before you buy, though with modern TOS, there's no saying they can't change the terms and further downgrade your performance unless you pay up. My point is they shouldn't be allowed to do any of this in the first place. If its in the car you bought, you should have access to it.
Put another way, they aren't tuning your car for you, and that's okay, because you never knew your 110 power car was even capable of putting out 150 if you tuned it. You looked up the specific car you were buying online, saw it was listed as having 110, and thus expected it to have 110 the whole time. Then, you drove it, felt 110, were happy with 110, and bought it. No surprises there.
> there's no saying they can't change the terms and further downgrade your performance unless you pay up
Sure, just like anybody selling you a car can later come and smash it and beat you up and take your wallet and steal your identity etc etc. None of those things seem to actually be happening though?
> My point is they shouldn't be allowed to do any of this in the first place.
Why not? Your viewpoint is fair and valid, but all you've shared so far in support of it is an analogy that doesn't fit and repeating that you don't think things should be this way.
It's ridiculous and insulting to buy a new car (a big purchase for many) to be presented with options where the manufacturer went through considerable effort to _make the car worse_. Manufacturers should be in fierce competition to offer the best cars at the lowest price point.
Chinese competitors will absolutely crush Volkswagen and Volkswagen will have nobody to blame but themselves.
The thing that is confusing people is it was introduced backwards, I’d imagine intentionally. As stated, it reads as if the engine is being crippled. If you fired up the engine, it would not have the max performance without tweaking the timings, but it would still work. So paying more for the higher model is paying for the software tweaks.
It’s not much different from buying a couple of sticks of RAM and then overclocking them to get extra performance. The RAM works as advertised without any tweaks.
No way. If they were just making the lower model it would not have the same hardware. This was designed as a higher model and then limited, so you're paying for limiter removal.
But even if that was true, it would still be a very obnoxious sales practice. Those tweaks did not take very much effort and would be useful to almost all of their customers. Software tweaks that cost a miniscule percentage of the hardware cost should come with the hardware.
I'm confused by this statement.
You're only paying more if you want the extra capability. If you don't pay more you get the capability appropriate for the price you paid (based on the market and competition).
I think what the other commenter is getting at, is that if the manufacturer puts a 300hp engine in a car but limits it to 250hp, they still need to charge enough to make a profit. If the manufacturer produced a cheaper 250hp engine for the 250hp car, they could probably charge less for the same profit.
So it’s a double loss for the consumer of the 250hp car. They pay a higher cost and are artificially kept from the full performance of what they bought
1-As you stated, full extra cost is paid by the buyer regardless of opting for extra capability, and that cost is non-trivial
2-Same as #1 but the cost is trivial due to some internal mfg conditions we are unaware of
3-Extra cost is non-trivial and is prorated across all units based on the expected rate of purchasing the extra capability and the overall revenue vs costs. So in this case it's a partial increase.
3-Extra cost is non-trivial but the buyer does not pay more than if they had used the less powerful engine, the buyers of extra capability are expected to fully fund the cost increase to the entire group of vehicles in the program. This could still be competitive with the market for the extra capability because people can pick and choose when they want to spend the money, that flexibility has value.
We don't really know how they handled the situation but I would be surprised if it was #1 because it would make the car less competitive for buyers that don't want the extra capability.
Consider the BMW G20 3-series petrol cars. Essentially all trims except the M340i have twin-turbo 2-litre inline-4 B48 engines. The engine output is tuned by the engine control unit (ECU, which is a bit of software running on an embedded computer) depending on the trim: 318i gets 115 kW, 320i is 125 kW, 330i is 190 kW. There are occasional hardware differences—typically the intake manifolds, radiators, and maybe belts, but the engine block is exactly the same across these trims—they're all B48. This is public knowledge; there is a detailed table on Wikipedia[1].
Engine 'tuning' is exactly tweaking numbers in the ECU. A stage 1 tune could involve mapping a 318i to a 320i or better without even popping the bonnet; just a laptop plugged into the OBD2 port above the driver's foot rest.
Naturally, as mentioned by others, some of these tunes are less than legal, because the price, road tax, and other legalese surrounding motor vehicles are determined by the performance and fuel economy of the vehicle from the factory. A car is so computerised that nowadays there are plug-in 'chip tuners' that remap the ECU signals on-the-fly and just-in-time, and can be removed before inspections. It's not dissimilar to overclocking computer chips.
This applies across all car makes, not just BMW and not even just European ones.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_3_Series_(G20)#Petrol_engi...
The idea that those engines don't differ is an urban myth that exists at least since the mid 1990s and the first TDIs.
Of course they differ in more than one way and using the higher configuration can easily destroy them.
Similarly, the car I have as a track toy, a 1986 Porsche 944 Turbo, was famously limited by Porsche to avoid competing with their flagship 911 Turbo. Tuners figured this out and came up with all sorts of modifications, from mild to wild, to extract more performance.
Back in the 2000s I didn't have a problem with insurance. Probably not the same today.
No, it is typically for emissions and fuel economy purposes. Engines are pretty consistent in specs when they come off the line.
It works in the market because sellers sellers want to charge as much as buyers are ready to pay. People who want a powerful engine are ready to pay more, so make them pay more. The limited power option is sold at a lower but still profitable margin to those who don't want to pay for the extra.
Market segmentation like this is seen everywhere. It is just that the subscription thing makes it particularly obvious.
I should tell my personal background here: Half of what I'm arguing against is my own personal experience of having people tell me that free market competition rewards those who offer the best product at the lowest price. I'm saying this is a counter-example; and, yeah, I agree with you that similar counter-examples are seen everywhere.
From manufacturer point of view it makes sense, less boost is less stress on engine and less warranty claims.
It's cheaper to design and engineer one common engine block, heads, camshafts, crank, pistons, etc. and regulate the output in software.
You're paying more for something that you're not allowed to use.
You only pay more if you want the extra capability, otherwise you pay less than what the person paid that did want the extra capability.
I assume Europe is way worse and that you can't even change tire/rim size without permission.
You can also choose to ask them for permission in advance but that's (usually, AFAIU) entirely optional.
> But even amid all the complaining about cars getting stuck in the Internet of Shit, there's still not much discussion of why the car-makers are making their products less attractive, less reliable, less safe, and less resilient by stuffing them full of microchips. Are car execs just the latest generation of rubes who've been suckered by Silicon Valley bullshit and convinced that apps are a magic path to profitability? [...]
Absolutely worth a read https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-de...
What next, fridges? "I see you bought ice cream. The optimal storage temperature is -18C, the cost to enable this mode is $5/week. Enable now?"
I’m ok with an app charging an install fee if it’s worth it. I’m ok with games selling micro transaction cosmetics. I’m not ok with features being behind yet another paywall or subscription.
It’s plain old false advertising. If I buy a car and it has a turbo, I expect it to go turbo. If I buy an app and it’s supposed to make things pretty, it better make things pretty. If I buy a cheeseburger, I don’t want to be charged extra for the condiments put on it or the onions, pickles, lettuce. I expected that comes included as part of Cogs.
I wish we would start getting product innovation and not just Greed Innovation.
Blaming dirt for political failures in providing better accessibility to transit seems like a pretty weird starting point for a discussion.
Is it abusive because it is tied to hardware?
No, I see it as the opposite. I see it as Volkswagen simplifying production by limiting variability and giving you the option to get a less capable product at at a cheaper price.
A 6 and a 8 core processor is probably the same die also and produced at the same cost. Maybe 2 cord were turned off because they were faulty or maybe they were turned off because some people don’t have the need and money for 8 cores. Does it matter? Now they can still buy a computer. Is that a bad thing?
The turbo example is insane. It's literally unwanted dead weight probably slightly negatively affecting fuel economy.
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Pure software is a bit different than hardware as copies are effectively zero cost. Same would go for e-books, music, etc. Not that they get a full free pass, these media can also engage in abusive practices.
> Is it abusive because it is tied to hardware?
Yes. Another example of the absurdity is if you want to buy half an apple and the store charges you enough to cover the costs of a full apple, then pull out a full apple and destroy half of it before handing it to you. Does that seem ok? Putting in extra effort to make something worse is bad.
> A 6 and a 8 core processor is probably the same die also and produced at the same cost. Maybe 2 cord were turned off because they were faulty or maybe they were turned off because some people don’t have the need and money for 8 cores.
Big difference between these two cases. If the two extra cores were faulty, then charging a lower price makes sense. Like paying less for used tires that have some wear on them. But taking a perfectly good chip and purposefully disabling two cores is like taking a belt sander to a new tire and then charging less.
This is about trapping people into paying a subscription forever. That's what is abusive. There's no need to make up other things on top of that. Thankfully, there are a lot of choices in this space.
I don't agree with this. Let's say they make 2 engines, one normal one and one powerful one. Customer pay different price points.
Now it turns out that making 2 different engines is actually pretty wasteful, and it's way more efficient to make 1 engine, and limit the possibilities for the lower price point (this is already happening).
Now you come along and say "Illegal!". Now they have to sell this engine at the same price, which doesn't make sense in the market. So they are back to the inefficient way of producing 2 different engines for 2 different markets.
Calling this "wasteful" is weird in my eyes.
I'm not in the automotive industry, so I don't know all the details, and I might be wrong on the above reasoning, but this is what I got from it.
1 engine production line, serving 2 different price points.
Generally speaking gas/diesel engines are used across several models, mass market manufacturers aren't making bespoke engines for one specific vehicle trim that isn't used elsewhere. The overall direction is further standardization of platforms (esp with electric vehicles) but large companies like Toyota, Ford, etc. are going to have a variety of engines available for engineers to slot into vehicles to handle different use cases. I'm not terribly interested in counting but here's some examples of the variety:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_engines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ford_engines
> I'm not in the automotive industry, so I don't know all the details, and I might be wrong on the above reasoning, but this is what I got from it.
I'm sorry but your speculation is pretty far off base and isn't based in fact.
So you claim VW is not selling the same engine to different market segments, and limiting it through software?
If they do, why are they doing it?
In a competitive market they wouldn't be able to get away with either of those. Multiple companies that know how to make their lower end models better for free would do it, because they want more market share.
So we need to figure out how to get as close to that state as possible.
Also the proposed law wouldn't make multiple prices illegal.
If you don't understand this, there is no point in discussing this further.
What was unclear about "the proposed law wouldn't make multiple prices illegal"
As for what would happen in a competitive market with everyone acting in their best interest, I'm not sure what exactly would happen. But they're allowed to have multiple prices. It's not the prices causing the problems. And there are other ways to distinguish products that aren't artificial limits.
Do you object to cinemas charging me a higher price than they do a child?
I don't agree with that perspective but, if I did, then I would wonder how the company should recoup sunk costs and fixed costs related to the turbo part.
Should they charge all customers for that, or allow customers who don't want turbo to opt out of both the benefit of that feature, and also opt out of paying for the related R&D, extra capex and extra fixed costs?
Similarly Chinese EVs that advertise 1000 KW charging - unclear what is battery longevity at those c-rates.
Also, Track Mode isn't available outside of the Performance trim, despite presumably being pure software. Elon has even talked about making it part of the Acceleration Boost package, though I don't think that has materialized yet: https://www.notateslaapp.com/software-updates/upcoming-featu...
Welcome to the era of jailbreaking cars
Maybe an analogy is thus: I find often sports kit that is black or otherwise drab coloured is cheaper. I find this annoying, as I like my kit to be colorful - and I feel like I'm being made to pay extra for color pigment, which surely cost at most pennies more per item. On the flip side, if I go for the black item, it's kind of subsidised by the color-buyers (the comparator is one where black and colorful items cost the same average amount).
The fact that the hardware here is identical but software isn't is IMO an implementation detail.
But it is not only automobile DRM locks that keep me away from new cars, the costs of replacing the "modules", like for a headlight, are ridiculous.
All this is just pure profit seeking but people keep buying the cars and other devices so it will never stop.
A better analogy here is having to pay Microsoft for unlocking Windows NT/Server's ability to use more CPUs. Paid-for OS is already capable of it but this ability is "paywalled" due to greed.
The solution this issue is - of course - to not buy a car with a power subscription.
Energy from thin air or "you won't push that pedal hard enough to use those extra HPs," except maybe a couple of demo runs, "so you're paying a subscription to please your ego but not to go any faster"?
The analogy isn't perfect. But the way the money moves, and the effect of not paying, are identical.
I might buy an EV someday if someone makes one which: Does not connect to the internet, is user-serviceable, it's possible to create aftermarket parts for without reverse engineering firmware, uses Na-ion batteries, is not ridiculously overpriced, is preferably made in Europe/North America/Japan, and is not extremely ugly like 9/10 cars released in 2025 (VW ID Buzz... eww). I'm not getting anywhere close to this DRM-ridden driving IoT-device crap. Clippy says no.
Volkswagen, das arschloch.
When you just change your software and you gain 50bhp that DOES NOT make your car faster. The gears still have the same ratio and the maximum speed doesn't change because the engine went up to max rpm at 200bhp and now goes up to max rpm at 250bhp.
Even raising the max rpm won't get you anywhere because to go from let's say 6500rpm to 8000rpm requires so much power and modifications that you won't achieve that with software alone.
So as long as only the software is changed the maximum operating parameters of the car are NOT changed.
That’s my view - which I stole from N. N. Taleb - on how to deal with too-big-to-fail companies.
Photoshop license was $750 and I had to save for months to purchase one - all in a country where no one ever purchases software. Then Adobe introduced subscription model which made Photoshop available for me at $10/m. So yeah, I'm all in on subscriptions.
Having said that, I feel like I will never ever give a single cent for a purely hardware switch subscription. This doesn't look fair from any perspective.
rvz•5mo ago
The best part is, many won't care (when they should). But these days, it is okay to get scammed isn't it?
BMW tried selling a subscription on heated seats, but that failed. [0], So lets see how long this will last.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37421730
mdp2021•5mo ago
This is generally valid for current societies, not just specifically.
Conformism has infiltrated economics, so now the supply-demand mechanism is broken: the demand agents are not "informed and rational", as classical theory wanted, so the supply is degraded - spawning "shrinkflation" and "viliflation".
_aavaa_•5mo ago
Keep your anti-EV hatred in check for a second and note that nothing in here is EV only. They could just as well do this with a gasoline car, that engine is also electronically controlled.
lodovic•5mo ago
_aavaa_•5mo ago
The door handles, infotainment, tire pressure gauges, gas cap, etc. all could have a digital locks on them to bless them with DMCA protection.
lodovic•5mo ago
_aavaa_•5mo ago
If everything is done in software for the EV you have to write that software anyway. Might as well write it to pull more money from your customer.
This will require legislative changes to stop, right to repair laws (looking at you John Deere) are a good first step.
tjwebbnorfolk•5mo ago
Minding one's own business is an underrated virtue.
abcd_f•5mo ago
Regrettably, despite of all the brouhaha with the heated seats, all this b/s never really went away.
rkomorn•5mo ago
(commented with the utmost sarcasm)
0- https://www.thedrive.com/news/bmw-is-giving-up-on-heated-sea...
mdp2021•5mo ago
Please explain. What would make it almost unusable?