What if All Car Features Were Subscription/Over-Air-Upgrade Based?

"Wobbles the Mind" (wobblesthemind) 05/11/2016 at 23:48 • Filed to: Features

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Luxury cars only being offered fully loaded. Im talking about all the hardware and electronics set and ready including the largest engine in the lineup, advance safety systems, and autonomous tech. However, the features/cylinders/gears/cameras/etc. are electronically locked out unless you pay for them. So you have no blank buttons, but your heated steering wheel doesn’t work unless you pay for it. You don’t get to use the full 4.0L V8 unless you buy it, otherwise the car forces the vehicle to drive on one bank of cylinders or cuts redline/output. The rear windows arent auto down and up unless you purchase the function. Maybe even the leather being underneath the cloth seats but if the dealer doesn’t uncover it your entire warranty is voided. Here’s the kicker, once you sell the car, it all resets!

Basically, if all car features were like Sirius XM. You get 90 days free with every feature available then the automaker charges you some monthly/bi-annual/annual/lifetime fee to reactivate certain feature groups.

I got the idea from how Tesla has been messing around the Model S trims. Cars having upgrades available for purchase even though you buy the car outfitted with all the equipment, just turned off. Many automakers can place electronic limits on the engine output and system mappings and then simply reflash the thing and make it the next model up. I’m thinking of the Q50 with the 300hp/400hp 3.0T V6 (it’s not exactly like that of course).

Matt Nichelson > Wobbles the Mind 05/11/2016 at 23:56

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So basically it would be like how video games are these days.

Birddog > Wobbles the Mind 05/11/2016 at 23:58

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You just out torched Torchinsky.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Wobbles the Mind 05/11/2016 at 23:59

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well I’d become a proponent of Alyssa Walker.

unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins) > Matt Nichelson 05/11/2016 at 23:59

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This whole idea is an engineer’s and accountant’s nightmare.

Wobbles the Mind > Matt Nichelson 05/12/2016 at 00:02

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Exactly! Automotive DLC. I seriously think it’s going to happen. As cars get lighter, they just leave all the features in them which will make the Sport and Track variants worth more simply due to weight savings, however you lose out on ever having certain features being downloadable. Can you imagine having a 500hp 4.0T V8 free for 90 days then it remapping to a 230hp 2.0T unless you pay $130 a month or a flat $1,500 for a year subscription?

Wobbles the Mind > Birddog 05/12/2016 at 00:04

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Thank you! Er...thank you?

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 00:07

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First a FWD 300, now this. You sir have an evil mind.

Matt Nichelson > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 00:09

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That’s just scary, isn’t it?

1111111111111111111111 > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 00:16

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Intel tried that a while back. The backlash was strong and they stopped.

PS9 > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 00:30

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No. No, no, no, no, no. AAAAAALLLL THE NO to this. All of it. NO.

One of the reasons a radio service or something like that uses the subscription model is because they cannot fully package and deliver the product to you in a separate and discreet quantity; it’s a thing that must be maintained by the company for 100% of the time it is available to anyone. Because the upkeep of this kind of product and associated infrastructure is a continuous commitment on the part of the company, their business model requires a continuous commitment on the part of it’s customers, which is why it makes sense here.

But a car is a thing that exists as a discreet and separate quantity. Once a single product is built, the usage of it does not represent a continuous commitment to upkeep on the part of the company, and no, warranty work is not analogous to this. To use XM radio, you have to use infrastructure and technology owned by Sirius in such a way that it will incurr a continouous cost to them for all of the time you use it. But what continuous cost and infrastructure usage is involved in the use of the A/C? The infotainment? The leather seats? The Magnetic shocks? None. Those things are self contained and, once built, use no resources on the part of the company in their normal operation, so what the hell business does a company have charging you continuously on top of the cost of the bloody car to use them?! Nuts to that. All the nuts that have ever nutted in the history of pine trees, squirrels, and porn videos to that!

Also, the idea of charging people for engine performance beyond the already existent trim level tier system is super problematic. If a subscription to 100 more HP is just a chip flash away, then you better believe some people are going to try to get the flash without paying a subscription fee for it. If you are a car company, how do you stop this? You don’t, unless you’re willing to monitor the car’s whereabouts at all times and used data logging equipment to track and maybe even alert the company when the ECU’s been fiddled with.

Putting aside the issue people will obviously have with buying cars from Big Brother Motors for a moment, what do you do with the people who get caught? Voided warrantees were a given even without the subscription, so that’s not much of a punishment. Contractually obligate them to fines? Repo the car? Remember that whatever you come up with, people have to be willing to agree and contractually obligate themselves to this before buying from you. The subscription to things they’ve been used to buying outright is already a huge deterrent, and you’re going to need to throw a non-trivial punishment in for people who circumvent their contracts. Who in the their right mind would agree to any of this?! And we haven’t even touched on the idea of the industry lobbying the government to make subscription contracts the only option in the market. A fine or a repo for breaking your agreement to subscribe if you want more performance are harsh, but nowhere near as much as a record and jail time...

Again; no. No to anything that even resembles this. Cars and the doodads they come with are not services. Subscription contracts are 1000% wrong for marketing these products.

samssun > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 00:55

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Ignoring the weight/complexity you’d be dragging around (miles of extra wiring, motors to adjust crap, heaters/coolers for seats & mirrors), it would be a better deal for enthusiasts because you’d buy performance upgrades separated from the 14-way massagers and simulated surround.

Bundling of products/services benefits the seller, because he can capture more demand. If you’d pay 10 for engine and 6 for leather, while I’d pay 6 & 10, each feature either sells 1@10 or 2@6, so they make $12 on each.

But if they bundle them, I value the bundle at (10+6) and you value it at (6+10), so they can charge us both $15. Before, you got the engine for cheaper than your max price because they want to sell to people like me who value it less, and I saw the same savings on leather because you value it less. As a package, the price rises to whatever each of us values most.

samssun > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 02:31

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“as cars get lighter” wat

Honeybunchesofgoats > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 05:11

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This occurred to me a few weeks ago when I saw an FP story about something on the Tesla. I can definitely see a time where limited track features or extra horsepower at unlocked for a limited period or subscription based. It was a depressing realization.

LongbowMkII > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 06:26

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It's only ok when Tesla does it.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 07:23

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I dunno, but if there was a subscription that turn my seats into H3 seats I’d buy it.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Wobbles the Mind 05/12/2016 at 08:01

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Even better would be subscription based pricing. Go to turn on the AC on a hot day and get a warning message that says: "your 30 day free trial for climate control has expired, would you like to enable the system for only $9.99 a month?".

nermal > PS9 05/12/2016 at 08:18

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Yep. Services like satellite radio or Onstar or in-car wifi are ok to do on a subscription basis.

More HP from the engine for $25 / month? Heated seats for $5, heated and cooled for $10? No.

It’s ok to pay extra to get an actual recurring service. Not ok to “unlock” something that’s already built in.

DynamicWeight > PS9 05/12/2016 at 12:05

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Thanks for writing out my thoughts for me, heh. Where this would work though, is a car sharing service. Where you pay more for fancier cars. Especially if the autonomous car thing works out.

Also, it seems that leases are sort of like what the OP is talking about. Buying cars based on a subscription rather than purchasing the vehicle.