Submitted 19 hours ago by melroy@kbin.melroy.org to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62weyp4qqgo
The German car-maker says its "optional power upgrade" is designed to give customers more choice.
Ah yes, selling me something that is already available but is just locked behind software. And then trying to frame that as somehow a good thing for customers. Just insulting.
Sadly, it’s been a good part of IBM’s business model for years. They call it Capacity Upgrade on Demand.
Inactive processor cores and inactive memory units are resources that are included with your server, but are not available for use until you activate them.
I learned this when I moved into a corporate IT environment with Power servers. I couldn’t believe that some companies would pay a quarter of a million for a server that is intentionally stunted/limited unless you pay even more.
But cars are computers now. “Everything’s computer!”. So they will follow that subscription model.
Gonna go on youtube and let that Indian tech guy teach me how to jailbreak a Volkswagen.
And this is why i’ll never own a vehicle with a cellular modem unless a jailbreak is already developed and there’s no regulatory/insurance issue with doing so.
They’ve had this before, but you’ve had to change chips. Was also hacked. Except that it was a one-off payment now upgraded to subscription.
Car companies are parasites. America was built on trains and the investments into car infrastructure have paralleled US declines. Its just not an effecient use of public resources to build highways between cities.
You can get a lifetime subscription now, next year ‘we have reviewed customer choices and will be discontinuing the lifetime subscription’, so they can continue to milk their customers
TomTom did this too. You paid them a life time fee and then they decided you had to start paying an additional fee every month.
1999: “Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization.”
lol. 1999 was the best time for humanity; ridiculous! 2025: Oh shit…
‘Humans marveled at the creation of AI”
That’s why I love my life as if it were still the 90s…oh shit, am I in the matrix already?
If it’s all software, that means that you can jailbreak it, just like a phone.
The racing world will have this cracked overnight.
This company already has another scandal brewing, since 2005 they have been installing plastic engine parts, particularily the intake manifolds have been designed as a single use item to be replaced roughly every 3 years. Custom aluminum will run you $1000 for the part itself if you don’t want to keep swapping plastic, not to mention the ridiculous labour costs as well. Avoid!
For $1000 you could get a small furnace for cintering, a regular 3D printer and some of that special PLA that has metal powder in it that you can print and then cinter into a solid metal piece (The PLA bakes off) and just make the fucking thing yourself.
That’s horrible! If people do that how will companies gouge customers?
Basically every car manufacturer pulls shit like this these days; good luck avoiding all of them.
If it’s specific to a certain model, that would be good info.
That said VW obviously sucks for pulling the stunt mentioned in the article.
You don’t really see this with Toyota and Honda, just avoid any of the models that are joint venture with other companies.
The future is a fucking farce.
Psych! You thought you were gonna get star trek style utopia, while we’ve been descending into fascist dystopia for several decades!?!
Turns we’ve been in the mirror universe all along.
The intent is to provide
playersowners with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking differentheroeshorsepower.
They came for the Gamers, but I did not speak out because I was not a Gamer.
Hey, we did speak out and most of us didn't shut up since. Fuck EA, VW, BMW, whoever tries to push microtransactions.
Okay, it’s high time for some serious regulatory intervention.
At this point, companies will do literally fucking anything, just to pad the numbers for the shareholder reports. The Volkswagen group can screw itself. When we start decent seeing vehicles to a decent price again, maybe we can resume this conversation. Everyone’s tired of plastic garbage for top dollar
they aren’t even good cars anyway. they’re shit.
I will never buy a vw again, that is a fact.
Skip all of those brands. Škoda too.
I don’t know about the Volkswagen ID.3, but in general, I think that car prices have tended to come down slightly over the years. I was in a conversation earlier about car prices earlier (talking about how truck prices had greatly increased).
If you go back 20 years, take a pretty plain-Jane standby, the Toyota Camry:
www.kbb.com/toyota/camry/2005/
2005 Toyota Camry pricing starts at $4,091 for the Camry LE Sedan 4D, which had a starting MSRP of $20,515 when new.
That’d be $33,934.10 in 2025 dollars.
A 2025 Camry has an MSRP of $28,700.
Pickup trucks — which are considerably more expensive now in the US — are an exception to this, but there are other factors going on there.
I don’t think this factors in things that have gone up significantly, such as cost of repair and maintenance. I think another easy thing to point to would be the amount of 84 month car loans, and how many people struggle to pay those. I will also point out in 2005 that wage inflation was much closer to keeping pace with overall inflation. It’s easy to point to the one thing you did, but that misses the full picture imo.
When we start decent seeing vehicles at a decent price again
These exist, they’re just not in the USA. Look at what companies like BYD and Xiaomi are doing in practically every developed country except the USA. The entry-level BYD Dolphin is just under AU$30k (US$19k) in Australia. Xiaomi have a sports car for around US$40k.
Yeah, we’ve got more choice now.
I’m glad I used my freedom of choice to buy a different make.
This is so distopian it sounds like a joke
The manufacturers fee for speeding is higher than the fine the police gives you.
German car industry has one foot in the grave. The German car industry lobbyist have successfully weakened or delayed many EU climate and sustainability initiatives. I fucking hope the German car industry collapses sooner than later and weaken Germany’s political power in the EU.
German car industry has one foot in the grave.
I wonder if that is true though. Sure, they lobby that way when they want government subsidies.
They might be slightly late to the e-car game (but the above article applies to e-cars only anyhow).
But all that largely applies to most car industries across the globe. Except those under totalitarian control because they can react faster to big changes.
German car industry has one foot in the grave.
I think that all or close to it auto manufacturers have some form of subscription service now with monthly fees. It’s not something specific to German manufacturers.
randomly picks from this list of auto manufacturers
Buick.
www.buick.com/ownercenter/onstar/learn
OnStar One Super Cruise
for vehicles with Super Cruise
$64.99/mo.
Save up to 16% by choosing this plan
OnStar Connect Plus
In-Vehicle Wi-Fi® Hotspot
Music
Podcasts
Audiobooks
News
Video Streaming (if properly equipped)
Games (if properly equipped)
Internet Browser (if properly equipped)
Safety & Security
Stolen Vehicle Assistance
Safety Services
OnStar Guardian App
Roadside Assistance
Super Cruise
Hands-Free Driver Assistance Technology
Turn Signal Activated Lane Change
Automatic Lane Change (if properly equipped)
Hands-Free Trailering (if properly equipped)
I mean you picked an American car company. They’ve been garbage for decades, I’ve owned exactly one, a 90’s Taurus, probably the most reliable American car we’ve seen in decades, and it just barely approaches Japanese cars for reliability and maintenance.
I say this as someone who’s worked on every brand of car, from the 1940’s to today. You can’t give me an American car (or German, or just European). I refuse to own anything other than Honda or Toyota any more. I’ll sacrifice style and features for a vehicle that just works for 100-200k miles, or more.
Buick has been a style-over-substance brand in the GM lineup since the 80’s, at least. Not that any GM is particularly good, Buick just makes it worse with cheap gimmicks. Same with all Chrysler products.
But yea, all brands include some nonsense today.
Is that subscription for OnStar or Super Cruise? One is a service with legitimate ongoing operating costs; the other is not.
I have German heritage, as does my wife. I have lived in Germany. Looking at the Germany of today, I can’t wait to see its power collapse. They might (still) be the most unworthily arrogant people on the planet.
no, that would be Russians.
So you need to pay to drain your batteries faster for more power which wears them down faster. So you’re paying to shorten the battery life of your car. Only dumb people who think “I wanna go faaaaaaast” will fall for that scam.
Maybe they want to give better specs to their EVs without actually having them. The subscription might be a way to deter customers from using those capabilities because they degrade the car faster.
How does this even work? It’s like they don’t realise they don’t own the car once it’s been sold. What’s to stop someone just hacking it and unlocking it?
If you hack it warranty becomes void and you’re maybe in big insurance trouble if there’s an accident or your battery catches fire in an underground parking garage. Basically similar to how banking apps etc keep people from trying to use alternatives to Android on their phone. The boundary isn’t technical, it’s legal.
It's all proprietary code. But in theory you could unlock the full potential if not more. If you can recreate their software. Ideally then also open source it please.
What’s to stop someone just hacking it and unlocking it?
I assume that they try to make that fairly difficult.
I mean, modern cars are Internet-connected, have cell radios. If the vendor can maintain access to the car and can provide the initial trusted hardware, they can make it pretty unpleasant to modify the thing.
You also don’t need a 100% solution. Just need to make the level of inconvenience high enough.
It’s like they don’t realise they don’t own the car once it’s been sold.
They literally don’t. This is nothing less than a war on property rights.
Meet GPL. These fucking cars are running Linux.
This is grotesque. “More choice” is utter bollocks, they’re insulting our intelligence with this, or maybe they’re mocking us.
How about just let us get as much power as we can out of the car by pushing our foot down harder on the pedal.
This is a perfect example of “remove something, then sell it back to the customer”.
Exactly. I actually own the vw id3. And I'm furious about it. I paid like 14000 euros. And now I need to buy soon an additional subscription, for.. to keep remote access available for enabling the airco via the app.
So it's much more then just subscription for 'increase power'.
The remote control is at least tolerable because VW does need to provide every car with cellular network connection and servers to make this happen.
Car power is completely different because it’s a one time change. If I’m their PR, I’ll do something like: VW has successfully tested new performance settings for VW ID.3 that helps to improve acceleration and driving. Upgrade is available at authorized workshops (of course with cost).
WTF ?
And the choice given is if want your car crippled or you want to cough up money.
Cory Doctorow nailed it once again.
I’ve always admired the iconic vehicles VW has produced, but this assures I’ll never buy a VW.
Depending on your jurisdiction, your local commerce regulator might have a different opinion of the legality of this that VW, especially when they’re taking away features you already paid for.
You’re not giving more choice if it relies on you purposefully taking away things. That’s called being predatory.
I thought taking away things someone else paid for was called stealing?
Sandwiches for sale! Can’t afford it? No problem! 30% discount. I’ll just cut it and toss one of the halves in the trash for you.
I hate this kind of artificial limitations but in this case I’m totally fine.
Why would you pay for something like that? The stock id 3 has enough power to drive in the city. If someone instead needs to race at the nurburgring, then can unlock the extra power. With more power available and a sporty drive, the car components (motor, battery, gears) get more stress than if you just commute in the traffic.
In a city or in the highway, when you drive safely according to the speed limits you don’t need 300 HP or more under your ass
And if you’re someone that just needs a higher number to feel validated by others (look at that! I paid for the extra Speed mode!), then I’m fine with that, takes money from dumb people and has the potential to make the vehicle cheaper for everyone else.
Why should you pay for that is your question ?
The question is , why should you allow them to gimp what you bought artificially
If you drive like a maniac you put more stress on the components, and on the id 3 the warranty on electric parts is up to 8 years. This offsets for them the risk of someone breaking components under warranty before the mean time to failure.
Almost all car brands are selling a faster trim that’s the same hardware with just different code in the ECU. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that it could be done after the first purchase and there’s also the option of permanent unlock.
Now, for safety I wouldn’t have it made a completely software solution but required a visit to dealer to install bigger breaks and check all the car stuff (oil level in brakes, if the steering is correct, and so on)
I hate this kind of artificial limitations but in this case I’m totally fine.
This is an environmental disaster. We’re building cars with equipment that will never be used. It costs more materials, time, and energy to manufacture a 300 HP engine than a 200 HP engine. VW might make all models with a 300 HP engine and then require a subscription to increase the power from 200 to 300 HP. Yet, what if you don’t want to use that extra power? You’re still stuck with the weight of the heavier engine! You’re hauling around a uselessly heavy engine, and you’ll be doing so from the moment you buy the car until the end of its life. Even if you don’t want to pay for the subscription-only equipment, you’re still paying for the higher gas costs to haul all this redundant crap around with you. And the environment takes an unnecessary hit for us to manufacture equipment that will never be used. This is an environmental disaster.
The car was introduced 5 years ago, they launched this unlock right now where only the 0.1% of users will actually care and the kind that needs external validation from higher numbers is already with a newer vehicle.
IMHO with all the telemetry gathered they noticed that the motor can sustain higher than spec bursts of power for a short time and tried to cash in that
This is an environmental disaster.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_ID.3
The lowest MPGe I see for it is 129, the highest 141.
The Ford F-150 is the most-popular vehicle in the US.
www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/…/2025_Ford_F150.shtml
It has a combined MPG rating of between 16 and 21.
It also means they can build fewer types of engine for the models they make, requiring less tooling, less spare parts, etc. I’m not sure if that is enough to balance the environmental cost of making slightly bigger motors, but a number of companies have come to the conclusion that it’s cheaper than having more engine options.
You will own nothing and be… whatever, gonna talk here and there about this, spread the news, make them drown (as much as nobody me can do that)
According to a survey from S&P Global, some customers may be put off by the cost of in-car subscriptions for features such as connectivity, or by basic functions being split into paid tiers.
I don’t have any particular objection to that. They can choose whatever pricing model they want, and it’s just another number for the spreadsheet in valuing whatever they put on offer. However, I rather suspect that whatever DRM they have on this ties one more-closely to maintaining an Internet connection between the car and auto manufacturer, which I do care about from a privacy standpoint.
And I wonder what happens to one’s subscription if one’s car is no longer able to talk to current cell towers and thus the car can no longer validate that the user has paid the bill this month. Cars that relied 2G cell network connectivity in the past lost their network connectivity when the cell networks took that down in the US. Maybe the feature is just gone forever. Maybe the manufacturer decides to be nice and just perma-unlock the functionality. shrugs
The moment I bought my id3 they never informed me about this subscription model. Soon I also need to pay if I want to keep my app working for my car, like enabling the airco via the app.
I already paid around 14000-15000 euros for this car. And now I suddenly also need to pay subscriptions? It's not only a subscription for 'increase power'.
15k? Price crashed like that? When I asked the price in 2020 they told me 45k and I laughed for weeks after that
The fact that they pay the sim card data plan for only the first three years from purchase was known from the beginning. I’m ok with paying but not the price they’re asking. They’re using a $10/year iot sim card for remote access, but want $150/year from the customer? LOL get fucked I would never pay that.
PS: how the remote air control works? I tried the Peugeot one and
Allowed activation only if battery was over 50% which is a stupid artificial limitations
Literally took 10 minutes to boot and 8 minutes to send the activation signal to the car. In that time I could go to activate it manually
anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 minutes ago
Someone should compile a list of currently produced car makes and models that are free to modify and repair without software locks on them
I imagine it’s a pretty short list.