131–140 of 325 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a lifetime “subscription” option which is a lump sum payment and stays with the car even after being sold. Still something distasteful about it but not quite as vampiric
"lifetime"
Welcome to the era of jailbreaking cars
No different than Tesla track/performance mode which is also a software switch.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its a funny situation: they a put larger battery in the car, which makes the car heavier. Then they derate the battery to give you less mileage with the added “benefit” that you carry with you a deadweight that you can’t get rid of and contributes further to reduced mileage. 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 i…
I'm confused, what do you mean by "derate the battery", and how would that cause some of the battery to be deadweight? 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I said in other comments, this is already happening since years (and I mentioned Ford, but literally everyone else does it). 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…
> 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. What was the point of doing this prior to selling a subscription to unlock it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its a funny situation: they a put larger battery in the car, which makes the car heavier. Then they derate the battery to give you less mileage with the added “benefit” that you carry with you a deadweight that you can’t get rid of and contributes further to reduced mileage. 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 i…
I'm confused, what do you mean by "derate the battery", and how would that cause some of the battery to be deadweight? It sounds to me like they're just limiting the kW output of the pack.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I said in other comments, this is already happening since years (and I mentioned Ford, but literally everyone else does it). 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…
That is not true, and even TFA points at why that can't be true: to your insurance, to vehicle taxes, etc. you declare the power _of the installed engine_, not of whatever software interlocks you, your tax advisor, or the manufacturer have decided to install on it. 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 le…
The US has guaranteed this will become the norm with increased auto tariffs. An auto manufacturer can produce a car with significantly lower value for import to another country, and "features and services" can be enabled later for a fee.
This is called transfer pricing. VW can make cars in the US, but barely make any profit, thus minimizing taxes paid to the US. The subscription payments however can flow freely to the Switzerland directly, where royalty payments are taxed at the lowest possible rate. 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…
I'm sure that by having fewer parts in the logistics chain they can build a car cheaper. They then define models via software almost for free. And that would be great if the saving was passed to the consumer. Instead every saving is definitely captured by the manufacturer and the consumer gets to buy a car that definitely does everything but "computer says no". But the situation is objectively worse than today becaus…
And then all we'll need is a federal government that's friendly to free trade and all of the domestic auto manufacturers will go out of business because they can't compete. 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 b…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I said in other comments, this is already happening since years (and I mentioned Ford, but literally everyone else does it). 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…
That is not true, and even TFA points at why that can't be true: to your insurance, to vehicle taxes, etc. you declare the power _of the installed engine_, not of whatever software interlocks you, your tax advisor, or the manufacturer have decided to install on it. 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 le…
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...