Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

autoexpress.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 325 posts

Re: Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

#281

Post by RaftPeople »

monooso wrote: post #194
mk89 wrote: post #116

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…

> You should not think that you're paying more for getting less. You're paying more for something that you're not allowed to use.

> 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.

Re: Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

#282

Post by reactordev »

ryandrake wrote: post #264
reactordev wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, digital payments didn’t do it, lack of laws did. Courts can’t keep up with the pace of innovation to protect us from greed. 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 bu…

> Courts can’t keep up with the pace of innovation to protect us from greed. I wish we would start getting product innovation and not just Greed Innovation.

We would need to have laws against enshitification and limit patents to no more than a decade. Then we would be forced to innovate or lose competitive advantage. Greed Innovation will just bring more piñatas to hit.

Re: Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

#283

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #275
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I didn't say it, I was treating the 'full cost' as being all of the development etc also. It doesn't change the situation, the car company still needs to set the price to recover everything else they go under. In very special cases, companies do sometimes sell at a loss but even in this situation, purposefully making any part of the car worse is still wrong and bad. I see limiting HP with software as no diff…

> I see limiting HP with software as no different than charging extra to NOT take a hammer to windshield. 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 mo…

The example was of course exaggerated as it was intended to showcase the absurdity of the situation. You could of course replace the smashed windshield, with them ripping up the seats or spraying the interior with skunk smell. The point is they are making something worse about the car.

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.

Re: Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

#284

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

filoleg wrote: post #272
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'happily'? 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 remote…

> 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. 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),…

I might have been looking ahead then, without resistance that buy once option will likely vanish as it already has with many types of software (I'm looking at you photoshop).

Re: Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

#285

Post by nikau »

Buttons840 wrote: post #192
GuB-42 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are doing less work. Designing a lower performance engine is harder and more expensive than producing more of the higher performance engine and limiting it. 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…

Artificially limiting the engine is the extra work. In a competitive market artificial limitations would mean that you lose to a competitor. 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…

Is hardly extra work, just a tune to reduce bust.

From manufacturer point of view it makes sense, less boost is less stress on engine and less warranty claims.

Re: Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

#286

Post by rahimnathwani »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #112

The really offensive part of this kind of thing is that you already paid for it. Like if you wanted to buy a regular car and you could get the engine with turbo then those are two different cars. The latter costing more because it has more/better stuff in it. This is all fine and good. 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…

You're looking at it from a cost allocation perspective.

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?

Re: Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

#287

Post by jmalicki »

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #225
whartung wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have one of these, but it’s not a Ford. It’s a BMW motorcycle. 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.…

How does the computer restrict power? Is it just a lower rev limiter?

Often times it is ECU engine timings. See the many ECU tune kits available for many cars.

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.

Re: Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

#288

Post by Buttons840 »

nikau wrote: post #285
Buttons840 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artificially limiting the engine is the extra work. In a competitive market artificial limitations would mean that you lose to a competitor. 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…

Is hardly extra work, just a tune to reduce bust. From manufacturer point of view it makes sense, less boost is less stress on engine and less warranty claims.

We're talking about paid subscriptions here though, setting all that up is extra work.

Re: Volkswagen locks horsepower behind paid subscription

#289

Post by margalabargala »

GuB-42 wrote: post #92
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #70

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…

It is not dead weight. De-rating is good for longevity.

Any car with LiFePO4 batteries has a battery pack which should outlast the rest of the car.

300 miles per charge, 5000 charges, that's 1.5 million miles.

Post reply on HN