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Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

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Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#201

Post by mk89 »

karaterobot wrote: post #172
smnrchrds wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's curious that the market (almost?) always decides what is bad for the consumer and profitable for the companies. As a person who is a person not a company, I would rather we don't let the market decide so much about our lives. Examples: Smart (spying ad-showing) TVs, non-compete agreements, water heater rentals, not-really-unlimited "unlimited data" cell plans, surveillance economy, only-rentable-not-buyable soft…

> It's curious that the market (almost?) always decides what is bad for the consumer and profitable for the companies. In some cases people choose things that are bad for them, for all kinds of reasons. Someone will always sell you a subscription to your own car, if you tell them you want one. The market is the mechanism, the responsibility lies with the consumer. I know that it feels like there's a conspiracy, but i…

I agree with this comment. I have a smart TV that does not show me ads. I could have bought maybe a better one that shoots Ads every now and then, but finally, luckily there is still choice. Same either cars. There are so many nice brands out there that it's now difficult to choose from - no offense to Mercedes, but there is so much good competition for that price...!

Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#202

Post by bluGill »

tantalor wrote: post #173

> available through an over-the-air software patch The phrase "software patch" implies updating the code. I'd be really surprised if this sort of change required a code push. More likely the code is already there, and the "patch" is a data file changing some constant.

The industry is changing to actual code changes. If it is a flag someone might figure out where that flag is and how to change it, and with right to repair that becomes a legal thing. If it is more code they send, that code is protected by copyright and isn't a right to repair issue at all.

Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#203

Post by judge2020 »

horsawlarway wrote: post #38

I want to see this legislated out of existence. To be clear, because every time this comes up some dickfucks come in here and start making excuses about how it's better to rent in some cases and that this is just amortizing the whole payment, and there are some people who want this: No. This is a fucking terrible deal even just using mercedes numbers. It takes a whopping 30 months (2.5 years) for the monthly payment…

This depends on if they actually charge you for it upfront in the MSRP.

Say the cost for a motor made of x material is $2000 more than a lower spec motor made of z. So here they could make two specs, say charge $5000 more for the better motor, and profit $3,000 when anyone with a kick for adrenaline chooses the better motor.

However, there are hidden costs to inventorying multiple different variations of the main drive train of your car. You are no longer sharing parts, so you now need two lines making that motor, you need to split the warehousing space, you need some sort of analytics / data scientists to tell you how many of each motor you need to order. In this scenario, the cost to this amount of inventorying something as critical as the main drive unit might be a thousand dollars per unit or so (of course decreasing with scale), but it means your margins aren't simply profit - BOM.

Taking these small increments in profit (at the expense of making the logistics of your plant more complex) was all the rage for Ford and GM throughout the 1990s-now with 20 different trim levels for a model, but with EVs specifically the extra trim levels make you feel like you're missing out on the most fun or useful parts of a car, and the automaker really isn't making that much extra money when it's all said and done (and it results in the car feeling cheap after the honeymoon period).

In this case, the $60/month is optional. This means that Mercedes can take the negligible hit on their bill of materials, but this will likely be offset by, and made profitable by, the people who do pay for it every month over the lifespan of the car - there is a lot of FOMO and getting to click a button that says "increase the dopamine I get by punching the throttle this month" might be what people want if they think they shouldn't splurged for a different ev x months ago.

Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#204

Post by crooked-v »

jrockway wrote: post #149
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These complaints remind me of complaints I've heard about "day one" DLC (DownLoadable Content) in video games. For those unfamiliar, it's content which is available in the game upon its release but you have to pay extra for it. Sometimes, players are given the option to buy the Ultra Digital Deluxe Collector's Edition which comes with the DLC and "exclusive" shit (and also costs extra). If it's not rent seeking, it's…

Isn't this all the same thing as what airlines did after 9/11? You pay the fare and get a seat. Want it to not be a middle seat? That's $50. Want to carry on a bag? That's $50. Want to check a bag? That's $50. Want to check out the lounge before you depart? That's $50. Want some WiFi? That's $50. Want a snack? That's $50. Now your flight is $200 more than the quoted fare. (OK OK you can probably get WiFi and a snack…

> Now your flight is $200 more than the quoted fare.

> Everyone seems to love this, or at least, they didn't stop flying.

Nobody "loves" it. They just have to put up with it because even for people who know what they're doing with flight searches, the only way to dig into all that dark pattern shit is to have fifty browser tabs open comparing the fine details of different flights.

If it was possible to, say, compare all those up-charges up front using flight search tools, I'm sure you'd see a lot more people choosing the slightly more expensive tickets.

Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#205

Post by piaste »

fwungy wrote: post #124
barbazoo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "you will own nothing" advocates will continue to keep pushing for stuff like this. Who are these "advocates"?

The original phrase was coined by the World Economic Forum. What the critics leave out is that the WEF was saying that people would be happier not owning anything. >You will own nothing and you will be happy. Alternatively it could have a darker interpretation: you will be a slave and you will be happy, because that's all you're going to get. I suppose it depends if you look at the WEF as a benevolent institution loo…

> What the critics leave out is that the WEF was saying that people would be happier not owning anything.

Literally every time I have seen the quote brought up in dissenters' milieus, it included the "and you will be happy" part.

Unsurprisingly, because the implicit paternalism makes it almost as repellent as the first part.

Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#206

Post by paxys »

Apple spearheads user-hostile decisions and everyone willingly accepts it (even cheers for it) because hey, it's Apple. Google, Samsung etc. copy them down the line, and by then it is too late to complain and reverse the trend.

Tesla spearheaded (1) removing Carplay/Android Auto and charging monthly for maps/traffic/connectivity, (2) hiding features behind paid software upgrades, (3) hiding performance improvements behind monthly subscriptions, (4) providing charging for a monthly fee. Everyone cheered them on as revolutionary, and it is too late to complain now. Of course other manufacturers are going to copy them.

Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#207

Post by jackmott42 »

oblib wrote: post #165

I grew up around cars, and car builders. I've worked on quite a few very famous cars. My father built custom cars and ran "Barris Kustom" for years. I learned how to build custom cars, including race cars. I also spent years designing and building cars (vans) that quadriplegics could drive and lots of those were for guys who crashed, or got ran into by cars/motorcycle, at high speeds. Personally, I think if anyone cr…

How is there any distinction between paying a fee for more horsepower, or just buying a fast car to begin with?

Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#208

Post by nosianu »

entrox wrote: post #167
jwilber wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re completely ignoring the customer (people like you) in favor of the (already mega rich) corporations. What a mindset.

> You’re completely ignoring the customer (people like you) in favor of the (already mega rich) corporations. What a mindset. No, I want the company I work for to have similar profit margins as FAANG and thus increase my compensation. Do you also attack those employees because their companies are charging extra for pure software unlocks or subscriptions?

Car companies already and always have made money from continued support of their products. Car maintenance and repairs and spare parts and the work already cost money. So, not even remotely the same.

You can complain about any company that wants to continuously make money for nothing in return. Just look at ink printers. Rent seeking sure is attractive, yes.

Nobody owes you anything. There are MANY jobs that deserve such high salaries far more, just try anything related to caring for sick and/or old people. It's just that "deserve" has got nothing to do with anything!

Also, look at all the other countries and companies. That kind of complaint to me sounds more like a multi-millionaire looking at the even grander mansion next door and claiming they deserve at least that much too and that the world is so unfair to them. You picked the very, very few where some people make even more. It's hardly all the tens of thousands of employees of the FAANGs that all make a few hundred thousand, just a small fraction.

Cars also are not nearly as innovative. They are much farther along their product cycle. Oh sure, they did a lot of work, but the car still uses about as much fuel as it always did, and gets you barely any faster than it always did from A to B. But all the entertainment you get now! And all the electronics! Yeah okay. But the end product still doesn't deliver that much more value compared to a 1970s car. Some of them were actually more comfortable, easier to use, and easier to look out of. I do understand that there's been a lot of work on safety too since then, and that deaths went down. But I didn't claim there was zero innovation, did I? Only that you compared yourself with the latest and greatest new tech, such as AI, and in that elevated niche you again picked their highest paid people, and that seriously is your chosen comparison?

Oh and when we are looking at all the innovation in cars, may I point to the discussions - right here on HN too - about software, UIs, and cheating German car makers (I'm German too by the way), and how German car makers are big losers in China, and quality issues in German cars (https://newsingermany.com/german-car-manufacturers-fail-us-s...)?

Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#209

Post by jackmott42 »

1827163 wrote: post #152

Does Mercedes understand this is destroying the reputation of the brand? This practice needs to be made illegal and an exception made to the DMCA specifically legalizing attempts to bypass it. Bypassing such measures absolutely should not be a felony.

They understand they are not. People like you and me who hate this are the minority. It will keep happening more and more no matter what you do.

eat arbys.

Re: Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

#210

Post by manuelabeledo »

anon291 wrote: post #187
bluGill wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but are you are farmer? Suburbs can support great public transit, and it would be cheaper than cars for everyone. Suburbs cannot support the bad public transport options they get though. The lack of density makes it harder to design a great network (network is critical here!), you cannot make mistakes as there is no density to save you from mistakes.

> Suburbs can support great public transit, and it would be cheaper than cars for everyone. While I agree... there is no way Americans will forgo cars. Americans love our rural and public and wild lands too much to not be able to simply visit at moment's notice. Having lived in Europe, I understand how this works there. Europeans don't have the same relationship with nature that Americans often do. The ones that do u…

Let’s not kid ourselves. Americans love their cars because they want short term convenience.

Cars trips in the US are, in their vast majority, short and between common places like grocery stores, gyms, schools, etc.

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