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Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

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Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#211

Post by yurishimo »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #124
itsoktocry wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is to vote with your wallet. Right on. In 99% of cases, your choice of vehicle brand is fungible. Corolla's are good, cheap cars, but so are Accords, Mazda 3s, Focus', Altimas, Imprezas... Buy something else.

>"your choice of vehicle brand is fungible" I disagree wholeheartedly. One of the things Toyota has done is to establish itself as a reliable automaker of quality. People specifically think of Toyota/Honda as the vehicle makes which are most likely to last a long time and put up with abuse. Contrast this to the reputation of GM or Daewoo. You also have the human element, where people are attracted to brand marketing…

Yeah, brand absolutely matters unless you're in the cycle of never ending car leases. Then I suppose it doesn't really matter since you're likely to get a new car again before longterm maintenance ever becomes a problem.

For those who buy CPO's or with cash, longevity and maintenance are the prime factors for budget car purchasers.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#212

Post by KennyBlanken »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #92
zeroflow wrote: post #6

That is just bullshit. A $8/mo charge for a app based remote start? I could live with that. Servers need power, the app needs updates etc. A $8/mo charge for something which does not incur costs for Toyota? Hell no. It seems like bit by bit - every single industry is going down a fucked up route. TVs with built in ads? Cars with pay-by-month features? DRM locked coffee machines? I really hope, there is some sort of e…

$8/mo is genuinely a lot of money for this kind of infrastructure, even if there are developers and servers to be paid for. Assume that there are only 100,000 users. This would imply $9.6M per year in revenue to cover infrastructure and dev salaries for a system that handles ~2 queries/day/customer! And 100,000 is a very small number. Presumably Toyota has millions of customers. If you think that's reasonable, consid…

The infrastructure is completely paid for. Automotive companies extensively monetize telematics data even for cars which do not have telematics purchased. Where you go and when - and things like air temperature, whether the wipers are on, etc - is all sold. It wouldn't surprise me if they pass along data from the infotainment system as well.

Ford offers a bunch of free telematics services for fleet operators. You can pay them and get more functionality, but they'll track your fuel economy, odometers, fault codes, etc - with a really slick web UI.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#213

Post by sokoloff »

zeroflow wrote: post #6

That is just bullshit. A $8/mo charge for a app based remote start? I could live with that. Servers need power, the app needs updates etc. A $8/mo charge for something which does not incur costs for Toyota? Hell no. It seems like bit by bit - every single industry is going down a fucked up route. TVs with built in ads? Cars with pay-by-month features? DRM locked coffee machines? I really hope, there is some sort of e…

When I contemplate buying something, I care about the value it delivers to me, not the cost required to provide it.

If I get $8 of value from something, it doesn't reduce my willingness to pay if I suddenly learned that it cost $0 or $1 to provide it rather than $5 or $6. Likewise, if I learned that it cost $10 to provide it, that doesn't make me suddenly willing to trade away $10 or $11 for something that's worth $8 to me. (In a negotiation, I might negotiate differently if I knew the other side's cost structure, but in a "take it or leave it" sale, I decide based on the value to me not the cost to the other party.)

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#214

Post by Animats »

Stellantis (the current owner of Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge/etc) has announced that they hope to get $22 billion a year from their customers through post-sale service charges.[1]

“Software will improve our business model, disconnecting hardware from software ... shifting the center of gravity of our business,” Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said Tuesday during the company’s “Software Day.” Tavares said profit margins for those services are expected to be more comparable to those of a technology company rather than a traditional automaker. The additional revenue stream could potentially double what the automaker makes today, CFO Richard Palmer said.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/07/stellantis-plans-to-generate...

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#215

Post by petre »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #11
Karsteski wrote: post #2

Sigh... While I look forward to having an electric car someday, the trend in new cars does not look promising. Far too many instances of car companies having too much control, because of the advent of internet-connected vehicles. Is there a solution to this? I don't know. Especially because I can see legislation cementing these sorts of practices in very much convoluted ways. One can only hope competing car brands em…

I have both a new electric Audi and new Tesla. In either car I can just remove the sim and it'll completely disable all of the internet based features. A lot of the FUD around new cars is spread by grumpy old automotive journalists.

Wait until they put in eSIMs. Those you can probably disable as well but with a different level of expertise. Or you can damage the antenna or just stick aluminium foil tape onto it.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#216

Post by jldugger »

wedowhatwedo wrote: post #51
xyst wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Apple Car actually materializes, I fear this will become the new standard. All cars come with all bells and whistles, but you have to pay monthly fees in order for them to function. - Want heated seats? $1/month - Want remote lock/unlock? $2/month - Want to remove rate limiting? $5/month - Want GPS in your car? $10/month - Want to use your "frunk"? $10/month - Want Apple CarPlay? $15/month - Want to activate h…

I don't understand why non-apple customers feel that apple is this way. I have a Mac and an iphone and haven't paid Apple a penny since the purchase of the devices.

I agree it's possible, but their services offerings are all paid, and there are enough of them now that a discount bundle exists[1]. And then there's the App Store / iTunes / iTunes Match. Even checking out to buy hardware tries to upsell you AppleCare+ service.

There are many reasons it's done this way, but I can see the reasons people might compare it to being turned upside down and shaken for loose change like a piggy bank.

[1]: https://www.apple.com/apple-one/

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#217

Post by mrlonglong »

ryandrake wrote: post #189
dijit wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly. This is quite pointed satire at the current state of things. If you showed someone from the 70s how things are today, they would view these two things as not as dissimilar as we do.

I was going to say! Since quite a large number of HN's readership is hard at work actually building these paywalls, digital restrictions and gatekeepers, unnecessarily Internet-connected devices, and other corporate-mediated dystopias, I'd say Please Drink Verification Can is exceedingly appropriate here.

Well said!

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#218

Post by criddell »

Loughla wrote: post #169
winternett wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many other car makers do this too. My Volvo has a remote start feature installed (that I paid for in buying the car) that is not accessible without enrollment in a (pretty much useless otherwise) monthly subscription service. It's flat out criminal considering that I could have just bought the device with a remote at Auto Zone for 1/4 of the price (that also doesn't allow the auto maker to track/log each time I use i…

Yeah - not sure why Toyota is getting hammered for this. Subaru does this as well. You can get app enabled remote start from your phone, if you buy their subscription service. I love Subaru, but that is a trash system.

I have remote start on my Subaru and I think it's essentially this:

https://www.subarupartspros.com/sku/h001sfl300.html

On that page it says:

> This Genuine Subaru Accessory is an alternative for customers who do not enroll in STARLINK Safety and Security Plus.

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#219

Post by mdp2021 »

silisili wrote: post #178
phkahler wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this tragic but true story about a man and his dog that died in a Corvette because the door failed to open electronically. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/06/11/te... If your car door uses electricity to open, you best know what to do when that system fails. Death should not occur due to failure to RTFM for a door.

Wait what, do Corvettes not just unlock and open when you pull the handle? Every vehicle I've ever owned, from the 80s to now, manual or electric lock, the front doors both open when the handle is pulled, locked or not. If this isn't the case, I'm almost inclined to consider that criminally negligent.

> the front doors both open when the handle is pulled, locked or not

Unfortunately, this is not anymore warranted. Already in models of ten years ago, there do exist "full lock non mechanically overridable" and "lock which is unlocked through the handles". Disabling the "feature" requires intervention from the manufacturer - if it can be disabled at all.

Look, I am informed that in at least many of the current cars with RFID based keys, it is impossible to lock yourself in the car... (And the idea seems to have spawned from manufacturers coming from the territories in the world most notorious for carjacking.)

Re: Toyota owners have to pay $8/month to keep using their key fob for remote start

#220

Post by Aerroon »

goda90 wrote: post #80
lkozma wrote: post #8

was posted here sometime ago: The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please." He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. "I'll pay you tomorrow," he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. "What I pay you," he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't have to pay you." "I think otherwise," the door said. "Look in the purchase contract you signed when you boug…

It's either micro-transactions, or mandatory ads: https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/rcka8s/new_c...

I think I would prefer lootboxes. With lootboxes once you get the fob it's yours to keep, rather than having to keep paying for it.
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