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Mercedes EVs can go faster for $60 a month

cnn.com

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

#241

Post by JediWing »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #126
beerpls wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for being a voice of righteousness in a sea of simps. It’s hard to tell on this site, are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? Even with what you said there are still so many people defending this behavior. The world is full of weak and/or deceitful people.

>are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? I think a lot of people defend this because they themselves work for tech companies who's products or services are also profitable due to some for of rent-seeking which ensure great profits and wages that wouldn't be possible otherwise because let's face it, the most profitable SW companies where the HN audience most likely works at, don't sell you a lifeti…

Continually running a service with its own recurring costs with additional improvements (SaaS) justifies a subscription, because your product is constantly improving, and constantly incurring costs.

A one-time car purchase costs the car company some capex upfront. They actually incur more cost running whatever DRM servers lock these motors down to prop up this extortionary business model.

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

#242

Post by Tade0 »

vannevar wrote: post #64

The first EV startup that emerges with a dumb EV (minimal software to actually operate) for around $30K will have a best-seller. Nobody actually wants the subscription-based car, it's gradually being forced on consumers via industry collusion.

That would be the humble Dacia Spring:

https://www.dacia.de/modelle/spring.html

It's actually $25k before incentives. One doctor in my clinic drives this. Fun little car for daily commutes. Range and power are uninspiring though.

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

#243

Post by atlantic »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #114
atlantic wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like it, just don't buy cars whose performance is artificially limited. Let the market decide the issue.

>If you don't like it, just don't buy cars whose performance is artificially limited. Let the market decide the issue. You are unfortunately one of the apologetic quote, "dickfucks", endquote the parent was referring too. When all players eventually do this, where will you got to buy? There is no more free market left in the auto industry after a century of consolidations. We're at the mercy of a few giant automakers…

I don't like a lot of the features in modern cars. That doesn't mean the world should be legislatively changed to suit my personal tastes. Because maybe I'm in the minority. But neither will I buy stuff I don't like; plenty of second-hand cars to go round.

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

#244

Post by tclancy »

chimen wrote: post #166

Literally everything I buy on the internet has features unlocked by higher payment plans (Netflix, hosting, ahrefs etc). I don't get the big deal about it. For one, I am happy I can upgrade my car without any mechanical interventions. You get what you pay for when you buy your car. It's their business if it's limited down to meet your package or not. Did they deliver anything else from what you paid for? If the answe…

>Literally everything I buy on the internet has features unlocked by higher payment plans

Because they told us eliminating the middleman would lead to lower prices. Then they eliminated all the middlemen and started charging more. The fact you're inured to it doesn't make it good.

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

#245

Post by konschubert »

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…

I will get downvoted to oblivion for this and apparently this makes me a simp.

But if I buy the car and don’t care for the acceleration, then I can NOT book this feature. And in a competitive market, which the auto market is, this will mean that the MRSP for the car is lower for me than it would otherwise have been.

Unbundling is part of what made air travel affordable. In a competitive market, unbundling lowers base prices and creates consumer choice.

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

#246

Post by recursive »

wcarron wrote: post #182
ajross wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want [my car] to be connected [...] to the internet Really? No remote access, security notifications, navigation facilities? No watching TV while charging? No OTA updates that obviate the need to take it to the dealership for routine fixes? No open source location analytic API? I mean, I'm sure there's some bad stuff that happens too. But this is very much throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I won't t…

IT. IS. A. CAR! It takes you from Point A to Point B! Nobody needs to watch TV in their car! Nobody needs subscription services for heated seats or 0.2s off your 0-60mph time! Nobody needs cameras replacing their sideview mirrors! Get rid off all this bullshit in vehicles. 6-speed manual, adjustable seats, a GPS/nav screen and radio/aux, and a damn cupholder is all anyone needs from a car. Everything else is just a b…

> Nobody needs cameras replacing their sideview mirrors

This measurably improves fuel economy. Not sure why it's grouped with the others.

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

#247

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

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…

What is the distinction between paying to go faster and just going fast? (Disclaimer: I am in favor of limiting car speeds to the local speed limit via GPS-based speed governors or something similar.)

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

#248

Post by kerkeslager »

windowshopping wrote: post #91
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…

It's interesting how it takes reading someone else's writing to realize how little profanity adds to the substance of a comment. You never realize it when it's your own comment.

That says more about the reader and their unwillingness or inability to absorb the content, than it says about the writer and their writing.

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

#249

Post by alistairSH »

chimen wrote: post #166

Literally everything I buy on the internet has features unlocked by higher payment plans (Netflix, hosting, ahrefs etc). I don't get the big deal about it. For one, I am happy I can upgrade my car without any mechanical interventions. You get what you pay for when you buy your car. It's their business if it's limited down to meet your package or not. Did they deliver anything else from what you paid for? If the answe…

My problem is they're charging a subscription for a one-time bit flip in software.

That just feels "icky" to me.

With Netflix, they arguably have higher costs associated with supporting super-HD feeds or more devices or whatever else.

My use of "fast mode" in a car has no such recurring cost.

I have no objection to paying for fast mode once, as I would for a V8 model over a V6 model or whatever other upgrade I might want.

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

#250

Post by andjd »

entrox wrote: post #148
beerpls wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for being a voice of righteousness in a sea of simps. It’s hard to tell on this site, are people really this devoted to corps or are they shills? Even with what you said there are still so many people defending this behavior. The world is full of weak and/or deceitful people.

Take a look at the profit margin (and market valuation) of automotive companies and compare them to tech companies. Now also make a comparison of average developer/engineer salaries at both. Is it not OK for the automotive folks to get to the same level as their FAANG brethren? Disclaimer: I work for an automotive OEM.

It's fine for automotive companies to maximize their profit margin. If they have smaller margins than google, that's probably because google is nearly a monopoly, and there's fierce competition in the automotive space.

A key difference here is a car is a product that we buy and own. It doesn't cost Mercedes an ongoing cost every month to support these hardware features they change a monthly fee to unlock, and so the monthly fee doesn't provide additional value. To the extent it does, it's because the manufacturers are artifically limiting their product. Compare this to, say, and Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. With that, you're getting access to cloud services that costs Adobe to keep running, it also gets you access to new features and security updates. Whether or not you like Adobe's business model, this provides a justification for the subscription model that is simply absent in the automotive space.

Going back to the competition point, even if you just look at the monthly fee as cost shifting, it lets the manufacturers advertise a price that's lower than what the consumer is going to pay.

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