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

arstechnica.com

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

#411

Post by jjk166 »

nicce wrote: post #110
Faaak wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many electric cars on the market that are just plain "old" cars: hyundai ioniq, renault zoe, peugeot e-208, etc... No subscription and they work quite well.

But they are practically useless outside of cities. No range so they are not an option.

Plug in hybrids are the best of both worlds. You can have a small battery for use over normal day to day driving which keeps costs down, but when you do need to drive a substantial distance you can take advantage of the high energy density and quick refueling of fossil fuels. I got one recently and it's great, I have a long commute so I drive 400 miles per week, but I can charge at home and at work so I'm paying the equivalent of $1/gallon for 90% of my driving, and I only need to get gas like once a month. The monthly fuel savings compared to my last car are like half of my monthly car payment.

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

#412

Post by nitrogen »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #358
akudha wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are simply copying software industry. Tableau, Jetbrains... none of these need to be subscription based, but they are. They weren't, until a few years ago. I wonder whats next? My toilet won't flush unless I pay $5 for it, in addition to the water bill? It would be hilarious if every single item at home was subscription based, lol

You mentioned Jetbrains but not worse actors like Adobe, or Microsoft. Seems disingenuous.

The OP has probably managed to eliminate Adobe and MS from their lives, so they didn't come to mind.

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

#413

Post by bigiain »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #236
silisili wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 The fact that the front doors both unlock when a single handle is pulled is because there's an electronic sensor and solenoid that unlocks everything when one handle is opened. I had a Pontiac Vibe (really a Toyota Matrix) that had a cable in the door unlock assembly fail. You could open the door from the outside - the external door handle was physi…

> Regardless, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine that an automotive engineer might decide to replace cable actuator with a wire and solenoid.

Or with a bunch of CANBUS electromechanical hardware and some shittily written software running on the entertainment unit (with insecure cellular network connectivity).

I wonder how long before someone sets up unlockyourtoyota.ru where you can send them 0.01BTC to unlock the car you're stuck inside?

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

#414

Post by cptaj »

The whole smart keys trend is the worst case of taking a perfectly functional thing and ruining it with unnecessary features.

I hate them so much. They all cost a boatload of cash to replace and give me absolutely no benefit over a regular key.

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

#415

Post by skinnymuch »

jldugger wrote: post #216
wedowhatwedo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

This doesn’t make sense. Their digital services require ongoing costs that are obvious to even non technical people. IE even my non technical mom would know TV and music streaming costs regular money. Most people know storage space costs money because of the cloud sync apps.

I don’t see how people can compare this to being turned upside down like you say unless they are claiming that for every major tech company. At which point Apple has little to do with it. Otherwise I don’t see how that thinking can be for any reason other than strong to extreme bias against Apple specifically.

I don’t recall being upsold applecare+ before. Maybe it’s a pretty small part of the online checkout process and I haven’t noticed it? I’m sure it happens. A family member and a friend have asked about it because they were being unsold. Still, this isn’t like some of the infamous upselling industries and niches.

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

#416

Post by rainbowzootsuit »

itsoktocry wrote: post #133
908B64B197 wrote: post #96

If this was pitched to me at the dealership I'd just laugh at the salesman's face and leave. Or get all the add-ons "forever for free" as part of the sale. This makes (any) brand look incredibly cheap. However, If someone wants to sell me Car as a SaaS, I'm interested. By that, I mean as soon as there's an issue with the car, I simply flag it in the App and an employee comes to my place and swap it over for the same…

> Or get all the add-ons "forever for free" as part of the sale. This all the way. People seems to be intimidated of car shopping, but if you have financing in place (or cash), you are in such a position of power you can pretty much get anything thrown in. Try it. By the time they say no it'll be because you're eaten all their margins; they are a business after all.

My limited experience and what I've heard on the internet: it's better not to let on that you are paying cash or outside financing as the dealers make money on the financing and will sometimes give a lower sales price due to that. Pull the cash out after the deal is agreed upon.

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

#417

Post by skinnymuch »

jldugger wrote: post #345
lotsofpulp wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I can see the reasons people might compare it to being turned upside down and shaken for loose change like a piggy bank. How? Licensing music requires ongoing payments from Apple to music owners. iCloud requires Apple to maintain data centers and bandwidth. TV+ requires ongoing investment into creation of new video productions. News+ is similar to music, Apple has ongoing costs to pay the owner of the journalis…

I'm not saying there aren't costs associated with building or running these services that need to be paid for. But owning the OS and pushing subs in the default apps is just as annoying when Apple does it as when Youtube does.

I had never noticed the upselling of Arcade or Fitness before. I opened the apps up now and see there are tabs for them. I’ve opened the fitness and app stores up for ages. Never noticed before. I barely notice the TV+ stuff in the TV app. Can’t comment on the other two services. Still, yes, this is lame to do.

However if this is an extension of the original argument for why it makes sense to assume Apple is Nickle and diming over priced digital services. It doesn’t fit.

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

#418

Post by brokenmachine »

rabuse wrote: post #297
wikibob wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absurd victim blaming. The problem is there is a door handle that is designed with a failure mode such that pulling the handle DOES NOT OPEN THE DOOR.

Exactly. Couldn't they just have some system where the door handles have a magnetic dead-switch, that reverts to manual operation when no power is applied?

The battery might not have enough juice to unlock the doors, but still not be completely dead. Of course with good design that shouldn't be a problem.

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

#419

Post by shard »

beeboop wrote: post #226
jmiserez wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of model it's a good idea to put a emergency hammer / glass breaker in your car. (addendum: also to rescue someone else, not blaming the driver)

If your headrests can be removed, the metal poles in them work well for this too. You jab one of the poles into the window seal, then pry like a crowbar. If done in the corner of the window it will break easily.

I looked it up on YouTube since I wasn't sure how that would work. Here is a video I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZTa8Nh0VlE

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

#420

Post by vardump »

ribosometronome wrote: post #69
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…

What features like that does Apple hide behind paywalls today? That doesn't sound at all like their strategy with iOS or Mac OS. I guess there's stuff like the Apple Developer Program, which I know a lot of folk have complaints about. But that's hardly a feature most folk would desire -- whereas all of those things you listed for a perspective car are. That said, if Apple did bring some of these features to market at…

"You'd have to subscribe to your speculated service for 42 years"

Surely you meant 4.2 years? 10000/199/12 = 4.18760469012 (years).

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