BMW Is Giving Up on Heated Seat Subscriptions Because People Hated Them
thedrive.com
BMW Is Giving Up on Heated Seat Subscriptions Because People Hated Them::The blowback worked—but subscriptions for software-based new car features will continue, according to a BMW board member.
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Heated seats is my goto example as an attack on ownership. Good to see it stop but I don't want your proprietary software or SaS either. Give me a dumb car with no computer.
Seems to be harder and harder to get a new car without all those "smart" features. Soon, it might be impossible to find one at all, just like it's impossible to find consumer-grade dumb tv in the market right now.
It's why I am considering availability of public transportation when house-hunting nowadays. When my car breaks down, I hope to be able to NOT buy a new one. Ideally, for the rare occasion that I need one in the future, I could rent one.
I think they need the smart features to get a 5 star safety rating.
I mean, now with many cars being EVs, I'd rather have some computer in there to manage the battery, since I'm sitting on a bomb if that thing is mismanaged.
What you're describing is a Battery Management System (BMS), whose job is to monitor some key parameters of the cells and make sure they remain balanced. There's no intrinsic reason for it to be tightly integrated into an overarching system that performs surveillance or other high-level functions in a "smart" vehicle. This video by Great Scott explains the basic principles and he even builds a simple one from scratch, that would be suitable for something like an e-bike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT-1gvkFj60
Sufficiently motivated people have been building highly performant DIY electric cars for several years with no Big Brother tech in the OpenInverter community https://openinverter.org/wiki/Main_Page
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=rT-1gvkFj60
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Good bot
Euro7 regulation requires cars to be able to make emergency calls automatically on collision, so car makers use the opportunity to include 24/7 cellular connectivity into their new cars.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/security-and-emergencies/emergency-assistance-vehicles-ecall/index_en.htm
Yes, and they will tell "Look! Consumer DEMANDED those smartcars! We are only replying to a demand!"
Yeah, just like they did with station wagons. "Look! No one is buying station wagons anymore ^because we stopped making them^ so it's all SUV's going forward! Which cost the same to manufacture but we can sell for a higher price!"
Such subscription models essentially beg to be hacked and/or for third parties to come up with entire replacement computers for the vehicle that bypass entirely all of the locks.
Subaru did this with remote start. Instead of just selling you the damn option you have to pay a subscription. Fuck that I'll just walk outside and start the car..
Yeah, I wouldn't want a car without e.g. a trip computer. But I also defintly don't want a "smart car".
Do you mean the old mechnical trip computer, or are you refering to trip with software-only features?
The modern one, but the offline version.
Do people install Linux on it? :D