The New Audi A3 Is Amess With In-Car Subscriptions

Technology@lemmy.world – 454 points – 7 months ago

The New Audi A3 Is Amess With In-Car Subscriptions [Update]

So far there's subscriptions for cruise control, adaptive beams, various navigation options, apple/google integration and my favorite, dual-zone climate.

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A fifth of users in the US rent the car itself via lease mechanisms. You aren't the target.

Assuming there are discounts the folks leasing will use these options.

Why are you all over this thread shilling for a predatory subscription model by a multibillion dollar corporation? Very strange behavior.

Because this thread is an echo chamber. I know pointing out the target use case is very problematic and odd. I'll be quite and you all can continue to ignore that a fifth of buyers rent the entire vehicle for 3 years and haven't been doing it for 50.

I’m not even saying you’re wrong necessarily, but it’s just very weird behavior to take this aggressive of a pro-corporate stance on something I think everyone should agree is a shitty, unnecessary practice. Regardless of the use case, locking features behind a paywall is always a shitty thing for a multibillion dollar company to do.

People like the option. It's not weird at all to believe that having different options for owning, leading, and renting allows more access to the vehicle and products. The original comment is about limiting how I pay for a car. Leasing+ subscription works for many customers.

People like the option to have already installed equipment just not work if they don't pay the subscription? Like the car already has the features and the company is saying "we included this equipment in the price of your lease/purchase already but if you'd like to use it you have to keep paying more."

Even in the case of a lease, this is just anti-consumer bullshit

With BMW and Toyota it was cheaper to sub for 3 years than purchase outright. Yes, that's an attractive option.

That's not what I said. Good strawman/whataboutism combo, but try harder.

A leased car with those options 5 years ago didn’t cost you a subscription, and now they will. You want the option to what? Pay more for something that you didn’t have to before?

Again, on both the Toyota and BMW, it was less expensive than purchasing the options. You did pay for them before. They were never free.

Not true. Just think about what you’re saying for five seconds and you’ll realize how absurd it is. If you buy a BMW or a Toyota that has an available heated seat subscription for example, whether you pay for it or not, they installed the heated seats. it doesn’t cost BMW or Toyota a cent for you to use your heated seats, it costs them to install them. You really think that you haven’t already paid for those heated seats that they’ve already installed in the car? are you seriously suggesting that these companies are going to to sell you these cars with heated seats in them without charging you for them? That if you choose not to pay for the heated seats, they’re just going to eat that cost? Get real.

It is far cheaper to produce a single trim with most of the features. Customization costs money. There is a reason Porsches are expensive.

Multiple seat types is literally buildings and lines they need to construct. It's a similar scales of economy concept like binning chips. Instead of multiple lines.

Even if that were true, that still means that everyone is paying for that one single trim, including all the optional features in it. By paying for the subscription, you’re just paying more money, not less.

You’re worth blocking

I'm so fucking sorry I pointed out the reality of people purchasing these cars. I'll promise to never point out any data to you again if you just don't block me!

You haven't provided any data, just you talking.

Oh here, let me go find that very available data with a 2.5 second Google search since you don't understand the car market, have probably never in your life purchased a new vehicle, and just want to argue.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/453122/share-of-new-vehicles-on-lease-usa/

No why would I need to buy a new car when my current one is fine

Then as stated, you are not the fucking customer here. Not sure why that's so hard to accept.

Customer of what lmao, you lost me

Clearly. My og comment.

A fifth of users in the US rent the car itself via lease mechanisms. You aren't the target. Assuming there are discounts the folks leasing will use these options.

This is trash I have to register and by the looks of it pay just to view the "statistics".

You think they are lying? Jesus dude look on any dealership website and count the number of 3 year old cpo's. This isn't some exotic loan. It's extremely common and you can find lease offers at literally every brand and dealership.

Edit : you might be viewing it via your lemmy client and so it's triggering a login. I had no issues getting to it but I see what you mean.

A fifth

Surely their target would be the four fifths, then?

Have they excluded that audience? As far as I know you can still purchase the vehicle or feature instead of lease.

Only by upgrading to the MMI navigation system do you get access to the app store. From there, Audi forces you into add-ons like adaptive cruise control or Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for a one-month, six-month, one-year, or three-year subscription. Or you can just purchase any of those features permanently—although Audi doesn't say for how much.

Sounds like you’re right, but people are still right to be wary of this scheme, as the additional market segmentation will likely push up the cost of buying the feature outright. Audi is incentivized to push as many people toward the subscription model as possible to decrease the value of used vehicles.

I will worry when it happens. The car market is very competitive and vehicle reliability, safety, and feature set has improved significantly in the last 15 years.