I hope someday we'll find a way to pirated a car

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A 2024 Kia Telluride is right around $50,000 USD (fully loaded specs), but I get what you're saying with regards to vehicles in general.

Like BMW and Tesla having "creature comforts" behind subscriptions.

Not only that, but if you have no choice but to buy a car with internet connectivity, these are supposed to be the kind of bells and whistles they give to at least make it SEEM like you're not being completely taken advantage of. It's like a double-dip. "We're giving your car connectivity so we can sell your telemetry, AND we get to charge you for all the useful features, too!"

If it costs SO much to maintain these services, cool. I'd be happy to save the poor little car manufacturers money by buying a model that uses no connectivity whatsoever. But, for some reason, they don't seem to want to offer that. Gee, I wonder why.

Demand more out of them, because they'll always be looking to get more out of you.

This reminds me of the video game industry. Make a complete game, then choose to remove pieces to sell later as add-on content. Lol. The only thing I see costing them money is if they have to pay for an LTE subscription to maintain that internet connectivity so you can start your car from an app.

They have considered how much the gains from being evil assholes offset the cost of alienating some people, and found that they make more by being evil, it's not stupid.

Not to mention the data they mine from you with their "app" that they can sell to advertisers.

The issue is that with ongoing service across time, the longer the service is being used the more it costs Kia. The larger the time boxes Kia uses the bigger the number is and the more you're going to scare off customers.

Using Kias online build and price, looks like the most expensive Telluride you can get right now is $60k MSRP, cheapest at 30k

Let's assume Kia estimates average lifetime of a Telluride to be 20 years so they create an option to purchase this service one time for the "lifetime" of the vehicle. Taking in good faith the pricing Kia has listed, using that $150 annual package, and assuming that price goes up every year at a rate of 10% (what Netflix, YouTube, etc have been doing) across those twenty years you're looking at around $8.5k option. At the top trim thats still 14% extra that is going to make some buyers hesitant, at the base model that's 28% more expensive.

Enough buyers will scoff at that so Kia can either ditch the idea entirely as they'll lose money on having to pay for the initial development and never make their money back, or they find some way to repackage that cost and make it look like something that buyers are willing to deal with.

To me the bigger issue is the cost of the service vs what you're getting. Server time + dev team + mobile data link cannot be costing Kia more than a few million annually, mid to upper hundred K is more likely so they must not be expecting that many people to actually be paying for any of this

Assume the communication with the app it through Internet. The car must have a 4G chip (too early to see 5G in cars, I think?). So no matter what you pay, it won't work when 4G is retired. With marketing pushing to get new standards always faster, 4G may not last another 20years.

Anyway, bear in mind that once you subscribe, they will most likely collect detailed data about how you use the features and sell that as well...

Finally, the voice (text) of reason.

Thank you!

Finally someone who gets it
Glad to see you here my fellow comrades
Honestly the people who defended subscription models for something that you already paid & own are dumb (or maybe just trolling around) like people who defend adobe for subscription models

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you should absolutely choose a vehicle without subscriptions, and make a point of stating it at time of purchase

this is your one moment to make a difference

Not until my 2007 Tundra literally collapses into a pile of rust and plastic. Hopefully it’s not too late by then.

LOL how does one go about that, exactly?

Do you walk into the dealer and state affirmatively "I am not buying a car here because I don't want a subscription!" and then turn around and walk out?

Won't matter. The company knows you don't want this. They also know that enough other people will pay for it that it won't matter. These subscriptions are not new. If people put their foot down and refused to pay for them they would go away, but the opposite it happening.

Sorry.

Agreed.

And then you can't use it when the temp is 0F because they decide to do some maintenance

I do find that the days I need it the most it's slower than molasses.

Imagine your car need an updates or you don't paying subscription fee or but the server are offline & you're in emergency situation, and the worst of it your car won't start without it OMG... that's scarred me the hell out of it

My spouse was just telling me about someone who got stuck waiting for an hour because their car decided to unexpectedly do an update

The only problem with services as a subscription is THE FUCKING IDIOTS THAT PAY FOR THEM

If nobody fell for shit like that, manufacturers would drop it like boiling diarrhea

This is true.

Go and buy a car from a manufacturer who doesn't insist on subscriptions... whilst you still can!

Finally someone who gets it
Glad to see you here my fellow comrades

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Worth noting that these features appear to require your car to be connected to a cellular network. This isn’t the same as BMW charging a fee for heated seats.

They could have just put a SIM card in your car and required you to pay your cell phone provider for a connection.

You don't need a cellular connection for long range, low bandwidth communication. There are networks such as Lora that don't require a paid subscription to use.

That’s not what this is though. I have a Hyundai Tuscan that is always connected to a cellular network.

I can always connect with the car with my phone if both the car and phone have internet access. It’s also how the “find my car” feature works. And also I believe software updates (OS and maps).

I meant that they don't have to use a cellular connection, they could use something else if they wished. LoRa is a two way data connection designed for low bandwidth, long distance. Range can be anywhere from 3-10 miles depending on obstructions/obstacles. There are other similar protocols out there.

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The crazy thing is that at the price you are paying for a friggin telluride they could easily raise the price by a few hundred (ie several years worth of subscription) and it would be unlikely to shift sales by much at all but would not piss off the buyers like this. You can't put this crap on your car loan either. I really get the sense there is a conspiracy level concerted effort to try to indoctrinate generation Z into allowing every corporation they deal with to stick an IV into their bank accounts.

They intentionally didn't roll the subscription into the sale price. That's the goal. They want that sweet, predictable, monthly income that they sell their investors on.

They also figured that if you've found your car, you're less likely to walk away for what is essentially a fraction of the car's price.

I honestly hope the next car I buy has shit like this. Because boy am I going to make it my mission to jailbreak it and release my code open source.

If you are clever, confident, and savvy about it I think you could get your next car for free. If there was a kickstarter type project where I could pledge an amount in support of a jailbreak for a car I owned or was thinking of getting, I'd pledge a decent amount, I think a lot of people would.

That's the irony of all of this. I too would donate to a project that was actively trying to do this, even donate to their legal fund. I'd probably pay more than the subscription!

These asshole companies just don't realize that a determined developer and engineer will move heaven and earth to make sure that their freedoms (as in speech) aren't restricted.

I don't care if it's illegal. It's my fucking car. Once you sell it to me, it ceases to be your property. You leave $100 bill in the glove compartment before you sell it to me? Well it's mine now.

You leave software on my car's computer? Welp, it's mine now.

Right to repair is a main line issue for me

Keep us posted on make and model. I sure as hell will try to get one myself and help you test the shit out of that jailbreak.

They're training people for even worse subscription models.

This type of subscription is actually kiiiiinda understandable because the company has to maintain servers, staff and keep the software secure because they're handling sensitive data such as location etc.

I also remember that BMW I think? Had a heated seat subscription and that's really not justifiable imo

I had a 2023 Elantra, and iirc it had these features for $30 a year after my subscription ended.

These prices are way higher. Seems like every company agreed that subscription = $10(ish) a month, regardless of the actual cost the features justify.

Yeah for connected features, there are those costs. A vehicle we own would let me remote start it and lock and unlock doors from the app...if I paid $15/month. It's not worth it to me, so I've never paid for that service, and the vehicle works fine without it. I mostly even forget it exists. I might be more interested if it would report things like fuel level, oil and fuel filter replacement time, and so on, but it doesn't (but even then I'm not sure it'd be worth $15/month).

A subscription for heated seats, though? No. I don't want a subscription service for something that doesn't have an ongoing cost to the manufacturer. For us in particular, we buy our cars with the intention of keeping them a long time, and I'm not paying that fee for the life of the car. I like cars that are paid off.

If I'm on a heated seat subscription and they break for some reason, who pays for them to be fixed?

Comparison on the heated seats repair question: I rent the water softener at my house for $29/month. (The previous owner set it up, and I haven't gotten around to replacing it...it's a "it's working, and I have bigger issues" situation.) At this point I've paid for two of the highest-end home water softeners available, and I haven't had a single issue with the one I have, so it's definitely not the best setup financially. But, if my water softener dies today, I can call them, and they'll come right out and fix it or replace it, no charge. So there is a benefit to that monthly subscription price; they take the risk of it failing, not me.

Qne is this not already part of the purchase? Cars like everything else went up in price. Labour and raw materials cost more. But not even for a second am i under an illusion they're not baking the upkeep of servers and updates as part of the cost with a hefty margin.

Totally agreed, it would be nice if you could set it up yourself but that'll never happen. Even if you did set it up yourself it wouldn't be free though

Simple. Buy an older car and spend the extra money maintaining it. Reducing demand is the only language consumers have that businesses understand.

It doesn't have to be ancient; even 5-10 year old cars don't have this bullshit.

Honestly, doesn't even have to be old. My Toyota Yaris is a 2023 model and it has no subscriptions. Such cars still exist, but they are mostly in the lower end market, because automakers assume if you have the money for an expensive car you also have the money for a subscription.

The list of manufacturers I can morally buy from is ever shrinking... Soon Dacia will be the sole manufacturer I could buy from without weird BS attached.

Kia and Ford were EVs I considered but ultimately turned down.

You could say that's... great news.

Yes and no, I'm never happy about having less options. Plus my boycott does very little.

My "dream" car is a V6 Accord from the last year they made them, which I think is 2016. I'd buy one of those right now and just keep repairing it, and hope no one t-bones me. Unfortunately I think my wife is still in the mindset of "we should buy a new car and keep it forever", which used to be my mindset, too. But she's not seeing the news on this stuff like I am, either. I suspect if I explained "heated seat subscription" to her (a feature she will not buy a car without) she would object strenuously.

But I don't like where new cars are going, at all. I don't like subscriptions, I don't like the backseat driver nanny features that blare out false alarms, and on the whole I'd rather not have adaptive cruise control (there are times when adaptive cruise is nice, but overall I prefer the old-style cruise control).

We have a 2020 Mazda that I absolutely hate driving; if that is the future of cars, I'm not interested.

I'm hoping my car and our pickup last forever. The other day we took the Mazda for an errand in poor weather because, as I said, "It's the most expendable car."

Just don't buy a 5-10 year old Kia or Nissan. Nearly every one on the road is going to have their engine sieze or transmission have issues

Not even 5 years man my 2022 is nice and doesn't have subscriptions.

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Fuck sakes. Those features were free on my 2020 Telluride.

I own a Kia. I don't enjoy the subscription anymore than the next guy but I'm calling bullshit.

The only features behind a pay wall are the ones the app provides. The ones that require an always on internet connection and server infrastructure to maintain.

None of the in-car features are limited. The remote start on my key fob, seat heaters, onboard nav, all work fine without a subscription.

This isn't like the crap bmw was pulling with the seat heaters.

The cost to maintain the servers to send extremely small packets of data to instruct the car for the entire fleet of cars they sold could be less than $100/m.

Indeed; what we need is a jailbreak and a way to operate these systems on our own independent or third party / aftermarket resources. In a REAL competitive market, someone else could set up a server and offer to run these applications (or others!) for a different price. Not that I'm even particularly fond of capitalism myself nor how vulnerable it makes your car to turn it into an IOT device.

This WILL be hacked though, eventually.

The question is, who will venture deep enough and understand all the hurdles like the car self-bricking after even trying to peek at the SW or HW.

Someone figured out how to remotely take control of Chrysler vehicles with the Uconnect 8.4 systems a while back. So people are out there working on these things. Also, the more popular the car, the more likely someone is working on it.

To FCA's credit in that case, they listened to the researchers and implemented several fixes very quickly to address the problem. I wouldn't put it past many manufacturers to do the hands-over-the-ears "la la la" thing when faced with the same situation.

Are you going to jailbreak roadside assistance?

It's called working at a towing company, and I already have. I know what those "roadside assistance" firms do from the inside, because we're the ones who actually do the work when they call, and most of them are trash; you could just skip the middle man and call us directly, but the good ones actually pay decently and are more likely to get our help. Prices become better for individuals when they act as a group who collectively pool resources to subsidize cost on the basis that having a lifeline to fall back on when you don't need one is better than not having one when you do need one. Technically any handful of people can found a private social club that they all pay ten bucks a month into but don't always use, and such a club's warchest will snowball to thousands of dollars while no one is looking. Then when suddenly one person is in trouble, the club swoops in and eats the cost. Socialization of risk. Mutual aid. Wish more people did that.

It probably won't be hacked for most of these cars, though. Just the ones interesting enough to attract that kind of attention.

Those prices on the screenshot are annual, not monthly.

I'll agree that the services are overpriced, and I know I'm in the wrong place for this sentiment, but I don't think it's unreasonable to have a reoccurring fee for something that costs actual money and man-hours to maintain. And I'd rather that fee be a bolt on vs baked into the price of the car (or whatever) so I can choose whether I want to pay it.

All that being said, I don't pay for the kia online svcs because I think they're overpriced.

You forget the absolute amounts of data harvested, storage won't pay itself.

That's what i pay for gigabit fiber and unlimited 5g combined. (Admittedly my cell plan is one of those crazy grandfathered plans.)

"You wouldn't download a car."

I would absolutely hack the heated seats to work without my credit card.

Look your car has a new software update available!

I hope it's not like Windows updates; sitting in your car for 40 minutes before work because you can't use the car until the update is complete.

or.. we just need more FOSS alternatives to the car manufacturers proprietary OS.

I already see GH issues like: "breaks stop working when going above 200mph."

if (vehicle.getSpeed() >= 200) {
    vehicle.respondToBrakes = false;
}

if (vehicle.getSpeed() % 2 === 1) {
    vehicle.useFreedomEagleUnits = true
} else {
    vehicle.useFreedomEagleUnits = false
}

😂

I will do you one better: open source public transport

Not many will risk installing unofficial software on their car.

We should heavily regulate official options.

Cars separate core functionality from the infotainment system. I’d fully expect foss infotainment to be significantly higher quality.

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More than likely the brakes would break at 129Mph, as your car is now going -32768Mph.

I can tell you working at an OEM we see far crazier notes like this coming in

Brakes, if your brakes break you break.

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Even better, an open source car!

There's already an open source bike. Carrying several tons of metal everywhere you go is kind of a bad idea anyway.

What about people that don't live in the city where public transportation between towns is trash?

Don't you think it's interesting that even though the vast majority of car trips are a single person going less than a mile, every time someone brings up bikes the rebuttal is always "what if I need to move my family of 16 and their refrigerator 800 miles in freezing rain!?"

The US was built on rail. The infrastructure could be fixed. It's a choice not to fix it. It would be better to put in energy to fixing this than creating an open source way to access a proprietary transit system. Infrastructure is the problem, car vendors are just exploiting it.

Edit: correction, 52% of trips in the US in 2021 were under 3 miles and 28% are under a mile according to US DoE (https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1230-march-21-2022-more-half-all-daily-trips-were-less-three-miles-2021). 2% we're over 50 miles. Over 60% were under 5 miles, which is still pretty easy with an eBike given functional infrastructure.

Yeah, but I'm not from the US, I'm from a small town in Europe, you can put "all that effort" in both places at the same time because they are 2 completelly different problems

I think the term you mean is old car especially from before 2018
in the end old cars basically open source you can modified it whatever you want as long as not breaking regulations

So my two options are a repairable old gasoline/diesel car or a non reparaible electric/hydrogen car?

Yup, that's the only choice not you but everyone get

Nissan Leafs are plenty DIY repairable. It was part of our decision making process when considering buying an EV. There's also electric conversions if that's your jam.

Some of us want all the internet connected options. And want to own their machine and have good security

Open source car software and firmware would do that

I might be the guy that shows up at the revolution for the most trivial reason but I hate that it says $59.00 per annually like companies think they're so smart for having business school graduates on staff charging for things only business school graduates would think to charge for but they can't even get basic grammar right.

Lol, I pirate public transport every day

Teach me your ways

Step 1: get on the bus

Step 2: there is no step 2

Yep, step 3: ~~don't get caught~~ repeat step 1

I have to admit it's a lot easier in places without turnstiles

True, but I think that is the implied final step in most acts of piracy

Aye, yourr right

https://gearsmagazine.com/magazine/automatic-trends-in-europe-automatic-transmissions-on-the-rise/#:~:text=There%20was%20significant%20growth%20in,approximately%2044%20percent%20in%202019.

While I'm generally against subscriptions, for the most part the above are things that require cellular service and cloud infrastructure...

While the price may be too high. I'm normally ok with subscriptions for things that have on-going costs to the seller.

Yeah I would need to see the "read more" here, all of these look fine but I'd never be surprised to see shit like cruise control or heated seats pop up on a paywall.

My car has remote lock and unlock on a FOB, no reason for an app and subscription.
I also get the feeling that the diagnostics are done on board by the car, it's just refusing to give you the information unless you're paying the sub.

I work on crap like this, and it depends. Yeah, diagnostics are done in the car - the main ones, that is. But for example BMW collects data from all their cars - they're able to do some big data analysis. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the diagnostic info this app provided is an inference - your car has software version 4.3.21, and all cars on that sw version have experienced a certain bug at 200k km, so it's time to go to the dealership or get a remote update or something. It could be done.

Most likely though, they're just taking the personal data from your car and showing it to you. You know - after also saving it for themselves.

Put a knockoff air tag in your car and half of this is solved for $10.

Literally one item on that list could be solved with a airtag. And airtags start at 30, even the knockoffs are 20 and don't really work well.

We should be able to self host the servers and choose the cellular service like i can on my phone then

There is not one single new car on the market that I would take possession of if you gave it to me for free. I like having a manual transmission and a radio with buttons.

I'd rephrase that. If you give me a new car for free, of course I'm taking it!

BUT

Buying a new car, right now, as somone who's actively looking and keeping up with the market... There really aren't good cars for a reasonable price. A lot of new cars have been enshitified.

Yeah I don't like automatic either, and have an aversion towards anything that needs a touchscreen to operate.

It's the nature of time that the old ways must give in. Automatics outperform manual at every level, and most people would rather drive an automatic than a manual. Even here in Europe, where manuals have been the "default" forever.

What? Most people buy manuals here in Europe. And automatic are available... Tho, with the rise of electric cars, both manual and automatic get obsolete

If people were only buying manuals, there wouldn't be a push to put automatics everywhere, especially sports cars. More than 50% of cars in Europe are now automatic. Only 3% of new cars are manual. The old meets the new, and the people chose the new thing. That's usually what happens. The age of the manual transmission comes to an end.

Source? And automatic is not 'new'

My dad was driving automatic Jags back in the late 1970s, but he did work in the motor trade. I am seeing more and more automatics around but I still think manual is king (at least in the UK) for the time being. If nothing else, you can save some fuel driving an auto!

It is new in Europe.

This for instance.

Ok, I accept your source and facts, but it will decrease in the next 15 years because of the rise of electric cars anyways.

I don't even have a licence. I'd take it. Those gave pretty okay resale value. ^_-

Can't wait for the ads projected by a heads up display...

Yeah this is totally 2.5 milliseconds down the road

You wouldn’t download [the basic features of an item you already purchased.]

How is unlocking your car over the internet a basic feature?

Your oxygen subscription expires in 2 weeks. Please take note that absence of oxygen leads to hypoxia. Due to the detrimental effects of the war in Ukraine we have been forced to increase prices by 420%. Would you like to extend your subscription?

How is that related to unlocking your car from your phone?

Because the cost of the app to do that isn't $60 a year.

Both are, or at least should be, ridiculous.

Yes, an app costs money. Yes, servers do cost money. But do they need to use servers? No. For example, self-hosting. Or just connecting the car to the cellular network (which they already do, mind you) and just let the phone talk to it directly, no manufacturer server required. Just pay an ISP for cell service and you're set. Are there problems with such a solution security-wise? Yes. And while I'm not an expert in cybersecurity I think the risks are about the same for this and a server model.

Hell, they might not even use servers for anything other than checking if you've paid your subscription in order to lower costs already (as if a few thousand unlock requests a minute couldn't be managed without a problem on a Raspberry Pi). They don't need some huge, expensive and power-hungr supercomputer for that, so I don't see a need for such a steep price.

Are the features useful? Absolutely. Would someone be willing to pay this price? Also absolutely. But the festures objectively don't cost that much to maintain and competition should and could put an end to it.

It's just corporate greed, and it feels to me as if we're getting closer and closer to the fabled oxygen subscription, and we have to call manufacturers out on their bullshit while we still have air to breathe.

Just don't buy their cars or at least their subscriptions. Get your car 'jailbreaked'. What will they do, remote disable it? I think we're still not that far down the dystopia plotline that a boycott couldn't work.

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Why do I need to unlock my car over the internet? What is the use case over a FOB?

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These features require the cloud, which costs money and uses carbon. If you don't want them, as many don't, you shouldn't have to force the company to price them in at the purchase.

These features require the cloud

No they don't. You can use WiFi. Or Bluetooth. Or 433Mhz radio.

If you're in range for these to work, the fob will also turn the car on. These features are useful if you park at a public place or on a large campus.

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If it makes you feel slightly better I pay about $70/year for AAA so thats about half of the cost there since it comes with Roadside assistance.

I miss when you didn't need a cell connection for remote start, like my fob can lock and unlock my car from the third floor of my building why can't I just have a button on my remote that does the same as unlocking my doors.

Although, the roadside kinda makes $60 a year worth it just for the peace of mind, gotta atleast give em that.

Tesla's run on Linux and have already been jailbroken, the future is now.

The crack was done because of a flaw in the AMD CPU and not the Linux component. My understanding is it's only good for temporary override of the subscription enforcement.

Can't wait till a nefarious actor hacks it.

Reminds me of that movie on Netflix I just watched - leave the world behind, this happens

Glad to see, finally progress has been made
But the script it self not released yet in public AFAIK

Kia's just suck in general AFAIK. My friend has a 2010 Kia Sorento and he has some "device" on top of the positive (?) terminal of his battery. The terminal ring is a bit loose so it doesn't make proper contact with the battery terminal and he has to hold it against it so that he can start his car.

I thought he was bullshitting me at first because he's not a car guy and told me before that when his car was fucking up that it was the transmission, but it was the coil packs. Nope, there's a big black box on the top of the battery and he said that only Kia can service it, and it'll cost like $800 to fix.

To find a car and control it remotely will need a server. That's why it's not free.

it looks like only way is to somehow imitate their API and change those links in the car. I think it would be cool to selfhost such server.

The car costs a lot of money and they already give you wareanty, free service and will in one way or another milk you for years to come. I don’t think one more connection to a server costs this much.

Especially since all the „telemetry” is uploaded for free.

It's the cell plan not the server costs unfortunately. When they moved to app based starting from anywhere you need to start paying the cell carrier for that wireless connection.

I can understand some of these features requiring a $5/month subscription. Anything more than that is absolutely insane. With roadside assistance (depending on what that actually entails) I could see that sevice being bumped to $15-$20 a month,

Interestingly, these do include roadside and the cheaper option is $5/month and the more expensive one is just over $12/month.

So it sounds to me like this would be a good value for you.

I never said this was a bad value, but I think we all know that these prices will not remain. They will increase because people will pay it once they are locked in. And if someone buys a used car, they have to pay that subscription to get these features, ensuring the manufacturer gets a slice from used sales. I can understand the cost, but it sets a dangerous precedent. It should be one time fee that grants the VIN access to the severs permanently. What would be really nice is if we had legislation that requires companies with a certain amount of revenue to maintain services for older products so they can't just pull the plug later anyways.

I really hope my '01 4Runner lasts forever

Got an 02 still going strong that I'm delusional enough to hope lasts another 20 years.

The care package with roadside assistance seems reasonable, though your insurance usually already cover road assistance. The plus package is insane though, they charge that much just to enable remote start via their app?

Just buy used and modify yourself with the tech you want. Send a message that this shit is unacceptable and we are willing to live in a less technologically enhanced world if it means no subscriptions. We keep buying it, they will continue to think this is how you “extract profit” from consumers.

They also made them easy to steal!

What happens when the car becomes too old and they decide to drop that version of the API the car is talking with? Huh? That's another problem with these with "critical service but it can only go through us", when they change their mind you get fucked.

I bought a 2021 VW GLI, it has a software component called Car-net that has literally never worked. I don't even know what it's supposed to do. The little I've found is that it's supposed to have an app remote start and maybe a few other features, but according tk carnet, my car is still dealer owned. There have been at least six contacts to the car net folks from the dealer about the issue. I have a remote start on my FOB so whatever, but the car software support issue is so real. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I've had regular software issues like this in the past and it's such a pain to deal with and fix. Even going through customer support is painful, because it's not supposed to be this way so it's more than likely because of this the customer support experience will be long and you'll go through more people. And I don't want to even imagine how it is to have to deal with these issues on critical software and devices and to not get priority support. You feel powerless and broken.

I guess you can stop paying your subscription.

I just Googled and the 2024 Telluride has an MSRP of ~$55,000 in my area, used 2023 models are about ~$45,000.

Looking at an auto loan calculator, that's between $700 and $900 per month with a 96 month 9% auto loan.

Point is, if you can afford the car you're probably not worrying about the subscription except on principle. If you can afford the car and have principle concerns you'd probably buy a different car.

96 month 9% auto loan 🤮 might as well flush your money down the toilet.

Yeaah all those $80,000 F150s and Silverados you see on the road?

Bubbles gonna pop real soon. Those are all on 10 year loans…

Jesus, for that amount I can buy a house in Sweden.

I definitely agree, but I went with the option which would have the lowest monthly payment. On the other end local rates have a 36 month loan at 6.75%, but that's $1,800 per month.

A cheaper car would've worked.

You're paying over 18k more for the car with interest over the life of the loan while it will be losing half its value.

The example is the Telluride though? That's the whole point. Of course any sane person would pick a cheaper car. For that matter why would you ever buy a brand new car?

And anyone who would pay that much for a car is a gullible fool who doesn't deserve to keep their money anyway, so that tracks, yeah. What a fucking waste.

They will just keep adding stuff to this and removing it feom the "free" tear

Soon, auto manufacturers will learn what happens when buying isn't owning.

People will definitely download a car, or the crack for all its features.

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I'm trying to reduce my car dependency and go car-free eventually but If I had to buy one more car it would be a pre-1995 Toyota pickup.

I think the mid-2010s models should be bullshit-free while having most of the modern features (e.g. fuel efficiency)

I'll keep that in mind.

2016-18 is a pretty good year for those designs without the bullshit.

I bought Ioniq 5. No subs no bullshit and EV (no frozen shit like in a non tropical countries).

Love this car.

Hopefully your battery holds up https://www.autoevolution.com/news/yikes-the-60000-hyundai-ioniq-5-battery-replacement-saga-continues-226590.html

Got 8 years of battery warranty 😀

Besides, if it fails royally because of design issue, there are more than few fails like in the article.

Time to begin the era of the DYI automobile. Buy a number of ~30v, high amperage batteries, an electric motor, jury rig the thing to a drivetrain and presto!

Someone at my country modified old toyota Corolla to became electric car, it's used many 18650 batteries for powering

Is this just for info to be pushed to your phone? Seems reasonable unless there are features in the car itself that require a subscription.

Is it reasonable? I can hardly imagine it provides $59 worth of value.

Roadside assistance alone can be worth it. AAA's most basic plan for instance is $64.99 by itself.

True, I suppose I’d have to see how comprehensive their road side policy is to make a decision there.

But for the rest of it, a handful of API calls? Certainly not worth it.

https://piped.video/watch?v=aTNAghGMnIU

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!fuckcars@lemmy.ml

You wouldn't download a car?

I probably would, but unfortunately I lack the industrial sized 3D printer required to manufacture it.

Yeah I just won't buy that brand and if it turns into all of them. That's when I dust off my jailbreaking hat and never buy new again.

For $120 a year the Kia boys can total your car anyway!

Yall taking about modern cars, meanwhile my 94' Citröen works like a charm. Aftermarket alarm with GPS unmbolizer for 50 bucks does al the work.

This is freedom hahahaha

It even hasn't a ECU. Lol

If you buy an older car, you will likely still have none of the functions listed in those supscriptions. Just don't buy the subscriptions.

Game console manufacturing companies used to use people for modding a console that the person owned fair and square. And they won.

Roadside assistance doesn't even make sense as a subscription. And, for that price, none of them do.

Ive had a "subscription" for roadside assistance through my auto insurance company for years. It's like $2 a month, and I've used it 7 or 8 times for keys locked in, or flat tire, etc. it's awesome.

Lmao imagine when it get vanced to work without subscription.

Just need some bigger 3d printers.

Well I've seen company that make boat from huge 3d printer, maybe if we can get our hands at that technology level I think it'll work

Charging for that is so criminal. My 2010 vehicle can do most those things already for no recurring fees

All of those things?

While there’s a bunch I am assuming you can’t look up the location of your car through an app or website, or adjust the climate controls remotely, or get alerts when the alarm is triggered.

There are some features in here that require some sort of connection, what I find criminal is that they remove the features we DO have on our old cars from the key fob and paywall them behind an app.

Many comments are saying you can remote start this car with the key fob. This subscription is only if you want remote access via the cell network.

I hope someday we will find a way to pirate a car

Im quite sure car robbers do something like that since ages. :D

Privacy isn’t stealing, so they dont.

We had many threads discussing this issue as pirating a copy of something does not hurt the producer.

In the same magnitude (of loss) you could say that robbing a car from a manufacturer does not hurt the company.

Because the "robber" would also not buy the car too. So depending on how you define economic loss this discussion leads to no end.