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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
The German car-maker says its “optional power upgrade” is designed to give customers more choice.
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This is despite a wider embrace of subscriptions in general…
I’m not sure this is the right conclusion. What seems like a “wider embrace of subscriptions” may be happening because subscriptions are becoming harder and harder to avoid. We don’t like them; they’re being forced on us. That’s an important difference.
I also think this is misusing the current statistics and drawing wrong conclusions.
Nobody is asking for these kind of subscription models.
Whag do you mean? Of course they are… everyone likes not reciving what they paid for to only have to pay a monthly charge for it… just look at what people pay monthly for… they will so enjoy this… /s
In France, people who have VW cars are not the best or brightest drivers. It could work.
Thanks.
UK too. The VW is the new Audi.
In France, people who have VW cars are not the best or brightest drivers. It could work.FTFY
VW are garbage, have been since, well, forever.
70’s VW factory replacement parts were so bad you’d get water pumps with incompletely drilled mount holes.
Today, the electrics do dumb things like combine the AC control with the power window controls in a box in the drivers door. You know, an area that will deal with moisture.
Drive down the road and note how often a VW has an entire taillight that doesn’t work.
Their electrics are shit. (Other brands have their own issues, American brands are only a little better, or worse, depending on the brand and model).
1999: “Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization.”
lol. 1999 was the best time for humanity; ridiculous!
2025: Oh shit…
“We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI.”
That’s why I live my life as if it were still the 90s…oh shit, am I in the matrix already?
You wish!
Seriously. Why didn’t I take the blue pill?
You guys were offered a blue pill???
Yeah, but it was a weekly subscription fee, so I declined
You didn’t get the emails?
No. Just some weird guy in a trench coat behind a Giant Tiger offered me some white-ish looking pills. I woke up the next day with half my head shaved and my wallet was missing.
Okay, it’s high time for some serious regulatory intervention.
The intent is to provide
playersowners with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking differentheroeshorsepower.They came for the Gamers, but I did not speak out because I was not a Gamer.
Hey, we did speak out and most of us didn’t shut up since. Fuck EA, VW, BMW, whoever tries to push microtransactions.
I haven’t bought a AAA game for well over a decade because of this shit. I’ll bike and take a bus before I give in to it with a mode of transportation.
Car companies are parasites. America was built on trains and the investments into car infrastructure have paralleled US declines. Its just not an effecient use of public resources to build highways between cities.
This is so distopian it sounds like a joke
The manufacturers fee for speeding is higher than the fine the police gives you.
This company already has another scandal brewing, since 2005 they have been installing plastic engine parts, particularily the intake manifolds have been designed as a single use item to be replaced roughly every 3 years. Custom aluminum will run you $1000 for the part itself if you don’t want to keep swapping plastic, not to mention the ridiculous labour costs as well. Avoid!
Basically every car manufacturer pulls shit like this these days; good luck avoiding all of them.
If it’s specific to a certain model, that would be good info.
That said VW obviously sucks for pulling the stunt mentioned in the article, which applies to (all?) its electric models.
For $1000 you could get a small furnace for cintering, a regular 3D printer and some of that special PLA that has metal powder in it that you can print and then cinter into a solid metal piece (The PLA bakes off) and just make the fucking thing yourself.
I got rid of my last VW after I got tired of plastic parts breaking. It happened every winter, after a cold snap.
I agree. They are using only plastic everywhere at this point.
It’s also a nano plastic nightmare at this point.
Fuck that noise.
What happens if the car goes out of range from the internet? Does the car just lose power the same way I can’t play Gamepass games offline?
I already bought the car with the hardware in it. I will do what I want with it.
My next car will be a 1995 Honda. I’m so tired of being tracked all the time.
You can play GamePass Ultimate games offline, though.
No, I’m serious. I’m not arguing with you, I promise.
Oh I wasn’t aware. Each time I try to open a game before my Xbox connects to the internet, I get an error.
Connect to the Internet, download the games you want and then go into settings and take your console offline.
The initial setup requires some settings tweaks but after that it’s smooth sailing.
Also, VW can suck a fat one.
You can bump 10 years ahead, my car doesn’t have tracking 😄
deleted by creator
That’s an interesting insight, thanks!
So… Volkswagen is the next target for hacking ?
Thank goodness, my John Deere side hustle was slowing down.
Ah yes, selling me something that is already available but is just locked behind software. And then trying to frame that as somehow a good thing for customers. Just insulting.
Sadly, it’s been a good part of IBM’s business model for years. They call it Capacity on Demand.
Inactive processor cores and inactive memory units are resources that are included with your server, but are not available for use until you activate them.
I learned this when I moved into a corporate IT environment with Power servers. I couldn’t believe that some companies would pay a quarter of a million for a server that is intentionally stunted/limited unless you pay even more.
But cars are computers now. “Everything’s computer!”. So they will follow that subscription model.
I couldn’t believe that some companies would pay a quarter of a million for a server that is intentionally stunted/limited unless you pay even more.
Well, there is a reason AMD has been kicking ass in the server space lately. Mostly because Intel sat on their ass for a decade, but IBM scalping customers certainly provided a larger opening for AMD.
Yeah, we’ve got more choice now.
I’m glad I used my freedom of choice to buy a different make.
At this point, companies will do literally fucking anything, just to pad the numbers for the shareholder reports. The Volkswagen group can screw itself. When we start decent seeing vehicles at a decent price again, maybe we can resume this conversation. Everyone’s tired of plastic garbage for top dollar
they aren’t even good cars anyway. they’re shit.
When we start decent seeing vehicles at a decent price again
These exist, they’re just not in the USA. Look at what companies like BYD, MG, and Xiaomi are doing in practically every developed country except the USA. The entry-level BYD Dolphin EV is just under AU$30k (US$19k) in Australia, including taxes. Xiaomi have a sports car for around US$40k.
I will never buy a vw again, that is a fact.
Skip all of those brands. Škoda too.
Škoda are a massive offender, in my eyes. No one here drives their cars, except for taxis, because they were cheap, comfortable enough, and no one cares if you beat one up. Now, they position themselves as some kind of a mid-range luxury brand, but the quality does not speak for itself whatsoever
This is way beyond “mildly infuriating”. Shit should be illegal, it’s terrible for progress and an epitome of greedy capitalist bullshit.
Agreed. Although that is true for 80% of the threads posted in this category.
The future is a fucking farce.
Psych! You thought you were gonna get star trek style utopia, while we’ve been descending into fascist dystopia for several decades!?!
Woo! Techno-feudalism!
I’m still holding out hope for cyberpunk. At least it comes with skylines and cool back alley markets.
And cybernetics that won’t play adds in your brain until you have a seizure!. Seriously settings like cyberpunk and shadowrun are starting to look good by the standards of what we’re heading for. (Shadowrun is also old enough that you could actually just barely survive on a part time job without sharing an appartment even in the dystopia)
The difference is whether there’s any room outside the system to exist in, right? Can you jailbreak your implant? Can you live in a shitty illegal slum, or are they all carefully dispersed before they can begin?
It’s all about technologies of control. Ironically, the places seeing democratic backsliding are not the only or even the main ones developing and implementing them.
German car industry has one foot in the grave. The German car industry lobbyist have successfully weakened or delayed many EU climate and sustainability initiatives. I fucking hope the German car industry collapses sooner than later and weaken Germany’s political power in the EU.
German car industry has one foot in the grave.
I think that all or close to it auto manufacturers have some form of subscription service now with monthly fees. It’s not something specific to German manufacturers.
randomly picks from this list of auto manufacturers
Buick.
https://www.buick.com/ownercenter/onstar/learn
OnStar One Super Cruise
for vehicles with Super Cruise
$64.99/mo.
Save up to 16% by choosing this plan
OnStar Connect Plus
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In-Vehicle Wi-Fi® Hotspot
-
Music
-
Podcasts
-
Audiobooks
-
News
-
Video Streaming (if properly equipped)
-
Games (if properly equipped)
-
Internet Browser (if properly equipped)
Safety & Security
-
Stolen Vehicle Assistance
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Safety Services
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OnStar Guardian App
-
Roadside Assistance
Super Cruise
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Hands-Free Driver Assistance Technology
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Turn Signal Activated Lane Change
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Automatic Lane Change (if properly equipped)
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Hands-Free Trailering (if properly equipped)
Is that subscription for OnStar or Super Cruise? One is a service with legitimate ongoing operating costs; the other is not.
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German car industry has one foot in the grave.
I wonder if that is true though. Sure, they lobby that way when they want government subsidies.
They might be late to the e-car game (but the above article applies to e-cars only anyhow).
But all that largely applies to most car industries across the globe, yet they do adapt, if slowly. Except those under totalitarian control, they adapt faster.
I have German heritage, as does my wife. I have lived in Germany. Looking at the Germany of today, I can’t wait to see its power collapse. They might (still) be the most unworthily arrogant people on the planet.
no, that would be Russians.
