Cars are getting closer to “smartphones on wheels”. Nevermind discussing the hilarity of such a statement, a more concerning thing is that manufacturers have gotten it into their heads that they should be able to monetize them like smartphones.
The latest in this cornucopia of cost-amortizing nonsense comes from Mercedes-Benz, which has announced that some of their EQE and EQS models are going to come nerfed from the factory. If you want to access the full performance of the car you bought (for at least a cool $75,000), you have to pay Mercedes-Benz $2100…
…a year.
I’m sure they are going to sell it some other way. You are unlocking the performance of your car, taking it beyond the limit of what it was supposed to do. But if sanity can prevail for just an instant on this sea of marketing nonsense, remember, the car is already set up to do this. You’re basically giving Mercedes money yearly for something the car is already capable of doing. Of course this is nothing new, if you buy a modern car and want to increase its performance you can always send it in for a tune (though the EPA is really trying to get you not to do that). And because designing and building an engine is really expensive, manufacturers will generally create different performance tiers with nothing but some very specialized software and the confidence that 90% of buyers will never tweak their A6 to S6 levels of power.
But here’s the thing; you pay for the tune once. These whole thing of “features as a service”, attempted already by Toyota and BMW doesn’t make any more sense now than it did then. Sure, the manufacturer would love you do it. That way they can just build the one car with everything on it and then just flash firmware as needed. And if they can dip repeatedly onto your wallet to keep those features enabled because everything is connected these days, well that’s just plain good business for them.
As ever, this has been met with the usual amount of hatred and pushback. It’s basically a necessity these days just to keep the floodgates of nickel-and-dimers shut. The article linked above points out that New Jersey, of all states, has begun to consider legislation that prevents manufactuers from adding subscription services to vehicles unless they can prove that such a service requires it. So OnStar yes, $4.99/mo for max windshield wiper speed no. Which means, rather surprisingly, I side with New Jersey on something.
As new cars need less maintenance manufacturers are going to have to try and replace that profit center. Not because they really need to but it’s expected and if they don’t, stockholders will find someone who will to run them. I don’t have the solution for that, nor do I envy that position. However, can we at least agree that monthly charges for built-in stuff aren’t it?
And if we can’t, I expect the hackers in this world will come up with a way to show these companies that when they decide to do things like these, there is only one way to ethically gain access to these features, and it doesn’t include a routing number.
