Consumers Aren’t Buying Automaker Plans To Make Everything A Subscription
from the not-everything-has-to-be-a-subscription dept
For numerous years, automakers have been keen to boost consistent monthly income by pushing users subscription services. The problem: whether it’s a specific in-car 5G wireless broadband connection (made kind of irrelevant by the fact everyone has a tetherable smartphone), or subscriptions for app-based services like remote starting: consumers aren’t really interested.
A new survey from AutoPacific (via Ars Technica) found that consumers generally couldn’t be any less interested in such offerings. For example just 30 percent of those eager to buy a new car said they were interested in paying for their car’s Internet access. And 23 percent said they’d be interested in being able to remotely control some vehicle functions via an app for $10 per month.
The results aren’t too surprising. A lot of these features involve automakers trying to pretend that smartphones don’t exist (forcing users to pay extra for services already available via the supercomputer in their pocket). Infotainment GUIs have also never been automakers’ strong suit, and often the quality of such features leaves a lot to be desired.
It’s interesting that there’s a slight bump in interest by owners of EVs, but primarily because they’re often bored while waiting for the car to charge. But even then, 63 percent of EV owners still didn’t want to pay their carmaker a subscription for an additional, car-specific 5G connection.
It’s worth noting that the study doesn’t even focus on some of the auto industry’s new, even more controversial efforts to boost revenues via subscription services, such as BMW’s unyielding quest to make things like heated seats a subscription service. Here too, these efforts involve taking technology already in vehicles you’ve paid for — and forcing you to pay extra just to enable them.
Filed Under: automakers, buying a new car, in car 5G, nickel and diming, vehicle subsciption services
Comments on “Consumers Aren’t Buying Automaker Plans To Make Everything A Subscription”
There are many recommendations going around to remember to unload your vehicle. Every ounce that the vehicle totes around is extra gas used to accelerate, and more brake usage to decelerate. When will somebody/some group start a lawsuit against the manufacturers for loading up a car with extra weight (like the equipment for a heated seat or an in-car network, that has to be hauled around but is not useful. Not to mention, the price of the car includes paying for all of this hardware which is not useful unless the ‘service’ is also paid for monthly.
So lots of useless hardware that has been paid for, is useless unless a monthly subscription, and makes operating the vehicle more expensive because of the extra cost of accelerating and decelerating it over the life of the vehicle. Big loss for car owners that don’t end up paying extra to actually use the features built into the car but cost extra monthly to utilize…..
Re: Reality
Make anything you want subscription based, I’m not going to buy it, then I will cut into the wiring harness and bypass your off switch with one of my own 🙂
Re: Re:
This points out the safety risks of subscriptions too — you add in stuff like this, and people are going to either yank it out, or modify the software to enable features.
Some might be competent and do it correctly, but all the arguing for “authorized service = safety” falls kind of flat when you’re actively pushing things that encourage unauthorized service.
Re: Re: Re:
Might need a right to repair law for more than farm equipment.
I can easily see some silly law introduced to make what you describe illegal. It also is easily believed that such enforcement would be directed toward those disliked.
Re: Re:
That’s if it is a switch. More likely that it’s going to be an intelligent(!) device that communicates with a controlling computer, and that they will authenticate each other before passing control messages. A couple of volts on/off with relays is so passe. These systems are being designed to lock-in and prevent by-pass.
Re: Re: Re:
At some point there has to be a pair of wires going to a heating element, right?
Not so much fun For the sellers, either.
I’ve worked in sales for a dealer of a major US brand for eight years. There is more and more emphasis on “connected services.” Both the salesman and and dealership are increasingly penalized financially if customers are not signed up for the free trial of those services. Theory being the they’ll continue using (and paying for) the stuff if they try it. Problem is, PEOPLE DON’T WANT IT. “Do I have to do this NOW?” (Yes).
Further, the greed is accelerating. Trial periods (before you pay) are shortening. What you used to get for a year is down to three months. Things that were previously “part of the car” will shortly become subscriptions. Our parent company has flat-out told us they expect to soon be collecting billions of dollars per year in services.
Frankly, it’s a colossal hassle for everyone involved.
Does business perform market analysis anymore?
From where does business think their future customers are obtaining all this disposable income?
Re: market analysis
Sure, but the results are depressing.
17 million cars are sold in the US every year. If even the lowest-interest item above (10%) can get half those people (5%) into paying subscribers at $10/month, that’s $102 million/year the auto manufacturers think they’re leaving on the table.
Of course that’s not true in the real world, but all CEOs’ glasses are heavily rose-tinted.
Re: Re: Rose colored?
I’d hesitate to assign fault to the color of their glasses just because they failed (and continue to fail) to read the market. We (the purchasing public) are already inundated with subscription services from a pretty wide swath of items. (While a utility shouldn’t be called a subscription, it actually is one. But the point is, you pay something every month.) I predict that it won’t be much longer before you start seeing ads where you can sign up for a ‘one stop shop’ that takes care of all of your subscriptions for you…. for one ‘small’ monthly fee.
Instead, I’d say that those CEO’s heads are stuck up their asses, and they’re looking out through their rose colored glass belly buttons. Which is of course distorting their vision.
Sad, just plain sad.
Re: Re:
I think you misspelled ‘green’.
Second owners...
Imagine driving your used car (new to you) down the street and the A/C, radio, lane change detection, backup camera, performance mode, and sunroof all become disabled.
On the screen, a message appears “We have detected a change in vehicle ownership. Please provide a credit card or other payment method to establish a new service plan and select which options you want.”
Re:
And while you’re driving no less.
Cop: I pulled you over because I see that you were distracted.
Driver: But, but, my subscription lapsed and I had to pay-up to continue driving comfortably.
Cop: Ah, okay, you’re free to go, have a nice day.
Re: Re:
Cop: Great, you’ve already got your wallet out, here’s your ticket.
Oh, it gets worse, MUCH worse...
Wait until your automobile starts playing ads on the touchscreen and thru the audio system that cannot be disabled.
Re:
At least in theory that’ll run afoul of laws in various states.. not that that’d stop them.
Re:
Didn’t Ford file patents for this recently?
Old vehicles will become more valuable, I’m sure that somehow the captains of industry will pay for laws intended to remove said old vehicles from the roads .. all for your benefit of course.
Strange
To think your car gets FREE Internet. It has to be free if they have control to turn off/on services. To track your car, to give you weather at your current location?
Your car radio dont even work, if they dont want it to.
AND they want the rights to RECLAIM your car from remote! Shut your car off when you get home and it never starts until the dealership shows up.
WHO here has had/seen a computer mistake??
OLD days, even the radio was extra. THEN, it was standard, and BUILT IN. Which meant even if you had YOUR OWN great radio/stereo, and Speakers. You would have to remove that other radio and crap wires.
Who ever had an Electric everything car(except the motor) Doors, and locks and soforth. Always had to have them checked BEFORE they failed. When 1 door started acting up, it was time to FIX it all.
So much fun. The Simplest design will last forever.
Nope...
My current car and the previous one (2022 Lincoln Corsair and 2018 Ford Escape, respectively) have a built in “Internet Hotspot” feature. They come with a trial subscription (only 3GB of data in a 30 day period) but require a subscription from AT&T for continued service. I never bothered with activating the hotspot. Why bother? Our phones can be a hotspot if we ever need one. The Lincoln does have location tracking and can be remote started, doors locked, windows closed, climate settings, etc. That is free for the first five years, afterward would require an annual fee (not sure how much). As I use the remote features, I’d likely pay (reluctantly) for them. I also pay annually for the SiriusXM subscription (the 2018 Ford had a free 6 month trial, the Lincoln only had a 3 month trial). I do call SiriusXM and negotiate a far lower price than what they initially ask for.
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I went to Amazon Music Unlimited from Sirius. literally no talking, all music all the time, and at like a 10th of the cost per year (I’m paying 4.99/mo for it)
… which the owner of the “electricity pump” could provide. Free wifi isn’t all that uncommon these days.
Welp, fuck downloading cars.
Time to actually build my own! Wonder if there’s a community out there that actually does this…
Once they got us to
Once they got us to accept that software was never “sold”, but only “licensed”, the game started.
Allowing them to disclaim ALL responsiblities for quality, and the game is over.
There will be no end to the ripoffs unless/until government takes effective action. I’m not holding my breath until that happens.
So Done With This Crap
I am seriously considering buying an “antique” car when I am done with my current one. A car WITHOUT microchips. I can always aftermarket anything more “modern” I want to add. It’s a car, not a service.
Re:
Better get movin’ on that now, ’cause you can bet you’re not the only one with that idea…. and the cost of such can only go up, I’m sure you understand.
what a lot of crap
Even your auto payment will end someday but subscriptions go on and on. Why subject yourself to that? I’m happy with the music on my phone and google maps.
this is because all USA government officials and politicians get paid an ‘under the table’ payment, just like certain law enforcement members get from the entertainment industries, so they can rip off the public even more than they already do! there is nothing more sacred in the USA than ensuring the public are continuously, royally screwed, while company and industry upper echelon and their friends get millions of dollars in undeserved salaries, bonuses and pensions! what a farce!!
Only One I’d Consider
The only thing I’d even consider would be a wifi hotspot for the kids. And then it’d have to be so cheap that there’s no way they’d do it.
Looks like the automakers are just going to intensify their propaganda to get drivers to accept the automakers’ subscription plans.
It will be interesting to see how they plan on stopping competitors from offering vehicles without such subscription silliness.
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As long as the “premium” brands are doing things like this (looking at you BMW), having useless subscription silliness will be an upscale option.
The MBAs will stop the automakers from offering vehicles without this, at least until the only thing they sell in reasonable volume is base level trims. That, or the subscriptions will become the base level trim, and pre-purchasing the functionality you’ve already bought is a premium option.
Any company that does things like a sub for heated seats/steering wheel, A/c, cruise control, or any other thing other that requires actual hardware built into the car for it and then locking it out will not be getting a purchase from me or anyone I can talk into it ever.
ya know the old saying: a satisfied customer will tell 2 people about their experience, an unhappy one will tell 50
I’m the third type. I’m the customer that sees a company trying to screw someone over and become VERY vocal about it to everyone I meet.
If this automobile subscription dreamland is anything like the music industry, there will be a lot vehicles that do not work.
Car feature prescriptions
Yea I look at them as a pure waste of money nothing more then auto makers trying to nickel and dime is to death.why not focus on quality of your cars like make them last longer
as said
I’LL subscribe to that?
Car function subscriptions
I get manufacturers saying lets just build the cars with every feature. From a manufacturing standpoint its cheaper and easier to consistently produce the same thing, they are able to negotiate better purchase rates because of higher and consistent volume. Thats great. The car companies though that want to micro transaction us to death…is stupid. One example is BMW who does this with their heated seats (among other features). If i want to have the options available to me, then let me pay for it once and be done with it. When the car is sold, to the next buyer….these are the active features paid for at original purchase. If you want to contact the company and pay to have additional features activated (for a one time fee….lets just say for example GPS) then let the dealer collect the payment and activate the service.
Subscription Fools
Just imagine one day you fail to pay for your car, vehicle gets disabled or drives off on it’s own to the bank or dealer lot. Even worse, hackers will mess with your car OS. Give me $1000 or I’ll disable your car like they have done to American businesses/etc.
There ain't no way
Car subscriptions must not be a thing, it’s never been a thing so why are they pushing for them now…. Because the revenues from EV maintenance are going to be almost nonexistent.
If I’ve bought something with the functionality and it’s always come as standard previously, ain’t no way in hell I’m bowing down to a subscription model forced on me by the capitalist greed of legacy auto companies which need their bottom line to look good after the years of R&D after they were late to the electrify game…. They can do one
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