The German car-maker says its “optional power upgrade” is designed to give customers more choice.
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.
They’ve had this before, but you’ve had to change chips. Was also hacked. Except that it was a one-off payment now upgraded to subscription.
the eu almost not allowed this shit for bmw, now every brand is gonna go through
Gonna go on youtube and let that Indian tech guy teach me how to jailbreak a Volkswagen.
My favorite stereotypes are the race/STEM expert ones.
South Asia - programming, IT.
East Asia - Math
East Europe - Electrical Engineering
West Europe - High precision engineering and chemistry
At least as far as YouTube tutorials go, it’s basically cannon.
Those guys have saved my ass countless times.
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So… Volkswagen is the next target for hacking ?
Thank goodness, my John Deere side hustle was slowing down.
You can get a lifetime subscription now, next year ‘we have reviewed customer choices and will be discontinuing the lifetime subscription’, so they can continue to milk their customers
Just a life time subscription as this. See attachment.
TomTom did this too. You paid them a life time fee and then they decided you had to start paying an additional fee every month.
Indeed. It’s always the same story. So don’t get fooled people. You have been warned!
Officially never buying a VW, BMW, Tesla, Or Mercedes. Who else tried this shit? Toyota, right?
My Subaru had a paid app that included the remote start option. Fuck them all gently with a chainsaw. I paid for the fucking car, I want the whole fucking thing.
Kia has a subscription service for the ability to set remote start options. They can get fucked, too.
I dunno if Toyota ever paywalled performance, but they definitely paywall features. My '15 Lexus requires a subscription service to use remote start. Its app based and relies on the car’s 2g cellular card so it doesn’t even work anymore.
My '24 Chevy does this, too. Lock, unlock and remote start apparently route through OnStar, so using those requires an OnStar subscription.
Yeah mine requires the Toyota Safety Connect or some such, I’m pretty sure it’s just their implementation of OnStar.
Ford just gives you this for free. But inevitably my 5g cellular connection will age out on my 2019 Mustang. No coats for all of the added features. Ford gets a pass by my book.
I have three cars: '24 Chevy Bolt, a '24 Ford Edge, and a '79 Corvette. Unfortunately, for some unfathomable reason, the Corvette doesn’t have an associated app or even any remote connectivity. However, as you observed, the Ford does; as I mentioned, so does the Bolt.
The Chevy app I mostly use to make sure it’s plugged in before I go to bed. My Ford mostly stays outside of my garage, so the app primarily serves to start it remotely, letting the climate control run for a few minutes before I come out. (I also occasionally use it to honk because it amuses me, but I live in the middle of nowhere and am not bothering anyone other than maybe my wife.)
Back before the world was what it is today, I used to have a used '19 Tesla Model 3 (I replaced it with the Bolt). There were good things and bad things about it, but disregarding any social issues for the purpose of this comment, the app was better-functioning than that of any car I’ve purchased since. I was grandfathered into everything, so nothing was paywalled, and most of the stuff worked most of the time, unlike the Ford or Chevy apps which usually require multiple tries and sometimes chastise me for trying multiple times.
And since I’m writing about cars, I will say that the absolute best (for personal enjoyment, not external considerations) vehicle I’ve ever owned was a 2014 Ford Flex, Titanium Trim. There was no app because 2014, but goddamn if I didn’t love that car.
Dunno. My Corolla doesn’t have any features locked out that I am aware of. It certainly hasn’t tried to upsell me any “upgrades”.
And this is why i’ll never own a vehicle with a cellular modem unless a jailbreak is already developed and there’s no regulatory/insurance issue with doing so.
You could also just pull the fuse for it, my boss did that on his vehicle.
So you need to pay to drain your batteries faster for more power which wears them down faster. So you’re paying to shorten the battery life of your car. Only dumb people who think “I wanna go faaaaaaast” will fall for that scam.
Maybe they want to give better specs to their EVs without actually having them. The subscription might be a way to deter customers from using those capabilities because they degrade the car faster.
WTF ?
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.
Would you buy a new graphic card only to pay s monthly service to use it? Of course not.
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 bump 10 years ahead, my car doesn’t have tracking 😄
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That’s an interesting insight, thanks!
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.
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!
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.
That’s horrible! If people do that how will companies gouge customers?
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.
If it’s all software, that means that you can jailbreak it, just like a phone.
The racing world will have this cracked overnight.
