Article by Richard Reed at Car Connection.com discusses the idea that on the car of the future you may have to pay to unlock the features you want. You don't pay every month, no air conditioning/power steering/radio for you... Will You Rent Options & Upgrades On Your Next Car?
Isn't that what Tesla is doing? Software limiting things unless you buy the higher model or pay for it afterwards? It's nice if you change your mind (and don't have to buy a whole new car) but it's also weird to have physical hardware for things you don't have because it's not enabled (like the extra speakers in the Model 3 SR that are on the SR Plus. The physical speakers are there if you bought an SR but they're disabled)
The difference from Tesla is that getting those features would be a subscription, and they could be taken away.
I could actually go for this- if there are really enough savings to be had. There are many weeks (and occasionally entire months) where I don't use my own car. And there are many trips where I don't need all the features the car packs. I could do a power-by-the-hour deal if I saw the right one...
Battery leases did make BEVs more affordable new. But the idea of a monthly fee wasn't attractive for those buying used. This is for features that aren't needed(I hope) to use the car, but when it comes time to replace, the car will only be worth as much as a base model(let's hope that was the price new). On the flip side, will insurance be accessed as if a fully loaded model because all the equipment is there? There could be merits to this, but I don't see it being feaseable on a product that can last over a decade and go through multiple owners. It could also become like a no thrills airline where you pay for everything extra. Only paying for A/C when needed might work out, but what if you also have to pay extra to access the cargo space?
The article linked in the OP is more than 5 years old. Has there been any additional movement in this direction since then?
I know Volvo has stepped closer. You can pay extra to unlock a different profile in the ECU for higher engine performance. All the cars come with the same hardware, it's just different software. I don't think they're renting it out by the month, but that's a fairly trivial detail. @Trollbait I expect it to break down in a simpler fashion- the minimum will be 98% of a regular payment and the "extras" take it up over normal price. I hadn't thought about the insurance angle yet, that's a good catch.
I'm trying to think why it rankles so much, to "have" something, but to need to pay for someone to unlock it, even though it's in your possession. Sort of.
I've become reasonably used to that with recent versions of Windows and other software. I'd like to purge the storage space devoted to those upgrades, but that is small compared to overall disk size these days. I'm more rankled by the increased life-cycle costs over the time I'll be keeping and using said items, much longer than average customers.
I will admit, I've enjoyed some success with some software subscriptions. Some software I use for work is now about 3 years into that model and it's working. The overall costs aren't out of line with what they were before, and they're delivering more valuable updates and bugfixes on a more frequent schedule.
No, it's different. I think I hate pay parking at hospitals, for the same reason. And ticket resellers...
I don't have a problem with them up-charging for bells and whistles, but when pay-to-play means that you have a 3,000 pound lawn ornament instead of a car because you didn't want to pay increased subscription rates....or the company got raided by the feds and went TANGO-UNIFORM, or got hacked, or shorted, or did a 737-MAX 8...that's different! Non-optional "upgrades" made me learn how to drive a Linux box. Subscription fee increases made me a cord-cutter. Non-voluntary "monitoring" made me a Facebook account holder that never logs into FB....or Twitter....or the Snap. Data hacks made me a former Target customer (not that I ever liked them much anyway.) I'll just keep buying the whole CAR, thanks just the same. It's not a privacy thing as much as it's a competency thing, but then I do know people that don't/won't drive vehicles with an Onstar system....
