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There are many ways to handle this situation. The last time that I was in a similar situation the driver of the car behind me hit his horn, which reminded me to reengage the DRCC and in no time we were all up to cruising speed which was about 17 MPH.

 

Same for my Prime. The three things that annoy me the most is that stupid gauge that's maxed out at 10 kawh/100 km and the AC that can't be remotely turned on until 10 minutes have passed since I got out and AC shutting down as soon as I open a door to get in.

 

I don't think I said the latest and greatest phone...just any cell phone that you could carry around rather than tied to a wall socket

Yeah, I get that. It's just that the telephone company had been promising us these picture phones since the 1960's at the World's Fair so I thought 60 years later it was time.

Good because I don't care what anyone is having for dinner

Don't let me stop you. But in any case lots of things have switched to using the internet and will never go back including things like all your financial transactions, Unless you actually walk into a bank and withdraw cash to pay for everything...or better yet just keep it all safe under your mattress.

Because any 20+ year old car is generally much more polluting and gets worse with age in addition to being much more CO2 polluting than any EV even with the worst grid CO2 output.

Mike

 

I would add as a reason for a new car is to get the latest safety features - that's why we got a new one when the youngest child began to drive - I am thinking specifically of Rear Cross Traffic Safety Alert/Stop - Automatic Emergency Braking - Blind Side Monitoring and Crash Avoidance specifically. Not to mention, Lane Assist and Alert etc.

And before anyone brings it up - I taught all the kids to drive - they know they are to control the car and drive it themselves - they are not to text while driving or be inattentive.

The safety features I bought up are to assist them and to be secondary safety systems to check their decisions as they are driving.

 

Fair enough, but that doesn't explain exactly why you want the latest firmware. I guess it depends on what you consider "obsolete" as all of us can have a different opinion. On a phone that could be either 1. not having the latest UI, 2) not having the latest security updates, or 3) so old your apps are no longer supported and no longer work. I'm more of a #3 guy with my phone, as the only reason I have a smartphone is I feel the need to use a couple of apps. But I don't bank or surf the web or hardly do anything else on it except make phone calls, so I don't care if it has the latest security updates. Obviously everyone's opinion, needs and wants are all different, and that's ok.

PS. I got a Pixel that I bought brand new and really do not like the phone. It's an older Pixel now so doesn't get updates, but I'm definitely not going with a Pixel ever again when I do decide to get a new phone.

With a Tesla, the latest firmware does, what exactly? According to Tesla's website it:

So I guess that's a good thing.

It does worry me that a lot of devices these days are becoming "smart". TV's, refrigerators, and now cars. And one problem I've seen with this trend is that while 5 years or so of updates for a phone is ok, with your TV's refrigerators and such, these devices are now becoming obsolete due to their software long before their hardware needs any sort of replacing. Hopefully Tesla doesn't end up like that, but given their track record for caring for the Roadster, I'm not holding my breath. Still, I can't thing of any reason why a car like a Tesla Model 3 or Y would become obsolete due to being so old it no longer receives OTA updates.

But you quoted @mikefocke who said he wasn't interested in an Advanced Driver's Assist System that receives updates over the air, as his ADAS does what he needs it to do and doesn't need anymore. I don't see how updating an ADAS via OTA is comparable to going from a landline to a cell phone. If the ADAS on any car has advanced that far via an OTA update, please tell me about it. That would be very interesting to find out about.

 

The hassle of updated software is that it suggests that the existing software was defective or insufficient for it's current task. But an even more taxing problem that rises is that there is no rule or restriction that preserves the current system capabilities nor does it maintain the user interface that we have gotten used to.

Eventually I will learn to set up android auto to support stored routes with stored way-points. If they don't upgrade it again, before I have a chance to figure it out.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the 2022 Prius Prime software is a bit more refined than the 2017 one that I have. It would be nice if mine could be upgraded to that level. For example, the 2016 Prius Gen4 can't switch from km/h to mph but the following year can. Wouldn't it be nice if Toyota could update the 2016 cars so they can too without having to change the display board???

 

I see your point. It would be nice to see such "upgrades" for free. Take the GPS map on my Avalon. It's very outdated, and I don't use it as a result.

What I'd personally like to see is more open software. Why do I have to be stuck on the gauges the manufacturer's decide to include? I'd like not only changes from mph to km/h, but also an altimeter, an airspeed gauge, and an engine temp gauge that didn't make the needle stay in the middle from 140 °F to 220 °F. If we're going to have tablets for instrument clusters, let us decide what to put there, and send us the updates or let us jailbreak/root the instrument screen and put whatever gauges we want.

On the other hand, personally, I don't think knowing that a company is pushing updates to let cars do things like change between mph to km/h is going to be enough win me over to buying a new vehicle, or will have any bearing on me keeping said vehicle for longer. I've kept the Avalon and its radio doesn't work, partly because it's this newfangled touchscreen tech that's more pron to stop working correctly with no economic way to fix it.

 

Sure this will bore many here, since it's more than likely well known already, but switching from
sae to metric gauges in the Gen 4 / 5 Prime can be more than a bit confusing..
See, Prime has so many gauges, with it's 3 or more sets of gauges on the MID, MFD and speedo that depending on which gauges a driver is looking at there are at least a few that calculate opposites or what looks opposite when switching between the 2 versions.
So, when one version shows a positive result being a higher value, its corresponding set of gauges when switched shows a positive read when the value or level of the gauge is lower.

It's lots of fun (NOT) trying to make sense of those gauge readings on those gauges when one rarely if ever uses the inverse set (sae or metric) of gauges
and just instead sticks with the normal gauges for their local standard.

 

Tesla Q2 2024 Safety report: | PriusChat

.... that's gona chap @Gokhan 's hide - not to mention the poor folks at RollingBones trying to get clicks on their attempts at investigative journalism

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I think Subscriptions, Over the Air Updates etc are just the tip of what will eventually become a consumer nightmare.

Here is just one example of this coming consumer nightmare - actually it is already here for many:

The short title of the article below could be - Mazada Owners are totally p_ssed off

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/mazda-angers-owners-by-making-them-pay-for-popular-feature/ar-AA1oq6v3?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=8ef5336f43654a3b8e6d97db05f0f84f&ei=21

"On the r/Mazda community on Reddit, Mazda CX-90 and Mazda 3 owners have aired out their grievances over the fact that their three-year free trials are now over, noting that a feature that once came free with its cars is now paywalled."

"Instead of packaging them physically with the car, Mazda introduced its Mazda Connected Services smartphone app, through which owners can control their Mazda's climate control, start their vehicles remotely, and check up on their vehicles' status.

These functions are available to owners through a $10 per-month subscription. However, Mazda gave owners a three-year free trial to try out these functions before they committed to the subscription"

BMW and other Automakers of course ran to jump on board also:

"In the summer of 2022, BMW made headlines after it started selling a monthly subscription for certain features, including heated seats, automatic high beams, and adaptive cruise control in select markets, including the UK, Germany, and South Korea, through its 'ConnectedDrive' program."

And of course Tesla is rushing to not be left out:

Tesla remotely disables Autopilot on used Model S after it was sold - The Verge

although in Tesla's case it is probably a Public Service they can disable some of their nonsense:

Tesla to disable ‘rolling stop’ feature after NHTSA says it can ‘increase the risk of a crash’ - The Verge

 

NJ introduced a state bill that would ban subscriptions for features on the car. It would allow them for ones that have an ongoing cost to the manufacturer. Wouldn't help those Mazda owners as a cellular connection the company has to the car. So for advanced ADAS to need accurate and up to date map data.

Tesla disables all the 'add on' features of used cars that come back to them. Their infraction there was in sending out the order after the car was sold. An honest mistake, but it took public shaming through the press for them to fix it.

Is it a public service when they programed the software to do rolling stops to help with efficiency to begin with?

 

With so many glitches & outright defects in many new manufacturer's cars, you can use that as a bargaining chip. We (the better ½) got an extended 4 yr service contract, lifetime sirius satelite & 4 yrs scheduled maintenance out of it - when our dealership screwed up on giving us their advertised price reduction back in Dec 2018. She did it again when her car was in the shop for many weeks for a traction pack swap. She will hound you until you want to hang yourself.

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How do they think remotely interacting with the car from a distance is done? Free P2P through Bluetooth is fine but for greater distance? Through magic? Someone has to pay for that cell communication. They should considered themselves lucky that Mazda foot the bills for 3 years.

 

Might suggest you begin sending Mazda all the money you feel comfortable sending.
That will model an excellent example for others to follow. You can also put your money where your mouth is as an example for others.

The rest of us will just be satisfied with a remote start function on our key fob that requires no subscription.

... and no I don't own a Mazda.

 

The issue here isn't the subscription. It's Mazda removing the function from the fob, and making it part of the app. The subscription is for the app and all its features.

Some people seem to like those features even when the remote start was also on the fob. The connection to the car isn't free to the manufacturer, and I except it will cost more to put the car on your data plan.

Toyota tried making the fob remote start a subscription.

 

Is that it? That would piss me off too. If my FOB has Bluetooth and needs a subscription to work, I would be pissed off too. But if it's an app using cellular connection to for example turn on AC while I'm in my office one km away, that's different.

It depends if the service they provide is worth the money they ask. If it's $10 a month just to get control the car remotely, hell no. For that cost in my Model 3, beside remote access (which is free), I get traffic display (although the free package includes traffic routing, not display), music AND video streaming and multiplayer gaming.

 

I can't even convince myself to pay for a movie/TV streaming subscription. I liked the Apple Music free trial, but again I can't make myself pay for the subscription. I also love to play the old Nintendo games, but again, I can't convince myself to buy a new Nintendo Switch because those games are only available as subscriptions.

I have been running a Microsoft Office subscription, but at times I just want to stop. If I didn't have 5 other people on the subscription I pay for, I would have stopped a long time ago.

Car subscription for heated seats, remote start and map updates? The car better be able to do back flips if they want me to pay for that. Or be in the $1 to $2 per month range.

 

It wasn't meant to be an exact analogy. Using a landline rather than a cell phone is a bit like having to schedule service at your dealer, wait a week or more, wait in line at the dealer to drop off your car your car and pay to get a software update (Nav maps, ADAS safety update or new features or whatever) rather than get the OTA update for free.

Mike

 

i suspect there are many people who have many multiples monthly payments because each one is 'only ten dollars per month'
and i suspect there are many who have no idea how much they total up to. it's really a great marketing scheme