BMW wants to sell you subscriptions to your car's features | Hacker News Reader

BMW wants to sell you subscriptions to your car's features

techcrunch.com

33 pointsdjsumdog25 comments

BMW has seemingly done everything possible in the last few years to stop any justification for actually buying their cars. I was looking at getting one, sat down in it, and concluded other than the engine there wasn’t a single thing about it that was a substantial upgrade from a Honda Civic with an audio upgrade, including interior quality. It’s really buying the badge.

Edit: yes of course there’s better performance parts throughout - I was mostly commenting on the feel of the interior whilst driving the car. And part of that is Honda moving up in quality over the last 5 years. Still, as someone who would like performance it’s really hard to justify paying 2x for something that doesn’t even feel 1.5x.

The trend in recent years has been more luxurious interiors at a lower cost.

Prior to COVID, I was using a car pool app to get to work. I’ve rode in Audi A4s and A5s, BMW 3 series, Accords, Civics, and even a Model 3.

A buddy of mine picked up a new Mazda3. The interior felt pretty much equivalent to a BMW 3 series or A5. I don’t know much about car performance and so presumably the major difference is just the brand name and engine power.

Personally I don’t own a car and view cars as a utility to get from point A to point B. I can see spending a bit more on a car if you commute or drive a lot.

The vehicle industry blows my mind — not only the buying process itself but also the pricing model. It’s crazy how Americans are willing to drop $30-40K (that’s average?) for a vehicle. But I digress.

> It’s crazy how Americans are willing to drop $30-40K (that’s average?) for a vehicle. But I digress.

Market segmentation means you don't have a lot of choice.

A Toyota Camry (a quite basic mid-size car) starts at $25K. Even some of the cheapest cars sit at almost $20K and their safety ratings at US freeway speeds are often not great combined with being underpowered.

The fact that people have to drive on US freeways a lot means that you can't just engineer a small, slower speed car and call it a day.

$25K over 10 years isn’t terrible. People who feel they have to buy a new car every 2 to 4 years only have themselves to blame.

Then again, god bless them. If it wasn’t for all of them there wouldn’t be so many good used cars for me to choose from :)

Mazda is indeed one of the sleeper brands. Not only do they have excellent interiors for their price, if you had driven that 3 you would have discovered they are extremely sporty and fun cars to drive too!

In America I’d only lease any of the European brands. Parts are harder to come by, fewer people want to mess with/repair them (you can always get shafted at the dealer, but that’s pretty much universal) and reliability on them is not the best.

Give me a good used Japanese car (except for Mitsubishi) any day.

Oh man you should visit India. Much denser concentration of Audi's, BMWs, etc than anything I've seen in the US. Especially in the past few years.

This is also true in most cities in China, especially the huge ones. In Shanghai German-made middle-to-high end models form a surprisingly high fraction of the cars.

Your vehicle is basically your living room. I don't fault anyone for wanting to be comfortable, especially in rural america where its literally an hour to get anywhere.

In countries and cities with usable public transit and density its naturally far less of a thing.

This

Our trusty 2007 Honda Civic developed a cracked engine block after 11 years. I was ticked off because this was due to a manufacturing defect that made Honda extend the warranty to 10 years. While I fought with Honda to cover the cost of it, we decided to lease a Mazda 6. I've driven a 3 series before, and I was surprised how close in comfort the Mazda was. We've had the Mazda (and the fixed civic) for a while, and I have to say, I'd have a hard time justifying buying a BMW or Mercedes because the Mazda 6 is fancy enough for me (we also ended up getting a Honda Odyssey minivan and that is even fancier).

If feels like the luxury car brands have lost ground to other car manufacturers and instead of adding value they are nickel and diming their customers for features that other car-makers include at a lower cost.

I do find the only cars I lust after are either the Porsche Boxster or 911.

Is it the R18A1 engine? I have a 2009 and I near-obsessively monitor the engine temp while driving, hoping I don't get the same issue. :(

Sounds similar to Tesla and including the cameras and computer for AP but enabling through software. I don’t really have a problem with this but I wonder the implications of building DRM into basic car features like a heated steering wheel. What happens if I swap my steering wheel with another junkyard part in 10 years? Is it going to detect tampering and disable features because it thinks it’s being hacked? What about the legality of working around this by running power directly to the heating module, is this somehow detectable and could be a breach of contract somehow?

That would require an authentication chip on the heater side, which considering the price of USB-C cables / Apple accessories, and the ultimate goal for the car makers is to save money / make more money, does not make much sense.

That said, fault detection is very common on modern car electronics, especially safety-critical components. Your throttle-by-wire pedal has 2 redundant channels that output 20% to 80% signal, possibly mutually complement or some other scheme. Your airbags have open-/short-circuit detection. However these are never actively designed to defeat circumvention, so you see after-market steering wheel makers supply you with dummy resistors that pretend they are airbags.

EDIT: I could imagine the entire seat or steering-wheel assembly sharing one microcontroller which has encrypted communication to the vehicle's "Body Controller". That would defeat wholesale replacement / MITM, but still does not prevent you from co-opting the physical connection to the actual heater element. You would most definitely break (e.g. bumper-to-bumper) warranty but who cares.

I owned a 2003 bmw and there were many modules within it (for example, the rear trunk latch was its own module). With CAN bus electronics it’s super cheap and they design a lot of the parts to operate this way, and they don’t directly interface with the ECU. They could have a relay in the ECU that provides the power output to the heater wires and it will only operate if the CAN command has a signed payload that uses some key from BMW, and compromising that key or sharing it would be in violation of the DMCA, similar to the Sony PS3 key that happened many years back [0] or the current battleground of right to repair John Deere tractors. That would make it not technically impossible to create another replacement part, but it would violate copyright.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_homebrew#Priva...

If there is a relay then you can simply ground a leg of it and get power. Or you could add-a-fuse and provide power. As long as the heater itself has wires going between the seat and the ECU / relay box then you have a way. I doubt the manufacturers would go this far, but it is entirely possible for the relay / power electronics to be an integral part of e.g. the seat control module, then you'll have a hard time.

Or nvidia using the same chips for both quadro and consumer but with different drivers.

Great, can't wait for the days when I finally need to pay to drive my BMW over 80 mph.

In all seriousness, they probably try to look for additional income sources since they have hard times ahead of them with the switch to electric and lower profit margins.

Tesla has lead the way here.

This is nothing different than software as a service.

Because the backend will require constant employment and overhead of skilled programmers, this business model makes sense as the vehicle becomes more and more of a service provider. Nothing different than turning on and off satellite radio for a monthly fee.

No, BMW had DRM inside car modules >20 years ago. You had to go to the dealer to 'pair' replacement parts, otherwise car wouldnt even start. All under the guise of immobiliser, totally not killing third party repair/used parts market!

https://www.ecudoctors.com/pages/bmw-ecu-dme-reprogrammed-an...

They are all also pretty notable for exorbitant replacement key costs.

"As a service" is fine but paying extra cost and weight for non-usable hardware on my new car is annoying for me.

Watching the way this type of thing's gone with software and computers, once this becomes normalized they'll turn to basic features. Maybe a monthly radio subscription, or better yet, timed listening for your cars stereo, basic packages start at a half hour of listening time a day, only $2.99/month or $1.99/month if you pay for 12 months. This includes the ability to tune in both am and FM stations or plugin an external device using an aux cord. Bluetooth or usb connectivity is only an extra 50¢/month.

From there we could move on to distance packages, We've got a few packages available.

First there's The Commuter package. Up to 100km/day, ideal for those who, unfortunately, still need to drive to work

$50/month

Additional km available at $1.50/km

Then we've got The Weekend Warrior. For the fun loving free spirit that likes to get away for the weekend. You get up to 200km/day usuable between 5pm Friday - 12 am Sunday. Can be added to the commuter plan for those spontaneous getaways.

$50/use

For those heavy drivers, we've got The Cruiser. You get a hefty 500km/week. Ideal for families or just those who like to get behind the wheel.

$100/month + 20¢/km emissions fee

Additional km available for $2.00/km

Finally, we've got the Road Tripper Package. Need to get away somewhere? Just drive across country? Well the road tripper is the package for you. You get a whopping 2000km good for a month's use. Take yourself anywhere with the road tripper package.

$150/use + 50¢/km emissions fee

Additional km available at $5/km

Only valid for use outside local region. Use within 100km of primary residence or work place is subject to a $5/km fee.

Sure, sounds great!

Oh, you ALSO want me to BUY the car up-front? Well then it would be my car and not yours, so why should I be paying you fees?

It's in the terms of the license agreement you signed on purchase.

But that's exactly what Tesla's doing.

Throw in making it impossible to cancel the monthly subscription without calling and waiting on hold, and we've got a deal!

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