Hacker News Reader

As a motorbike rider myself, I find this terrible. It obviously makes the whole bike more expensive as you have to integrate all the hardware, which can break down although you might have never used it. Isn't BMW going to do something like that with its cars, too?

A question that might arise from that: Say I don't use/buy a specific feature for the first X years and want to have it enabled after that. It then turns out that the hardware required for that is broken. Who's liable for that and has to pay?

In a classical scenario, I'd have sth. like a two year warranty on the newly integrated parts, but as those parts were integrated for the X years I've already owned the car/bike and the defect has just come up as they were activated now...

It's not really clear that this makes the whole bike more expensive. Most of the expense for features like this is in the design and engineering, not raw parts costs.

Shipping all the bikes with the same hardware but enabling options in software might actually make the base bike less expensive than if they had to design and manufacture two different physical configurations.

> Most of the expense for features like this is in the design and engineering, not raw parts costs. [...] might actually make the base bike less expensive

Yeah, I'm not sure about that. BMW wants to integrate heated seats in all models and only activate them through a subscription, if I remember correctly.

While that might streamline production and therefore lead to optimizations, I doubt that those will be passed on to the customer. But you now have more servicable parts, weight etc. pp. in ALL models with a chance that they break...

We've played enough of the capitalism game to know that this is not about the customer and a better price for him.

I agree with your last sentence - but i doubt that the baseline price will be that much higher via added parts like heated grips (it's just a flexcable/flexible PCB under the rubber hand grip + external wiring). The gearshift lever sensor (piezo electric module) should also not be too expensive.

The expensive parts are the electronics sourced from 3rd party vendors (eg. the 6 axle IMU to enable cornering ABS, traction control, anti-wheelie control and so on which I guess is mostly sourced from Bosch, or the emission control). And of course meeting and proving conformance to all the regulation

Adding heated grips to a BMW F 850 GS is only possible by adding the "Active" package, which comes at 445 Euro. That also includes new driving modes and a baseplate for luggage, to be fair.

Nevertheless there's a hefty price tag for adding anything, before even buying/building the bike. If I was a motorbike company I'd not cut my margin on things like these.

Heated seats are a great example. How much does a resistive heating element and some connectors cost? What are you worried about "breaking" if you're not using the heated seats in the first place?

Do you have heated seats in your car right now? Go under your seat and and unplug the connector and tell me what happens. Nothing...

> We've played enough of the capitalism game to know that this is not about the customer and a better price for him.

Go drive a Mercedes S-Class from 1992 and a Toyota Camry from 2022 and tell me how capitalism isn't resulting in lower prices for the customer.

> How much does a resistive heating element and some connectors cost?

Probably 25 Euro, but that's not what anybody is paying for it. See the other comment, heated grips for a BMW motorbike cost 445 Euro and they only come in a nonsense-bundle to disguise the actual cost. What do you think will happen once cars are changing into "feature as a service"-platform? Enabling the car to have heated seats via a subscription will surely rise the base price more than 25 Euro.

> Go drive a Mercedes S-Class from 1992 and a Toyota Camry from 2022 and tell me how capitalism isn't resulting in lower prices for the customer.

What kind of shitty comparison is this supposed to be? Comparing a 30 year old high-class limousine to a current middle-class car? What's next? Comparing the Commodore C64 to the latest iPhone and blaming the C64 for its poor Bluetooth connectivity?

I mean…yeah the iPhone is a great example and the fact that you brought up that as an example shows that you are really close to getting it.

Your example did not make sense to me either so I cannot comment, sorry. If you want to "get it" about the IPhone though this article might help:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/12/phone-...

No, the comparison is bullshit.

We're not talking about 30 years of technological difference here, we're talking about two versions of the same model of motorbike here, but one has everthing stuffed into it and disabled by default, and the other one is reduced to what you need/wanted to have.

Macro vs micro view. Decades vs year to year.

I think it's the other way around.

It makes the bike's base-model cheaper (and KTM hopes that everyone checks all the upgrade boxes or they make the upgrade sales in the aftermarket e.g. 2nd or 3rd owner onwards). Counter example: the KTM 790 Duke for example was too cheap (had most upgrades already built-in), and subsequently was replaced by the 890. You can see it with used-790's prices - the used motorcycle market is nuts anyway at the moment (with all the emission requirements, compulsory ABS etc adding weight and reducing power on current models. While i dont disagree with those regulations, the market makes a statement via used motorcycle prices for older models).

I can't stand this. If I buy a vehicle I expect to own it, not be locked out of hardware that has used the Earth's resources to exist, and has been 'paid' for by the consumers as a whole. What a waste.

I own the predecessor bike, the KTM 790 Adventure (non-R though because both my wife + me ride it and the R's seat height only fits me).

The 790 from 2019 (and the 790 Duke from 2017+) have a TFT and upgradable software-packages already, amongst other models. That includes ride-modes, up/down quick-shifter and probably more. (Heated grips are NOT actually pre-fitted and the control box installed only if you order the feature and it is separate from the LCD).

I bought every package except rallye-mode. If you need that, just shell out the 250€ or what it actually costs. Not a big deal, as the bulk of riders will not use that anyway. As a former BMW-motorcycle rider I'm also used to check all the extras/upgrades anyway.

What irks me more is the mandatory cloud-based maintenance "book", bugs in the firmware (the headlight doesn't switch off for "security" reasons if you turn off the bike in motion - and it will drain the battery until it's flat. I had a number of empty battery situations and one dead battery due to this silly feature already and complained but the manufacturer is unwilling to fix it). Also the upgradable packages require the dealership to acquire a software license directly from KTM, no bypassing allowed. So this all follows Tesla more or less, I expcect always-on connectivity in a few years. BMW Motorcycles already has that for some (?) of it's motorcycle models (if you buy the SOS-/"crash-detected-the-bike-calls-911"-feature).

Edit: small typo/grammar corrections + better wording.

Other than that all of the extra sensors, wiring and software bugs are making new/recent road going (this is off road vehicle in the same sense as SUVs are) motorbikes quite unreliable, often leaving official service providers scratching their heads re why something refuses to work. FI is nice, so is ABS (with a switch to turn it off when offroading, which is rare nowadays). Everything else is just asking for problems.

I don't see the problem.

Manufacturers have been selling "options packages" for decades. You can either buy the base bike for $15,000, or one with "premium package" for $18,000.

It's obvious to everyone that the extra doodads you're buying don't actually cost them $3,000 more. It's just a way for them to segment the market and charge more for those who are willing to pay. The alternative is, they sell a single configuration for $17,000.

Now they're just saying, hey, most of this functionality is in software anyway. Rather than pretend that the $10 sensor needed to enable the quick shifter costs $3,000, they're going to put the $10 sensor in all the bikes and charge you for the software required to use it. And like most software, you can get a free trial before you need to decide if you want it. So what?

It's also quite possible that these extra features actually don't require any additional hardware at all. The bike already has wheel speed sensors, accelerometers, etc. for the "base" ABS functionality and the advanced stuff you're paying for might be entirely in software.

The bike comes with the hardware required to allow this functionality (a quick shifter needs the physical ability to reduce the torque to the gearbox to work), what a waste of the world's resources to kit out these machines with these electronics and technology, and then not allow people who have physically bought the device to make use of it.

We're talking about a $15,000 off-road premium European motorcycle that burns gasoline for rich young guys to have fun tearing through the wilderness. That's a "waste of the world's resources". The $10 sensor on the shift lever that you're complaining about is inconsequential.

Big adv bikes are generally for older gents. Young guys are on 250s and 400s and 500s

The quickshifter purely makes use of existing hardware except for the shift-sensor which is a small piezo-sensor-insert in the shift lever.

The existing hardware being:

- ride-by-wire: ability to open/close the throttle electronically

- electronic injection control: ability to decrease/increase fuel injection

What the quickshifter feature does:

a) shift-up was done by decreasing / stopping fuel injection or stopping ignition: torque decreases and for a split second there's no/little torque between gears and the next gear can be shifted effortlessly

b) shift down needs increasing torque (usually due to deceleration torque of the engine when the throttle is closed), so this artificially opens the throttle to reverse this effect and allow shifting

The magic is all in the software, and there's big differences in the smoothness between manufactures, and also between model years. This is a pure comfort/performance feature, a quickshifter is not needed at all and you still need the clutch to get going.

Edit: very old vehicles need a so called double-clutch / german "Zwischengas" to make up for the missing synchronisation / synchromesh gears. That's what's done in software here.

I continue to hope that people will vote with their wallets and kill this garbage... but then I remember, look at the current state of 'smart TVs' or even the dying industry of residential printer ... adware bloated fake-limited trash

Govs at a UN-level need to kill this shit... but sadly, capitalism is a core tenant of most UN members, and these scummy tactics generate revenue... so.... I've used a lot of words to 'fuck. we're fucked.'

:(

I had to look up the hack people used to do back in the day to have their cheap sennheiser basically become a model that's $100 more (https://hackaday.com/2011/02/12/uncrippling-lower-model-spea...). That was 10 years ago! So yeah, this trend is going to stay for a while.

I remember when you could change 24x cdrom drives to the 48x version.

Punching holes in 3.5" floppies to turn 720kb double density into 1.44mb high density will remain my favorite removable media hack. Saved me so much money as a kid.

It’s just something to negotiate with the dealer, being that as software it’s a “zero cost” thing. I’m doing just that on a Duke 890R now. “Give me the software for free”, and they do (I’m not in the US; YMMV. Go buy a Ducati)

>All the hardware is built in. It works for 1500km then stops until you pay up.

Which I think is an improvement. I always used to add features to my cars that were available from the factory as an option but which I didn't order. Usually the process involved adding the hardware (spare parts, etc) and then changing flags in the car's system via OBD.

But when the hardware is already there this becomes way simpler: Just change the flags in the firmware and you're done.

Unless the firmware is code-signed.

You could look at it differently and think that they allow you to take discounts from the full price of the bike for features you don’t want. The price of the bike is not the base price, is the one with all the features enabled, you then choose to save on the ones that you don’t want.

Would an equivalent bike with the extra features cost the same or more? Am curious if turning off the features makes it less expensive to get started with a basic bike.

It would cost the exact same. The majority of these features require hardware aspects (the quickshifter needs to interact with throttle/fuel/ignition, traction control systems require sensors to monitor wheelslip and engine conditions) that come installed from the factory. The subscription service just turns the features on/off.

To make a computer analogy - imagine if the every MacBook in the lineup was shipped with 32gb of ram soldered in as standard, and then Apple disabled 28gb of that via software. Sure, they could sell you the "flexibility" to upgrade at any time (maybe even on an hourly basis in case you need some extra oomph to finish up your compiling!) but we'd all know that the reality is they're holding the product that you already purchased hostage in exchange for a recurring source of revenue.

That computer analogy is exactly how IBM runs their mainframe hardware. Over-provision the hardware and then unlock it as you pay up. It's a delivery model that didn't use to make sense in consumer devices because the manufacturer would have to pay for all the hardware even if they weren't selling the feature. It seems lately it has become profitable to do it. I guess it means you have to deal with less SKUs and thus saves enough money in manufacturing to compensate for the extra parts/complexity. Probably because a lot of the complexity has moved to software so the hardware is the same anyway.

“CAUTION. Do not remove the wire from pin 4AB to 7FL in the CPU enclosure. This wire is located approximately 7 inches up from the bottom of the backplane in bay 2 and should not be removed by using a GE 112-3 wire unwrapping tool, first not removing the wrapping from 4AB, then pulling the wire from under the other wiring to its bound end at 7FL, followed by not unwrapping the bound end from 7FL. Not removing this wire will result in the normal clockspeed which is 1.6 times slower than with the wire removed and will not cause corresponding increases in system throughput.”

— https://www.cs.earlham.edu/~skylar/humor/Unix/computer.folkl...

You realize IBM does exactly this and has been doing it for decades? You call them up and request more memory and/or CPU and presto bingo! It's enabled.

Is there an option to buy it without the additional hardware?

That would defeat the purpose of streamlining production and being able to sell the subscription services, so probably no.

But on the other hand, pricing is not yet published, so time will tell.

> All the hardware is built in. It works for 1500km then stops until you pay up.

So, ABS disengages at 1500kms, and you fall on the first puddle of water? (This is a big, heavy bike)