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Comment by kadoban | Hacker News Reader

> Are you sure?

Pretty sure. As this continues, more and more things will be behind paywalls. The companies have every incentive to do this. Then more and more percentage of the value of the car is _not_ transferrable and will need to be paid (again) to the company by any new owner.

You paid X thousand for "upgrades"? Great, that is completely lost money when you sell it.

You can see this in the games market with DLC-heavy games. The physical copies of those aren't worth much because it doesn't even include most of the content.

The effect you explain does exist I think, but to me seems to be obviously overpowered by the other(s) in the other direction.

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Yes the companies are incentivized, and yes they will extract money on resales, and yes your upgrades aren’t transferable. All good reasons to be careful when subscribing to features of this car. It might hurt first sale more than it hurts resale, if people actually care, which could be a good thing.

But I’m not sure the analogy to DLC games works here, you’re talking about DLC value that you purchased above and beyond the initial price of the game. The game itself doesn’t lose resale value, it’s the value of your DLC that doesn’t transfer.

If you want a new electric Mercedes, your choices will be either buy a new one at the new-car price and subscribe to upgrades, or buy a used one at the cheaper used-car price and subscribe to any upgrades you want. Cheaper and upgradeable is still going to be attractive to buyers than more expensive up-front. Part of the deal here is (presumably) that the car was cheaper in the first place than it would have been if the upgrade features were built in and permanent.

> It might hurt first sale more than it hurts resale, if people actually care, which could be a good thing.

If consumers were rational, that's how it'd work. They pretty rarely are though.

> But I’m not sure the analogy to DLC games works here, you’re talking about DLC value that you purchased above and beyond the initial price of the game. The game itself doesn’t lose resale value, it’s the value of your DLC that doesn’t transfer.

It's barely even an analogy it's so exact. You could just call acceleration upgrades and heated seats and whatever DLC, it's the same thing.

The flip side is that the manufacturer loses leverage once the warranty period of over.

Harder for BEVs where everything is electronically controlled. It’s a different story if there’s a physical motor and you can edit or bypass the ECU.

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