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Comment by ww520 | Hacker News Reader

When I bought my car, it had no Car Play or Android Auto. Upon some investigation I found out that both of them were installed on all the current models. It’s just disabled on the cars sold without the option. Some open source software for the car entertainment system flashed on the car was able to turn on the flags to enable various features including Car Play and Android Auto. So a happy story.

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Even hardware features (heated steering wheel, rain sensing wipers, etc...) are now behind software switches which the car maker can control based upon subscription or trim-level purchase.

All the hardware pieces are installed at build time

> heated steering wheel

As a licensed driver who resides in the Sonoran Desert, can you even imagine the horrific visions that just flashed before my eyes?

We often joke around here that wearing oven mitts is a good way to get our cars started in the late afternoons. It's not really a joke.

I personally have several pairs of gloves, and I never fail to don those gloves when I go out, whether I am walking, riding an e-Scooter, or driving, because even as a pedestrian we must touch so many metal objects that bask all day in the direct sunlight.

Heated steering wheels. What a world we live in today!

I scoffed at it, as someone that grew up in California and never lived anywhere cold.

Man, when it's freezing outside, it's awesome. I wouldn't buy a car without it now.

I put heated grips on my motorcycle. I thought it seemed dumb, your hands are out in the wind, and the back of your hands will still get cold. Nah, it warms up your whole body and it's a total game changer.

There are also really cold places in the world!

When it's minus -20°C outside, you'll be very happy for that heated steering wheel! For someone living in the desert, I wish there were cooled steering wheels, on the same level as heated/cooled seats, but maybe that's asking a but much.

It's probably a complexity and cost thing: heating the wheel just requires heating wires in the wheel connected to a switch. Cooling requires a some cooling medium getting pumped into the wheel and back out into a heat exchanger or vented outside. You need pipes of some sort inside the wheel and wheel hub.

You're way overthinking this. Making the steering wheel an AC vent is a Mercedes Benz patent. It's just hollow on the inside.

We also used to have crotch vents beneath the steering column! This was arguably the best idea since it could cool the entire driver area including the wheel.

This is artificial scarcity like the McRib.

My 1994 Toyota Celica had a vent beneath the steering column. It didn't have airbags, ABS braking, cruise control, electric seats, a 5th gear - it was missing all kinds of features that more luxurious cars had then, and even basic cars have now. But it had that vent! It was such an amazing feature, and I can't believe that it's not in more cars, especially ones a lot more upmarket.

I'm always a little frustrated by all the little features that are scattered across car models, that would be so easy to add, but are only available in some cars. I suppose putting absolutely everything in would be expensive and overwhelming, but some of them seem pretty easy. Off the top of my head:

- The button to dim all the dials except the essential ones (in Subarus and Saabs)

- The little flap to block sun above the sun-visor (in Audis and probably others)

- Being able to turn the radio on again after the key has been taken out

- Being able to use the residual heat for a short time after the engine has been turned off (Usually in VW/Audi cars - becoming more common?)

- Being able to hold a button on the remote to shut or open all windows (for a coupe with frameless doors, this could make getting in and out of the car in a tight supermarket parking space massively easier)

- Fuel cap holders inside the fuel flap (have these become universal yet?)

Those all feel like they would cost very little extra to implement. There are a few more that I feel were complicated or expensive, but I still was surprised weren't universal - Having the remote/key recharge while driving (less useful now you rarely need to take the keys out of your pocket, but strangely missing from many luxury cars even when you did need to insert the key). - HUD

I don't feel this is a very good list, but most of the things I only remember when I see them. Most of the items above have gradually become more common. I remember noticing cheap but fantastic features more often with cars like old Peugeots and Volvos (and obviously Saabs), and also somewhat in 90s Japanese cars. Sure Mercedes and BMWs had nice features that other cars didn't, but it's the ones where they've thought of something really useful without it costing a lot that really felt impressive. And then disappointing when you never saw that feature again.

Living in Australia where it gets hot and also kinda cold, having seats that are both heated and vented is awesome. Cold? Seat gives you a warm hug. Hot? Seat blows cool air to cool itself down after being parked, and to stop you getting sweaty.

Wow, clearly you've never left the tropics. Some of us start our cars in -30, C or F, take your pick, for at least some months out of the year.

As a licensed driver also living in the Sonoran Desert, I absolutely love my heated steering wheel. I live just South of Anthem, and we get a couple of hard freezes per year, and it gets cold enough that people wear gloves certain parts of the year.

You’re telling me it’s not cheaper for them to bundle the hardware but to disable it than not bundle the hardware?

The real cost is manufacturing with all the different options at different trim levels (combined with different paint jobs etc). Automakers have always made bank on options and trim. It is in fact cheaper for them to build all vehicles with the relatively cheap options and sell it as a subscription or add-on enabled by software. Engineering is in fact a large part of the option cost to begin with. The big task of the automakers is overcoming customer resistant to the “you will own nothing and be happy” model without feeling swindled being charged to use something they already own—or at least putting up with it and still paying. See Matt Walsh’s most recent monologue on this very topic.

>It’s just disabled on the cars sold without the option.

So exactly like software licensing? Most apps nowadays don't even require a purchase to download. The download is free but you need to pay $4.99/month subscription to use, or $99.99 for a "lifetime subscription". The code's are all there. The author just doesn't want you to use it.

Ahh, DRM-ed cars. I should have seen that one coming, really.

They saw the "You wouldn't download a car?" meme one too many times, and panicked.

Geohot should focus his attention on jailbreaking cars now

You're gonna love finding out who was behind the founding of Comma.AI, which adds self-driving to cars that shipped without it

That’s not exactly the same. You don’t get to have a car for free with basic driving functionality and then pay for additional features once you realize the car is useful and the people do made it deserve to be paid for their work, which they were willing to meet you have for free in its basic form.

This is something far more heinous, you bought a thing for a lot of money and just in order to extort even more money from you, they simply disable/lock away a feature that you technically already possess.

A better analogy in software might be that you bought a video game for $60,000 and the only way to beat a lower level boss without spending 2,000 hours trying to, is to pay the developers another $5,000 for a super weapon.

So more like enterprise software

Since you mention it, yes, in many more ways than may immediately be apparent to most people

this reminds me of the old IBM tabulation machines that were sold in 2 different models at different prices, the cheaper one just had a metal tab inserted to limit the processing speed - you could remove the tab to unlock full speed

As it should be.

You'd prefer they get nothing for the effort they put into developing the software?

I’d prefer to pay up front to buy the product, the way everything was sold up until around 2012, and not have a “subscription” scam.

The vendor of a piece of software decides how best they'd like to be paid.

A subscriptions approach allows them to avoid demanding a big payment upfront, and allows them to continue improving the software without you having to pay substantial sums to get new licensed versions. It has pros and cons vs licensing, but is a legitimate monetization strategy.

That the bits already exist on your machine is irrelevant. Your entitlement to use the bits is what is at issue here. Being already in possession of stolen goods does not entitle you to use them.

It's a car. There's already a big payment upfront. You're already shelling out $40,000+ on average in the US these days. Is that not already a big upfront payment?

Happy for the individual, sad for society

Please could you share the name of the manufacturer, so the rest of us know who to be wary of?

Volkswagen Group for example. Most of their brands are like this, Volkswagen, Seat, Skoda. Carplay/Android Auto is in the head unit but you have to pay 200-300€ to unlock unless it’s part of the trim level you choose.

That's interesting, thanks. For me this feature is mandatory, and I won't risk buying a car (second hand usually) unless I see it working with my phone first. I drove 200 miles to buy a car once and walked* away because of this. The seller acted surprised.

* drove

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