Subscriptions; it's a scary future.
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23 S580 Executive
Subscriptions; it's a scary future.
https://www.motor1.com/news/597376/b...scription/amp/
This is the future gents; if you don't think this is coming to a car near you, you're kidding yourself. In my opinion we need to start pressing for legislation. Now. Imagine all the goodies in your car, each one hidden behind a pay wall. That's exactly the future corporations are imagining for you. Maybe I'm just too old to accept this kind of scumbaggery; don't know why, but the concept of giving these guys free reign to pick my pockets torques me.
This is the future gents; if you don't think this is coming to a car near you, you're kidding yourself. In my opinion we need to start pressing for legislation. Now. Imagine all the goodies in your car, each one hidden behind a pay wall. That's exactly the future corporations are imagining for you. Maybe I'm just too old to accept this kind of scumbaggery; don't know why, but the concept of giving these guys free reign to pick my pockets torques me.
Out Of Control!!
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From: San Francisco Bay Area
2019 C63CS
You pay for these features one way or the other. Either they are included in the base price, or it's an extra cost option, or now you can pay for it via a subscription or a one-time purchase if and when you are actually using the feature. The initial purchase price of the vehicle is lower, and instead the first owner or subsequent owners can decide what options they want down the line. Used car buyers for example don't have to find the exact car with the exact options anymore, instead they can just subscribe to the options they want or buy them outright with the one-time purchase which stays with the car. For heated seats for example you could just pay for it during the winter, but not the summer, which over a 3 year lease for example would be a lot cheaper than adding the heated seat option outright at the time of ordering the car and not using it half of the year.
There's a big gamble here for the manufacturers. They have to equip the cars with all the hardware, whether the owners are ultimately gonna pay for it or not. It also saves them some money, because it simplifies production if all cars are effectively built the same, and then the customer decides which features they actually wanna activate and pay for. They also need enough supply to equip all cars with all the hardware, so at the moment that's a bit of an issue. With the current option model they don't need all hardware for all cars or they can drop options if the supply isn't there. Moving forward it would mean they can't produce cars if there's not enough supply, because every car needs everything. We'll have to see how this plays out.
There's a big gamble here for the manufacturers. They have to equip the cars with all the hardware, whether the owners are ultimately gonna pay for it or not. It also saves them some money, because it simplifies production if all cars are effectively built the same, and then the customer decides which features they actually wanna activate and pay for. They also need enough supply to equip all cars with all the hardware, so at the moment that's a bit of an issue. With the current option model they don't need all hardware for all cars or they can drop options if the supply isn't there. Moving forward it would mean they can't produce cars if there's not enough supply, because every car needs everything. We'll have to see how this plays out.
Last edited by superswiss; Jul 11, 2022 at 05:55 PM.
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23 S580 Executive
It's not a gamble and this isn't the printer model; the options are fully paid for in the MSRP, including a profit. The subscriptions are just recurring revenue. You don't buy in, no money lost, you do, they open another bottle of Champagne on the corporate transport.
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AMG GTC Roadster, E63s Ed.1, M8 Comp. Coupe
You pay for these features one way or the other. Either they are included in the base price, or it's an extra cost option, or now you can pay for it via a subscription or a one-time purchase if and when you are actually using the feature. The initial purchase price of the vehicle is lower, and instead the first owner or subsequent owners can decide what options they want down the line. Used car buyers for example don't have to find the exact car with the exact options anymore, instead they can just subscribe to the options they want or buy them outright with the one-time purchase which stays with the car. For heated seats for example you could just pay for it during the winter, but not the summer, which over a 3 year lease for example would be a lot cheaper than adding the heated seat option outright at the time of ordering the car and not using it half of the year.
There's a big gamble here for the manufacturers. They have to equip the cars with all the hardware, whether the owners are ultimately gonna pay for it or not. It also saves them some money, because it simplifies production if all cars are effectively built the same, and then the customer decides which features they actually wanna activate and pay for. They also need enough supply to equip all cars with all the hardware, so at the moment that's a bit of an issue. With the current option model they don't need all hardware for all cars or they can drop options if the supply isn't there. Moving forward it would mean they can't produce cars if there's not enough supply, because every car needs everything. We'll have to see how this plays out.
There's a big gamble here for the manufacturers. They have to equip the cars with all the hardware, whether the owners are ultimately gonna pay for it or not. It also saves them some money, because it simplifies production if all cars are effectively built the same, and then the customer decides which features they actually wanna activate and pay for. They also need enough supply to equip all cars with all the hardware, so at the moment that's a bit of an issue. With the current option model they don't need all hardware for all cars or they can drop options if the supply isn't there. Moving forward it would mean they can't produce cars if there's not enough supply, because every car needs everything. We'll have to see how this plays out.
Manufacturing-wise, a number of options may have negligible costs within the hardware and managing less parts per vendor (a heated vs non-heating steering wheel for example) may only have a minor impact on overall costs, if any.
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23 S580 Executive
Oh, it's cheaper, and vastly more profitable. The consumer however doesn't profit at all, they just get to pay more into the corporate profit machine. Thanks, but no thanks.
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Super Member
Joined: Nov 2021
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From: Hong Kong, China
2021 S450 4Matic
This is OK in the sense that a car buyer is postponing his buying of an option. In the old days, you have to decide on the spot of buying/ordering whether you want a particular feature (eg heated seats). Now, you will not pay for that feature upfront but can wait later and can actually try the feature first to see if you like it. If you do, you buy the feature out.
That article says you do not even need to go to a local dealer. You can just download an app and use that to pay and activate a specific feature. This sounds nice.
If the hardware is already built in and one just needs to activate it, this most certainly invites 'hacking'. I wonder what car manufacturers have in mind to keep this at bay.
On second thought, maybe they will not do anything. As car owners who do hack should be a very small percentage and car manufacturers just either hard swallow it or transfer that loss to the larger law abiding buyers.
That article says you do not even need to go to a local dealer. You can just download an app and use that to pay and activate a specific feature. This sounds nice.
If the hardware is already built in and one just needs to activate it, this most certainly invites 'hacking'. I wonder what car manufacturers have in mind to keep this at bay.
On second thought, maybe they will not do anything. As car owners who do hack should be a very small percentage and car manufacturers just either hard swallow it or transfer that loss to the larger law abiding buyers.
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Thread Starter
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23 S580 Executive
Already a known, they will lock down as best they can and deny warranty on anything related. Quite a bit of discussion in general about this; a lot of different estimates on profit increases as an example: The article I posted says, "If you're wondering about the potential of in-car subscriptions from a business perspective, Stellantis estimates it'll make a whopping $23 billion (yes, with a "b") a year by the end of this decade." I've seen both higher and lower estimates but one thing no one questions is that consumers will pay more and have less no matter who does the math. I think the majority of options are a known to most consumers, and those who are not familiar with option "X" can experience it on this thing called a test drive. Not really seeing the try before you buy concept, you can already do that for free and at the best possible time; before you drop ching.
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Current: C217 V12TT AMG Previously: C55 AMG, SL65 AMG
Everyone in corporate thinks it's a good idea until your competitor doesn't do it and buyers go elsewhere just to spite you out of anger.
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2022 S580 Land Boat
I just read about BMW offering heated seats and heated steering wheel as subscription options in South Korea. When I think about it, it's probably not that bad if you can subscribe to those options during the cold months and not pay during the rest of the year.
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23 S580 Executive
Fearless prediction: They're going to bundle the subscription with/or along side ventilated seats in the near future. You're not putting on your corporate scumbaggery hat if you don't see that coming.
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From: on my way
2012 CLS63
Already a known, they will lock down as best they can and deny warranty on anything related. Quite a bit of discussion in general about this; a lot of different estimates on profit increases as an example: The article I posted says, "If you're wondering about the potential of in-car subscriptions from a business perspective, Stellantis estimates it'll make a whopping $23 billion (yes, with a "b") a year by the end of this decade." I've seen both higher and lower estimates but one thing no one questions is that consumers will pay more and have less no matter who does the math. I think the majority of options are a known to most consumers, and those who are not familiar with option "X" can experience it on this thing called a test drive. Not really seeing the try before you buy concept, you can already do that for free and at the best possible time; before you drop ching.
I like that phrase too: drop ching haha!
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From: Oklahoma
2016 C300 4Matic traded in for a 2022 E450 Coupe
You already paid for the options when you bought the vehicle, they didn’t give you the hardware “free”.
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