Volkswagen Planning Subscription-Based Horsepower Upgrades
Volkswagen Planning Subscription-Based Horsepower Upgrades
www.msn.com /en-us/autos/electric-cars/report-volkswagen-planning-subscription-based-horsepower-upgrades/ar-AA1KASxp
Comments
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Capped speed isn't enough. I want it to slam the brakes on the highway and go "Tired of the ads? Get the Volkswagen Battlepass and enjoy an uninterupted drive!"
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Ooh, how about it accelerates really slowly at stop lights unless I pay for "turbo mode" to not get honked at?
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Every tine you bring the car to a stop it covers half the windows in ads like youtube does when you pause it to try and read something
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Our family was looking for a newer car. We found a listing for a VW, went to the dealership with intent to buy and was told that the car (which was standing RIGHT there) was available for sale in 3 months. Now we enjoy our new Toyota.
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You dodged a bullet.
VW has gone down the drain.
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Had a 2023 VW ID4. They literally go out of their way to make your experience worse in many cases.
They have an app, they can read locked state, but can't lock the car.
Their app/website makes you completely re-sign in and re-accept cookies every month or so that breaks any API usage mildly like HomeAssistant.
The key unlocks the door if you walk to it, 50% chance to re-lock the door when you walk away without interacting with it.
Can detect tire pressure, but they don't tell you what it is, only if there is "pressure loss"
Backup camera was horrific quality, especially the field of view of a telephoto camera, especially compared to my 2015 Nissan altima
The entertainmrnt console was terible, extremely laggy, and Android auto was the worst experience. It would take between 2 and 15 minutes to connect to android auto with multiple different phones, and it would choose 1 app per phone to not display. My girlfriends' was her maps app which is insane. Sometimes I would be at my destination before it would connect.
Also putting a trailer hitch on it would have been like 1500-2000€...
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Yeah, he dodge-d a bullet. Good for him he could af-ford something better.
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The car has to ripen.
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Ill take “reasons why I still drive a b5.5 passat” for $500, Alex
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Woo! 2002 passat owner checking in here!
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03 Jetta 1.8T 5mt reporting in 😋
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It's due for a head gasket change, not much else. Not worth upgrading to a newer car for my price range and use case. I don't need a computer I don't own.
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ICE vehicles have been the same for a long time, only they lock the horsepower upgrades behind upgrade packages/trims.
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Most car for the last decade or two already come with a lot of options built-in that are simply disabled by software in the factory. It's cheaper to just build in a standard set of electronics and disable what's not bought by the customer because many brands still like to milk the customer with options. Subscriptions just take the buying of options to renting.
VW here also also has the "lifetime subscription" for this. That makes it basically the same as you buying the option and they switch in it on in the factory. It's just plain in your face that it's behind a paywall while the old checking options didn't feel as much as a paywall.
Anyway, I went with Hyundai. They didn't do options and subscriptions. You only get to choose the model and looks, that's it.
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Wouldn't it be even cheaper to design the next version modularly and interchangeable?
Ah, wait, that would make it too easy to repair for unlicensed users.
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That would require more logistics to get different modules, checks to make sure the right ones are installed and labor to install them. Somewhere there is a cutoff point where modularity is cheaper.
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Wouldn't it be even cheaper to design the next version modularly and interchangeable?
The extra labor to manage more components and check/verify each single vehicle fits it's unique specs would eat up the saving really fast. It's so much easier to do a single HW config and manage it through SW, and electronic components are generally cheap.
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Fuck “lifetime subscriptions”. They’re taking a page from Tesla and I’m sure they’ll require any new owner to pay them separately should you sell the vehicle.
Simply avoid VW and any future brand that pulls this shit.
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Tesla does not and has never had "lifetime subscriptions". They have a single connectivity subscription (they still have basic connectivity for free for all cars that allows you to monitor and control the vehicle,as well as navigation). Any other upgrades are behind 1-time payments (or your choice of either).
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Well hyundai has a predefined trim system, they cut cost of manufacturing by only having predefined trim levels that you can't customize.
They might still do this cutting of horsepower but they do it because of batteries.
e.g. the 39kwh and the 64 kwh Kona has the same motor but on the 39kwh it's limited as the battery pack can't deliver enough juice.
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From the same company that brought you test based emissions upgrades?
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option to pay $22.50 per month or $879 one time to gain 20 horsepower.
At least you can buy it outright, so not the worst scheme of this sort, but still a scheme.
Auto Express UK reported on the pricing but could not verify whether the subscription follows the vehicle or the user profile.
This is bad journalism, per EU regulation, if the option is bought it follows the car, if it's a subscription, I doubt they can legally demand either the original and definitely not another owner to keep it. A subscription can be cancelled, otherwise it's an indefinite contract, which a new owner never agreed to.
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Oh sorry I forgot for a second that UK is no longer in EU, so UK customers can be fucked in new creative ways, which probably also explains why this experiment is in UK. Ah well they chose to fuck themselves over I guess.
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We imported all the consumer protection laws, so as long as this isn't a recent change it will be the same in the UK.
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AFAIK a lot of the EU citizen and consumer protections have been dismantled in UK after UK left EU.
Even democratic rights to protest have been limited, and privacy rights against government surveillance that is illegal in EU.
So I seriously doubt they haven't cut user protections too, the conservative government was clearly a government that worked against the general population to benefit the rich and those in power. This was absolutely one of the main points for the extreme right politicians and media (mostly conservatives) to want out of EU.
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Sounds like a good reason to skip buying any car warranty going forward since I'll be attempting to void that shit almost immediately.
Bad business decisions all around.
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Legally those mods only void the warrenty if the mod caused the problem. The law goes back to the 1970s in the us and applies to a lot more that they want you to think
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Fuck you volkswagen!
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If you pay a little extra a little corkscrew that raises up from the middle of the driver seat every half hour will only do so every two hours too.
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Is $879 for an extra 20 horsepower even worth it?
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Not really IMO, but I would personally never buy it, since it's an artificial limitation only meant to extort buyers for more money, for something that cost them nothing, and I would never reward artificial limitations and such shenanigans.
I'd probably look for some third party hack to unlock it for free instead, or probably buy another brand of car.
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Fair if you care about it. No other upgrades will get you that much.
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For ice cars If you are outside warranty you can just have your ECU remapped and gain much more hp.
I am guessing these remaps will eventually be available for electric motors too
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I'm not sure about other EVs, but on the BMW iX, a lot of the computer stuff is encrypted now, and has to be signed with BMW's private key (i.e. they've actually implemented encryption correctly). Apps like Bimmercode don't work on it.
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No. Switching from 140 to 160 hp isn't something you'd really even notice on everyday commuting. More is more of course, but unless your driving style is very aggressive that doesn't really make any difference on the driving experience. What it might do is improve your range slightly, but that depends heavily on multiple different things and if your driving style and conditions on most common routes aren't suitable it might even reduce the range you'll get out of the thing.
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Do you notice the power difference when your AC is on?
This 20 hp should be similar tbh.
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Consumer planning anything but Volkswagen subscription upgrade
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Sold my Audi when they started this, VWs are already overpriced basic shits.
Give me asian cars.
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Volkswagen is desperate and absolutely fucked. If this is their answer for every one of their shitty little cars being over taken by Koreans they are just fucked.
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VW makes better EV's than Hyundai/KIA IMO.
Also VW group has bigger sales.Hyundai and KIA have some good options too, but there is no way to call VW shitty by comparison, when they far outsell the competition in EU.
In Denmark where I live, Korean EV's have dropped out of top 10, while VW group has 7 models in top 10!
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Vw doesnt make better EVs than hyundai lol, their range is worse, their charge curve is worse, their software is worse, what they have is better brand still, people are sleeping on Hyundai/Kia even though they offer better equipped cars for cheaper and with better reliability and warranty.
That's completely okay with me. i get to buy these as used cars at extremely cut price.
Go test drive a VW id.3 from 2022, I did, it's a 3 year old car and everything is creaking
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[laughs in 2013 era type-1 mod]
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Fuck off
🤔 💭 Our cars aren't selling... Hmm.. Should we make them last longer? No. Should we make the interior out of anything except hard plastic? No. Should we make our cars easier to repair and not have even the most basic shit require specialized tools? No. I got it! Subscriptions for basic shit that gauges the few customers still buying our shit!
I understand your point, but have you driven a VW in the past decade? They are reliable, relatively easy to repair and have comfortable interiors that aren't with "hard plastic." Perhaps you've confused VW with Ford?
I fix cars for a living every day.
Maybe, compared to a BMW or other "luxury" car marketed to rubes. But a Honda or a Toyota would totally eat VW's lunch in regards to reliability, at half the purchase price.
The VW Beetle is famously easy to repair, basically every modern VW model sucks ass. It needs some proprietary tool to access half the vehicle on more than half the models. I do not like working on them. We also get wonderful examples of German Manufacturing Precision™️ where you have a half a millimeter clearance to remove a part. This was worse in older VW's in my experience (the Germans really took to AUTOCAD like fish to water when that became common, methinks) but it still happens.
Actually totally agree here, the interior of most modern VW's is pretty nice. Shame that doesn't extend under the hood.
VW also got caught straight up lying about their emissions testing a few years ago so that also destroyed basically all trust that I had in their brand. They'll sell you a car that runs, but there's really no knowing if the numbers that it reports are actually accurate.
Yeah. I think my car has a pretty decent build overall but the (I shit you not) 14 recalls ive had to bring it in for ranging from door handle replacements, firmware updates, back hatch issues makes me raise an eyebrow to it. I let a few stack up before I bring it in because I never notice any issue before or after, but better to get the free service than not.
Evidence strongly counters my own feelings on the matter.
Ford is even worse than VW, but VW is overpriced shit.
EXCEPT the fuel pump for a Passat 2013 to 2017 is 400 to 600 dollars for the pump only. You can find some on eBay cheaper but when you can't drive your car then you have to get what you can get.
Reliably cheating emissions regulations, maybe.
Relatively easy to repair compared to a smartphone maybe.
Does "relatively easy" mean in comparison to modern cars, and not easily repairable older cars? I don't follow cars but if it's anything like other tech then it's soon to be crippled by part tying.