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I think it is a great idea for bringing autonomous cars to the market. Think about it: take a VW that costs $25k today. Now, fast forward 10 years and you can b

I think it is a great idea for bringing autonomous cars to the market. Think about it: take a VW that costs $25k today. Now, fast forward 10 years and you can buy roughly the same car for roughly the same price but with autonomy-as-a-service. First and foremost, it's still a car worth $25k. And if it's your first autonomous car, you will naturally be sceptical if it's worth it. Getting you to pay $10k extra may be a hard sell. Selling you autonomous driving at €7/h is a great way to convince you it works. If you are convinced, you'll buy that $40k autonomous car in the future. Otherwise, you'll just go back to manual mode and won't regret paying $10k for a worthless feature. But I totally get the subscription fatigue we are all under that prompted so much negativity in the responses.

prennert 5y ago
I agree. This allows you to switch on autonomous driving when driving to unfamiliar places, long distance, and for cases where you would make more than $8.50/hour by working while the car drives. Or just because you had a drink and want to be driven home in your own car. I am sure many people would opt to not use it most of the time, but having the option is great. As long as not using the option does not make the car a worse car than an non-automomuous one. I feel most negative comments are coming from the dark-pattern aspect of it. How transparent is the charge going to be, are people going to be trapped in bills (yearly subscription outlasting their actual car-ownership) they wont be able to afford? I also think that if few people use the feature regularly, but all cars need to have the hardware to support the autonomous driving, everybody is going to essentially overpay for features they are not using. Because one way or another VW needs to break even on the hardware at least. Therefore, I think it could be an amazing business model if the promises of SaaS are fulfilled, a product that constantly improves and that you only pay for when you use it. In this case the incentives of customers and VW are aligned. I think what people are afraid of, are dark patterns, subscription bundles and general in-transparency make the car a lot more expensive than people bought into.
- TheCondor 5y ago
  I agree that it seems like an interesting approach to bringing it to market. Imagine living in rural somewhere where they don’t have the same quality of data that they have for Silicon Valley, you don’t have to pay for the service that doesn’t work as well. Also, I expect there will be a service component whereby mapping a models are updated regularly so some fee for that makes sense. Then what if insurance was covered in that fee?
intricatedetail 5y ago
They should be required to release API and allow 3rd party self driving services. Otherwise it is a monopoly. They think this will fly because they are a German company.
rdsnsca 5y ago
ROFLMAO you think the car will be roughly the same price.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  True, it might be cheaper if they go with the razor/blade model.

prennert 5y ago

I agree. This allows you to switch on autonomous driving when driving to unfamiliar places, long distance, and for cases where you would make more than $8.50/hour by working while the car drives. Or just because you had a drink and want to be driven home in your own car. I am sure many people would opt to not use it most of the time, but having the option is great. As long as not using the option does not make the car a worse car than an non-automomuous one. I feel most negative comments are coming from the dark-pattern aspect of it. How transparent is the charge going to be, are people going to be trapped in bills (yearly subscription outlasting their actual car-ownership) they wont be able to afford? I also think that if few people use the feature regularly, but all cars need to have the hardware to support the autonomous driving, everybody is going to essentially overpay for features they are not using. Because one way or another VW needs to break even on the hardware at least. Therefore, I think it could be an amazing business model if the promises of SaaS are fulfilled, a product that constantly improves and that you only pay for when you use it. In this case the incentives of customers and VW are aligned. I think what people are afraid of, are dark patterns, subscription bundles and general in-transparency make the car a lot more expensive than people bought into.

TheCondor 5y ago
I agree that it seems like an interesting approach to bringing it to market. Imagine living in rural somewhere where they don’t have the same quality of data that they have for Silicon Valley, you don’t have to pay for the service that doesn’t work as well. Also, I expect there will be a service component whereby mapping a models are updated regularly so some fee for that makes sense. Then what if insurance was covered in that fee?

intricatedetail 5y ago

They should be required to release API and allow 3rd party self driving services. Otherwise it is a monopoly. They think this will fly because they are a German company.

rdsnsca 5y ago

ROFLMAO you think the car will be roughly the same price.

CharlesW 5y ago
True, it might be cheaper if they go with the razor/blade model.