4 ms·

At least Amazon had the foresight to use 3G. Our Nissan Leaf, which was built well after the earliest Kindles, came with GPRS in 2011 and it's been several year

At least Amazon had the foresight to use 3G. Our Nissan Leaf, which was built well after the earliest Kindles, came with GPRS in 2011 and it's been several years since AT&T turned those frequencies off. No free upgrades, or coupons, either: $250 for a new cell radio, please. We just had them remove the radio that was there, as Nissan's crap system never worked all that well anyway. Regardless, neither Amazon nor Nissan can help that another company turned off those frequencies. Amazon has demonstrated more foresight and better customer service, however.

pradn 5y ago
It seems like practically anything car companies do that's not the actual car itself is usually bad unless you pay for the superpremium brands.
- lupire 5y ago
  $250 one-time upgrade is better than the price premium and all the upcharges for regular service on a luxury car.
kwhitefoot 5y ago
That's interesting and rather unfriendly of Nissan; after all it has been well known that 2G or 3g or both would be scrapped for quite some time. Here in Norway Tesla replaced the 3G radio with an LTE module at no charge because 3G is being discontinued in Norway. I think owners who had upgraded to LTE at their own expense earlier were also offered some compensation.
don-code 5y ago
This still seems better than BMW's model - cars were shipping with 3G modems all the way through 2014, and up through 2015, when the whole fleet went 4G. But, since most everything is subscription-based, BMW just stopped renewing subscription contracts for 3G-only cars in 2017. More confusingly, some models are eligible for a new radio (which I assume is a lot of money), and some aren't, even though it seems to vary more by model than year of manufacture.
- mikestew 5y ago
  As I've told my wife when discussing BMWs: "we'd really, really like to buy a BMW car, and BMW keeps telling us, 'we'd rather you didn't.'" And I say this as someone with two BMW motorcycles in the garage that we're pretty happy with.
  - biofox 5y ago
    Unfortunately, I feel this way with most new cars, regardless of the manufacturer. I'm not sure if it's me who's being unreasonable, or them, but I don't like it.
    - jackson1442 5y ago
      It really depends what you’re looking for. Tech-forward cars a kinda a mess right now since they’re spending all their money on tech while the interior and ride obviously suffer. Then you have cars with nice rides and interior that barely support CarPlay. Polestar, for example, has really hard nylon-like seats in their cars but are cramming a bunch of Google tech in it. Say what you will about Google, but it’s time to innovate beyond the infotainment system, and they actually seem to be doing that. Similarly, Teslas have had consistent quality issues and are ridiculously vendor-locked. The Model S drives nice but I haven’t heard great things about the Model 3, as least compared to other cars at its price point. I’m actually pretty happy with Kia right now, their Niro EV is rather nice and they have a solid warranty on everything. The tech isn’t fascinating and Uvo (their connectivity service) is entirely unimpressive, but their cars seem to strike a good balance between the car and the tech without costing obscene amounts. The EV6 actually looks pretty exciting on both fronts too.
      - dabockster 5y ago
        > Then you have cars with nice rides and interior that barely support CarPlay. Ehhhhhhhhh I don't know about you guys, but I just slap in a new radio head unit myself and retrofit CarPlay via the aftermarket. I can hack CarPlay into a decent car, but I can't hack a decent car from one that prioritized CarPlay and interior RGB gamer lights over reliability and a decent ride.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wumpus 5y ago
Another car example is GM's OnStar system, it first shipped in the fall of 1996. GM didn't give much compensation to these early car owners when the analog cell signal was turned off at the end of 2007. Tesla is about to give me a new 4g board for my 2013 car.

pradn 5y ago

It seems like practically anything car companies do that's not the actual car itself is usually bad unless you pay for the superpremium brands.

lupire 5y ago
$250 one-time upgrade is better than the price premium and all the upcharges for regular service on a luxury car.

kwhitefoot 5y ago

That's interesting and rather unfriendly of Nissan; after all it has been well known that 2G or 3g or both would be scrapped for quite some time. Here in Norway Tesla replaced the 3G radio with an LTE module at no charge because 3G is being discontinued in Norway. I think owners who had upgraded to LTE at their own expense earlier were also offered some compensation.

don-code 5y ago

This still seems better than BMW's model - cars were shipping with 3G modems all the way through 2014, and up through 2015, when the whole fleet went 4G. But, since most everything is subscription-based, BMW just stopped renewing subscription contracts for 3G-only cars in 2017. More confusingly, some models are eligible for a new radio (which I assume is a lot of money), and some aren't, even though it seems to vary more by model than year of manufacture.

mikestew 5y ago
As I've told my wife when discussing BMWs: "we'd really, really like to buy a BMW car, and BMW keeps telling us, 'we'd rather you didn't.'" And I say this as someone with two BMW motorcycles in the garage that we're pretty happy with.
- biofox 5y ago
  Unfortunately, I feel this way with most new cars, regardless of the manufacturer. I'm not sure if it's me who's being unreasonable, or them, but I don't like it.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    It really depends what you’re looking for. Tech-forward cars a kinda a mess right now since they’re spending all their money on tech while the interior and ride obviously suffer. Then you have cars with nice rides and interior that barely support CarPlay. Polestar, for example, has really hard nylon-like seats in their cars but are cramming a bunch of Google tech in it. Say what you will about Google, but it’s time to innovate beyond the infotainment system, and they actually seem to be doing that. Similarly, Teslas have had consistent quality issues and are ridiculously vendor-locked. The Model S drives nice but I haven’t heard great things about the Model 3, as least compared to other cars at its price point. I’m actually pretty happy with Kia right now, their Niro EV is rather nice and they have a solid warranty on everything. The tech isn’t fascinating and Uvo (their connectivity service) is entirely unimpressive, but their cars seem to strike a good balance between the car and the tech without costing obscene amounts. The EV6 actually looks pretty exciting on both fronts too.
    - dabockster 5y ago
      > Then you have cars with nice rides and interior that barely support CarPlay. Ehhhhhhhhh I don't know about you guys, but I just slap in a new radio head unit myself and retrofit CarPlay via the aftermarket. I can hack CarPlay into a decent car, but I can't hack a decent car from one that prioritized CarPlay and interior RGB gamer lights over reliability and a decent ride.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wumpus 5y ago

Another car example is GM's OnStar system, it first shipped in the fall of 1996. GM didn't give much compensation to these early car owners when the analog cell signal was turned off at the end of 2007. Tesla is about to give me a new 4g board for my 2013 car.