22 ms·

GM makes $1,500 subscription mandatory on GMC, Buick, Cadillac Models

229 points by seitzej 4y ago

hoppyhoppy2 4y ago
Also being discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425208
mleonhard 4y ago
https://www.onstar.com/us/en/user_terms https://www.onstar.com/us/en/user_terms > 26. Data Collection / Privacy. GM collects, uses, and shares information from and about You and your Vehicle. The GM Privacy Statement describes what GM does with that information. You consent to the collection, use, and sharing of information described in the Privacy Statement and in any revisions to the Privacy Statement, which may be modified as described in that document. https://www.gm.com/privacy-statement https://www.gm.com/privacy-statement > We may collect information about you and your vehicle, such as name, address, email address, phone number, vehicle identification number (VIN) and vehicle performance data ... > We may share your information ... with our business partners. With OnStar, they now to track where you drive, how fast you drive, how you accelerate & brake, where you shop & eat, which friends you visit, what apps you use (over wifi), whether you text while driving, and what you listen to (over bluetooth). The value of this data is probably at least $20/mo per vehicle. GM probably sells this data directly to LiveRamp (formerly Acxiom) and other tracking companies.
josephcsible 4y ago
To be clear, it's mandatory to buy a 3-year subscription to be allowed to buy the car new. It's not required to maintain the subscription to use the car once you own it. This is equivalent to raising the MSRP by $1500 and including 3 years of a free OnStar subscription with every purchase. Viewed in that light, what's so bad about this?
- ablerman 4y ago
  It's mandatory tracking of your vehicle with remote disable. It's not just a walkie-talkie.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I daresay those features remain "active" even if you don't have an OnStar subscription active.
    - cbanek 4y ago
      They absolutely do (source, I know there's a sim card in there, they never take it out, it phones home, etc). You get the onstar reports, and can activate it any time using the active sim card. You can I think get into the box if you have tools, and pull out the sim though. I really want to hack that thing, so I can control the display! I'd love to be able to put linux on my car. And I deserve to. It's mine! I bought it! As long as it's still safe, why does it matter?
  - fullstop 4y ago
    If I ran a fleet of work trucks I think that I'd want this if I could locate where my vehicles were. If it was a personal vehicle, I would not want it at all.
  - catchnear4321 4y ago
    I’m adjusting my tinfoil hat as I type this, but can you even buy a recent non-commercial passenger vehicle without some data connection in hardware? Shoot, some even have WiFi hotspots now. And for those that don’t, there’s probably one or more cell phones in the cab. Probably some open airdrops even. So many e-flys down. The mandatory subscription doesn’t seem that shocking - that’s just a different flavor of hiding the total price. Wouldn’t be buying a car without that. (Should be.) The hardware though, this mandatory subscription just puts it in bold. Plenty of makes and models have the (sort of) hardware by default, you can take or leave the subscription and associated benefits. Please take it of course, but that hardware connection is installed either way. In case you change your mind! BMW is already trying to charge for warm butts. Gotta make that easy to toggle. Taking it to a shop for that “upgrade” is silly compared to OTA. It’s all silly, and far worse.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  They used to run ads on TV about how OnStar promotes "safety". I wanted to make a parody where a white collar criminal is rushing to the hydrofoil in a GM vehicle and the police use OnStar turn the vehicle off remotely in the name of "safety".
  - cbanek 4y ago
    And in reality, the "safety" they give isn't really that safe. The real feature is the ability to call the cops if you are in the car by yourself and passed out. That's it. If you can hit the button yourself, you can probably find your phone. If you never need it, then you never need it. And it's overpriced and monthly subscription at its finest. If it were at cost, I would go for it, because it does increase safety. But for what they sell as safety, it's not worth it. It probably matters for <1% of people. But they shove it down everyone's throat.
  - userbinator 4y ago
    I wanted to make a parody where a white collar criminal is rushing to the hydrofoil in a GM vehicle and the police use OnStar turn the vehicle off remotely in the name of "safety". There's likely at least one dystopian sci-fi story with a similar event in its plot.
- cbanek 4y ago
  First off, I don't think that's true. I bought a new GM car with on star and I wasn't required to get it. But they did turn it on by default, and it was completely useless. Never used it. Not once. I also asked if it had turn by turn directions with a map and was told, "yes". I ask them to prove it, and we go for a test drive and the map and directions don't work. When told this, the sales person assured me, it would work when I bought the car, because it just doesn't work because the system isn't active yet. All of this was bullshit. I wouldn't have spent the extra money for the screen and backup camera and all that from the dealer if it didn't have the turn by turn with a map. So basically, the free market isn't free, I couldn't know what I was buying, and I was duped by the dealer in a real free market way. Second, even if true, I'm not sure it is legal? This kind of depends on FTC and anti trust law as well as contract terms. Did you know that onstar has curl in it? If you look in a GM manual, at the back they have all the licenses that contain all the licenses for free software they use. Who knows if they are actually following them. They could be running GPL for all we know and not sharing the code. That happens all the time, every day. Third, even if it is legal, I'm not sure people will stand for that kind of hidden price increase on a car these days. Every consumer is getting squeezed. They will notice this, and all the other little inflation gotchas that the companies are doing to try to milk the US consumer a little harder. But it's proving that the consumer this time isn't going to do it. And getting shafted to do it for so long tends to lead to regulation, which is the second point again. When the consumer is squeezed, regulation is almost always missing. From an economics perspective, they have the box in it tracking you the whole time if you buy it or not. So the cost of the box is really baked into the price of the car, not the subscription. If you turn off onstar they don't pull out the box or something. The box also has a sim card that is always active no matter what, so you can activate it again. So in essence, you've already paid for it in terms of the actual real cost, and now you have to pay a lot more for what amounts to a cell phone that can call 911 itself. The subscription is twice as much as just a normal cell phone. Probably 20x what it honestly needs to be. It really should be included as a normal safety feature of every car. The ability to call 911 after an accident. Same for the ability for the cops to shut down a car remotely. If you think this doesn't happen or can't, you're wrong. It's done already. Cars have governors on the fuel injectors to keep their speed down, but not limit power. It's usually illegal to remove them, because that changes the HP, and usually requires retitling the car. Sometimes this means you get pushed into a different class of car based on the HP which means different taxes. Now I believe that you should be able to modify your car how you want if you own it. It's yours. But we're heading into the car subscription model, where your car is basically going to cost you a dollar to turn it on soon just because we won't be able to stop it if all the car manufactures do it. So if we're going with the subscription model, why can't we cancel the criminals subscriptions without needing to chase them down and run them off the road, causing unnecessary road deaths and police deaths? Well, we just don't like it. Freedom, you know. But we're not free. We never really were. That's an illusion they give you, like a free lunch, where they charge you for the drinks.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- peeters 4y ago
  > This is equivalent to raising the MSRP by $1500 and including 3 years of a free OnStar subscription with every purchase. Viewed in that light, what's so bad about this? For one, the latter is transparent about its pricing.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  This is equivalent to raising the MSRP by $1500 and including 3 years of a free OnStar subscription with every purchase. Viewed in that light, what's so bad about this? It's bad because it's duplicitous. GM advertises an SUV for $50k when it's really $51.5k. IMO, mandatory costs (tax, regulatory, or otherwise) should always be included in the normal retail price (or fee if we're talking subscription services).
  - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    >GM advertises an SUV for $50k when it's really $51.5k. ... you haven't shopped for a car recently, have you?
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      Lol. Yeah, just some round numbers, not actual pricing. I don't understand who's buying these new SUVs. I felt sick paying $42k for my Ridgeline and the Yukon and similar are >50% more expensive. Maybe I'm just frugal?
      - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
        My point, which either was strongly-rejected or mis-perceived as snarky by readers, was more that manufacturer MSRPs for cars are certainly not now (nor have ever really been) anything more than initial anchoring points for price bargaining with dealerships, who are the actual sellers. Pricing power is with the dealers right now and so you see large markups over MSRP for "market adjustment". Three years ago, pricing power was more with buyers and no-one in their right mind would pay MSRP.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >This is equivalent to raising the MSRP by $1500 and including 3 years of a free OnStar subscription with every purchase. Viewed in that light, what's so bad about this? And if I would like to save that $1500 by waiving the 3-year free subscription? Do I have that option?
  - brewdad 4y ago
    No. But you didn't in the old days when it wasn't broken out as a separate line item either.
jonfw 4y ago
Title is pretty misleading. This is only on certain models from those makes
- theandrewbailey 4y ago
  There's no guarantee that it will not be added to other models in the future. Because we're talking about a large corporation raising prices, there's no reason that a 2026 Chevy Malibu wouldn't have this. Shareholders would approve. My inner cynic says some slippery slopes are real.
  - sybercecurity 4y ago
    I guess this depends on how well cars with mandatory subscriptions sell compared to before. If the number of sales goes up, or stays the same I would guess more manufacturers start doing this. And I'd say this is the slippery slope from smart home devices all requiring a subscription. Since everything "smart" requires backend infrastructure and cloud bills can't be paid for the entire lifecycle up front, get ready to see a lot of subscriptions added to things that didn't have it before.
  - jonfw 4y ago
    That's a fair point, but it still doesn't make the title read accurately
- jjulius 4y ago
  ... which is still pretty shitty.
  - jonfw 4y ago
    I'm just saying that the headline reads different than the article, I'm not making a judgement on the contents of the article
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
LinuxBender 4y ago
I ran into this pricing a chevy duramax recently. On their site one can "build" a vehicle by customizing packages. I don't really know what this "build" process is for because at the end it just searches for dealers that have inventory with n out of x features one selected, or "request a quote" which is really the same thing. It's a very misleading process in my opinion. Anyway... I tried removing OnStar and the only way I could do that was to remove all the feaures I wanted and also needed. e.g. towing package, bigger engine, etc... The only way I could "build" one without Onstar was to have a bare-bones model with nothing else added. Ill try again in 5 years or so.
- kube-system 4y ago
  It searches inventory first because there’s no sense in ordering one to be built if there’s one sitting around already. “Request a quote” is a synonym for “because of dealer protection laws you can’t actually do anything on the website so now go talk to a dealer who can actually order one.”
  - LinuxBender 4y ago
    no sense in ordering one to be built if there’s one sitting around already I think that's the catch. Given the number of customization options in the website, I would find it highly unlikely that there would be one already built with the options I selected, so I will always be guided down the path of working with a dealer.
    - jaywalk 4y ago
      You have to work with a dealer no matter what. But in the "old days" (pre-Covid) you'd probably be surprised at how many vehicles were available with the options you want. I've been leasing my vehicles for a long time, and I've always been very specific in the options I want. I've never once had to order a vehicle to get what I wanted, the salesperson either had one on their lot or was able to find one nearby and trade for it.
    - kube-system 4y ago
isoprophlex 4y ago
"By including this plan as standard equipment on the vehicle, it helps to provide a more seamless onboarding experience and more customer value,” GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato told Automotive News in an email. "More customer value" clearly worth 125$/month. You're basically paying > 100 bucks a month for something that allows them to collect and sell your data to third parties. EDIT: as people mention in reply, I have absolutely zero reading comprehension skills and the fee is actually 1500 for three years not one. Still... I pay less for cellular service with near limitless data and voice.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  If you don't make the payments do they turn off the ignition remotely until the repo man shows up?
  - mannykannot 4y ago
    I am not completely sure, but it appears to be a one-time charge for an initial three-year subscription. I have no idea whether GM is also making some not-quite-essential but both simple and useful features only accessible with an ongoing subscription, but I have my opinion as to whether it will do so, if it is not doing so already. Plenty of other manufacturers do this.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    Seems they do, more or less. I once had a GM vehicle where the OnStar system (not activated) would occasionally fail to turn off and drain the battery overnight. Although, once I discovered the source of the problem yanking the fuse made it go away.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jaywalk 4y ago
  It's a three-year subscription, so it works out to $41.67/month. Still absurd though.
rachet 4y ago
When I had a vehicle with OnStar, I located where its antennae connected to the controller and disconnected it. The vehicle was fine, nothing else was impacted. It just couldn't communicate with anything anymore. I originally removed the power, but then most of the "smarter" electronics stopped working.
- catchnear4321 4y ago
  A hardware toggle provided by the manufacturer would be a lot more respectful of the customer. That sort of respect would even get some subscriptions out of it. But that probably goes against the long term strategy for most places - that connection is for more, later. How hard was it to disconnect, out of curiosity. Not asking for anything identifying, just wondering if it required removing panels or was just a matter of reaching an arm in the right spot. Nice to know it can be done without anything too drastic.
- linster 4y ago
  "I've cut the antennas out of hardware that is part of a subscription software package I'm still paying for"
  - hombre_fatal 4y ago
    Why not write a reply with your voice instead of just trying to rephrase what they said?
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      They're not. They're quite obviously pointing out that cutting the antenna does nothing about the fact that the subscription is still bundled and active.
      - hombre_fatal 4y ago
        As the other two comments point out, you can have the equipment without the software activated. So their guess/"quote" makes an incorrect assumption. So, what value does it add? It seems to simply exist to make an assumption that makes the other HNer look bad.
doubled112 4y ago
GM gives customers no choice but to buy from another manufacturer to avoid subscription fees? Although I'm sure that won't last long either.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  Aslong as there are production issues in general they might get away with it.
- smnrchrds 4y ago
  How much longer until buying a new non-subscription car becomes like buying a new non-smart TV?
  - workshirt 4y ago
    There is some modularity there at least, I just got a fire tv for pretty cheap, but I never plan on letting it connect to the internet, instead I have a separate box which connects to my streaming apps. I feel like the situation with cara is worse.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    On star and subscription services has been available for my whole life (35 years). But there have always been alternatives without subscription services available. What would cause a change for alternatives to stop being available?
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      Even if there was no benefit from the data collected by the system to the manufacturer, they might still make it a default just because there are supply chain advantages to having a single unique design (with all the hardware & software for the "connected" bit) than maintaining a separate, non-connected SKU. But of course manufacturers also benefit from the data collection and functionality the "connected" bit offers such as DRM, etc, so why wouldn't they mandate it?
- pessimizer 4y ago
newaccount2021 4y ago
coreyp_1 4y ago
I don't want to re-type the story here, but I had a "fun" time getting OnStar to cancel the demo service when I purchased my pickup several years ago. Story is in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21816479#21826049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21816479#21826049).
nazgulsenpai 4y ago
The more I read about car subscriptions and the "connected" nature of current and upcoming vehicles the more inclined I am to keep my current car running until parts for it are literally unobtainable.
- nicbou 4y ago
  Same, and given the car I own, parts will not run out this century.
- prox 4y ago
  I wonder if we get new small manufacturers shops that build dumb vehicles.
  - gassiss 4y ago
    I'm hoping for this as well. It's probably going to be way more expensive than normal though, considering how efficient car manufacturing is and how hard it is for new players to get into (and the loss of revenue for not having "smart" features)
  - rtsil 4y ago
    I'm not aware of any dumb TV manufacturer after over a decade of smart TVs. I'm afraid the demand for dumb devices is simply not sustainable. People get accustomed to the new normal very quickly.
    - ReptileMan 4y ago
      Any TV is dumb if you cut off its internet access in the firewall. A car with a sim card requires a bit more.
      - carlivar 4y ago
        No, some still require a menu/GUI for something as simple as cycling inputs. LG, for example.
SkeuomorphicBee 4y ago
The USA really needs better consumer protection laws. In my country that would clearly be an illegal bundled sale and illegal bait and switch. If you advertise product A for X amount, then a customer with X amount in their pocket should be allowed to walk out with product A, any deviation from that should be illegal. (slightly off topic, but in my country consumer laws also mandate that sticker and advertised prices must be the final price including all taxes. The standard USA practice of stickers/adverts with pre-tax price is also absurdly anti-consumer).
- nervousvarun 4y ago
  Completely agree. A related question would be how does lobbying work in your country?
- bushbaba 4y ago
  The practice of not including sales taxes allows the government to raise sales tax without it impacting the inflation charts, and citizens recognizing the full impact to their wallet. Government gets more money this way
  - niek_pas 4y ago
    Why, then, do most US states have such laughably low sales tax rates, compared to e.g. the EU?
    - dboreham 4y ago
      Because most US states also have income tax.
      - sergiosgc 4y ago
        That's not it. EU countries have income tax.
      - andsoitis 4y ago
        As does the EU. So that doesn't explain it.
AndrianV 4y ago
GM customers must buy from another company to avoid subscription fees?
quantum_state 4y ago
This is yet another reason to stop buying from GM … and the regulator should step in.
mistrial9 4y ago
prediction -- round II of this leap of technology -- uniformed services and corporate employees get financial incentives, subsidies and "valuable network services" while those outside of that system pay increased costs and have fewer choices for repair and upgrades.
vishnugupta 4y ago
This is a tangent and I know there’s already a front page story on it but still couldn’t resist. By God the cars in the US are huge. About a decade or so back mostly pick ups were kinda big but now looks like the default size is pick up and it only gets bigger from there. Even Tesla model 3 for that matter is huge by Indian standards.
- draw_down 4y ago
  The market has spoken :)
- hbosch 4y ago
  Big roads, big cars.
- rubylark 4y ago
  I find it super frustrating. There's been leaps forward in fuel efficiency, but car manufacturers compensate by making trucks and SUVs bigger and heavier. The newer trucks can fit a third adult in the front seat comfortably. I hope the Ford Maverick is successful enough that more manufacturers start making "little" trucks again.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > I hope the Ford Maverick is successful enough that more manufacturers start making "little" trucks again. You hit the nail on the head. Manufacturers aren't forcing anybody to buy big trucks. They respond to demand. If people show enough demand for a tiny pickup like the Maverick, we'll see competition in the space.
    - jeromegv 4y ago
      Demand is partially driven by cheap gas. Cheap gas is subsidized by all kind of benefits provided to oil manufacturers, US international policy (ie: military), removing negative externality (increased insurance rate due to global warming) etc. So I'd say that this is an artificial demand that is driven by policy. If people paid the "true" price of this worldwide oil infrascture, I'd likely be more expensive and big trucks would not be chosen just to move your family around.
ajross 4y ago
The buried lede is that it's a three year subscription. Apparently OnStar is $500 a year?! For what amounts to a screen with a modem? Good grief.
- dboreham 4y ago
  The subscription is for the service, not the hardware.
  - ajross 4y ago
    What features of the OnStar service cost anywhere near $40/month to provide? Your phone does almost all of that for free already. The only sustaining cost is the mobile traffic. (For reference, Tesla's "premium connectivity" feature that provides YouTube and satellite imagery and remote camera streams and such is $10/month).
deleted 4y ago
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_fat_santa 4y ago
"GM gives customers no choice to opt out of a $1500 subscription, leaving them with an easy choice to opt out of the brand entirely"
- anonymousab 4y ago
  Requiring some ongoing subscription service for fundamental features will eventually be the status quo across the entire industry. There's simply too much money on the table to give up. In this case GM has taken the perplexing case of front loading the requirement at the initial purchase, but I suspect that it was easier and quicker to implement as a pseudo MSRP bait-and-switch increase than to create a more fleshed out scheme like we see with Toyota and BMW.
  - ospzfmbbzr 4y ago
    > fundamental features Fundamental features of a car are things like engine and tires. A mandatory tracking service is fundamental to an open air prison.
bee_rider 4y ago
Why not raise the price of the car by $1500 and then offer three "free" years of onstar?
- draw_down 4y ago
- Retric 4y ago
  Because then they would need to advertise a higher price.
phkahler 4y ago
“By including this plan as standard equipment on the vehicle, it helps to provide a more seamless onboarding experience and more customer value,” GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato told Automotive News in an email. That's some slick words for "Get people to pay for shit they don't want".
deleted 4y ago
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imglorp 4y ago
"I'm ready to sign! So how long can I expect this truck to serve me?" "National average is about 12 years" "Great so $1500 for 3 years is $6000, that's the stealth price hike. Take it off or give me a $6,000 discount."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ospzfmbbzr 4y ago
And in related news the value of old cars has never been higher. Government Motors can keep their junk cars and bundled spying service. “By including this plan as standard equipment on the vehicle, it helps to provide a more seamless onboarding experience and more customer value,” GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato told Automotive News in an email. What nauseating corporate speak. I'll translate: "We are forcing this grabage on our customers so we can drive up the price and remove their ability to opt out of our tracking and spying service," -- which is primed to be used to track driver movements and 'carbon' use (Lol!) and rat back to the nanny state. Just like every electric car.
atonse 4y ago
All these companies have gotten so fatted, full of a bunch of MBA jackasses with their excel sheets and bonuses. Do they actually give a damn about building cars people want, rather than squeezing another penny out of consumers to make wall street happy and increase their bonuses? While there's plenty to complain about with Tesla, they're the first company to have their kind of success (in the US at least) coming out of nowhere. We need more like that. Tesla also needs actual competition since they've been stagnating a lot.
- urthor 4y ago
  It's pretty established that GM stopped selling cars to the discerning value focused customer years ago. They're in it for the MBAs, and the truck/V8/admittedly luxury interiors buyers who GM does a passable job for. Not sure they have many legs to stand on.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > It's pretty established that GM stopped selling cars to the discerning value focused customer years ago. Eh, GM makes the Bolt. That is hard to beat on TCO.
- Spivak 4y ago
  > Do they actually give a damn about building cars people want, rather than squeezing another penny out of consumers to make wall street happy and increase their bonuses? No, of course not and that’s totally rational for them. Being mad at people for system’s problem is like being mad at a river for following the slope of the land. You don’t curse the river for destroying your house during high tide, you build a dam.
  - LadyCailin 4y ago
    If the river had free will, I would absolutely be mad at the river.
    - Spivak 4y ago
lettergram 4y ago
And the mandatory subscription for car services have arrived. Good, go out of business GM.
- cpursley 4y ago
  GM doesn't and never will "go out of business" as long as the USA remains a viable nation-state with military needs and financial ability to bail them out.
  - speed_spread 4y ago
    It's not socialism if it's not state-owned! We're just bailing them out because, uh, Jobs! Economy! Profit! Freedom!
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    In that case the US government should metaphorically grow some balls and buy it out next time they need a bailout.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      They can't do that, that's "socialism".
- ricardonunez 4y ago
  Did you see the BMW subscription seat's addon?
  - KeytarHero 4y ago
    As ridiculous as that is, it's not on the same level as GMC's mandatory subscription.
- shostack 4y ago
tomp 4y ago
It’s included in the sticker price. So what’s the news here?
- ARandomerDude 4y ago
  It helps if you read the article. > The $1,500 plan is listed on the window sticker as a separate line item along with other additions to the vehicle’s standard equipment, but there is no option to remove it or order the vehicle without it. Customers who decline to activate their OnStar service will not be given a price reduction, GM said.
  - tomp 4y ago
    Yes, the article is pretty clear. > It’s included in the manufacturer’s suggested retail price That's basically like complaining "what, I bought a car but the price for tires was listed separately, and they didn't let me buy the car without the tires!!!"
    - Macha 4y ago
      Because if they put on the car window: Car: €19999 Tires: €999 Just so they could have a main price tag under €20,000 while charging €21000, then they would also get complaints
sixstringninja 4y ago
Well you lost one customer
rootusrootus 4y ago
I am a little surprised how much press this is getting. They are just hiding an MSRP bump in a mandatory 'option'. A bit of an oxymoron for sure. They're not the first manufacturer to pull this stunt, for sure. RV manufacturers, for example, do exactly the same thing but on a far grander scale. I don't think OnStar is the noteworthy part. They've been putting OnStar on all their vehicles for years.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  it's more than just a price increase. it's a sky-rocketed, mandatory maintenance cost increase.
neogodless 4y ago
This has got to be a big competitive disadvantage, unless a lot of consumers cave at the dealership... or all the competitors pick up the same tactic. If you're comparing a GM vehicle to its competitor, you will not see price parity, as this $1500 "option" will show up on inventory web sites as part of the price (it already does now). In general, I don't want companies to fail, but I certainly want to see this strategy fail horribly. The automotive industry is huge because U.S. infrastructure demands having a car, and also because everyone wants to buy "just the right car" for themselves. But these GM luxury brands might struggle with a big price hike like this.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  unless a lot of consumers cave at the dealership And, they will. It was explained to me by a advertising buyer at a big regional auto dealership chain that the reason that auto dealers try so hard to get you onto their lot first is that in the vast vast vast majority of cases, if someone shows up in person, they're going to buy one of your cars. It's just up to the salesperson to figure out which one. He said the very small percentage of people who go from lot to lot are the sort of people who aren't worth the effort, anyway. Which, coincidentally, sounds very much like how the tech industry dismisses "edge cases" and people who need customer service because they aren't efficient and don't "maximize shareholder value." A large part of selling cars is about the brand, the brand's social image, and what owning a car of a particular brand means to the owner. It's why there are so many brand-loyal car clubs. It's why you find debutantes who only want BMWs. It why you find Appalachian dirt farmer who say "I only buy Chevy." If someone wants a Cadillac, they'll pay the extra $1,500 and pretend it doesn't exist because it's just $25/month hidden in a five-year contract. Personally, I've owned all kinds of cars. More than once when considering a new car, my co-workers have offered their advice. No matter who it was, the advice was always rooted in the same kind of jingoistic tribalism that infects politics and is the basis of professional sports. My brand is better than someone else's brand. Facts be damned. Here's my wallet.
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    At least my parents and I are the kind of people who aren't worth a salesman's time. Means we can look around for longer without them bothering us.
ilikenwf 4y ago
I ended up calling and having OnStar cancel my "trial" in my 2018 era truck in 2019, to the point I instructed them to disable the OnStar lights on the mirror and everything. This was a task as they're very annoying and persistent... Once that was done I originally pulled the daughterboard housing the entire modem but this bricked my compass and GPS. To keep those working I ended up altering the modem itself with a soldering iron per the pdf posted here: https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-with-any-4g-lte-sim-card.34865/ https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-wi... The guy there on that forum did so in an effort to use your own sim with the HMI, but using 0 ohm resistors or just solder bridging the relevant connections is enough to prevent my vehicle from getting online, but leaves the GPS intact. You can test by trying to make phone/onstar/data related actions - it just won't work. Another good measure is to remove one of the antenna leads, I forget which one is cellular primary, but the other is more GPS/aux. Doing it all this way allows you to still connect your vehicle to wifi should you so desire to, for updates and such. There are other secrets and tricks to these things, including a git repo I cloned that is now gone from the public internet, where a guy figured out how to solder an EMMC reader to a few points on the mainboard to get and modify the filesystem. Edit: here's a mirror https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git They really go out of their way to keep you from owning your vehicle. Also bought a device that lets me plug HDMI inputs into the truck, unfortunately some kind of refresh rate or resolution issue prevents it from working properly. As an aside, if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port, and used sticky tape to hide it somewhere - make sure to remove that once you're not financed through them as well (it is illegal to do so I believe before using alternative financing or paying it off).
- albrewer 4y ago
  > if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port ALL buy-here-[pay|finance]-here car dealerships put a GPS tracker in your car. Where it's located and how it's connected to your car's electrical system will vary, but they ALL do it using[0] companies[1] like[2] these[3]. [0] https://gpsandtrack.com/ https://gpsandtrack.com/ [1] https://www.spireon.com/gps-auto-tracking/ https://www.spireon.com/gps-auto-tracking/ [2] https://passtimegps.com/industries/franchise-car-dealerships/ https://passtimegps.com/industries/franchise-car-dealerships... [3] https://logistimatics.com/gps-trackers/car-dealers/ https://logistimatics.com/gps-trackers/car-dealers/
bastardoperator 4y ago
I got onstar with my Yukon, the subscription lapsed because I never sent them any money. The wifi hotspot though, I'm paying for that.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Pre internet-enabled vehicles are going to be the new gold.
- ravenstine 4y ago
  The only way I'm giving up mine is after I either drive it into the ground or crash it. I would love a more environmentally friendly vehicle but not at the expense of my ability to actually own things.
  - lopis 4y ago
    Depending on where you live, legislation will also eventually ban you from driving inside cities using ICE cars older than 10 years.
    - vuln 4y ago
      >inside cities And nothing was lost.
- driverdan 4y ago
  IMO the best vehicles are ones from the early to mid 2000's. They have OBD2 so they're easy to diagnose and tune but no unnecessary computer controls in everything, no touchscreens, parts are plentiful, issues are well known, and they're better built than earlier cars.
giantg2 4y ago
I never should have sold my 89 Caprice... actually buttons, paperclip diagnostics, couches for seats...
circa 4y ago
lol so dumb but I get it. I'm not surprised at all. This is the future model of a lot of things to come.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ilikenwf 4y ago
Cross posting from the other thread: I ended up calling and having OnStar cancel my "trial" in my 2018 era truck in 2019, to the point I instructed them to disable the OnStar lights on the mirror and everything. This was a task as they're very annoying and persistent... Once that was done I originally pulled the daughterboard housing the entire modem but this bricked my compass and GPS. To keep those working I ended up altering the modem itself with a soldering iron per the pdf posted here: https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-with-any-4g-lte-sim-card.34865/ https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-wi... The guy there on that forum did so in an effort to use your own sim with the HMI, but using 0 ohm resistors or just solder bridging the relevant connections is enough to prevent my vehicle from getting online, but leaves the GPS intact. You can test by trying to make phone/onstar/data related actions - it just won't work. Another good measure is to remove one of the antenna leads, I forget which one is cellular primary, but the other is more GPS/aux. Doing it all this way allows you to still connect your vehicle to wifi should you so desire to, for updates and such. There are other secrets and tricks to these things, including a git repo I cloned that is now gone from the public internet, where a guy figured out how to solder an EMMC reader to a few points on the mainboard to get and modify the filesystem. Edit: here's a mirror https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git They really go out of their way to keep you from owning your vehicle. Also bought a device that lets me plug HDMI inputs into the truck, unfortunately some kind of refresh rate or resolution issue prevents it from working properly. As an aside, if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port, and used sticky tape to hide it somewhere - make sure to remove that once you're not financed through them as well (it is illegal to do so I believe before using alternative financing or paying it off).
gonewest 4y ago
I used to have the similar service on a 2016 Volvo station wagon. But the radio module in that car is 3G, and because carriers have been discontinuing 3G Volvo cannot provide their service to my car. There was roughly 12 months when it was impossible to upgrade the radio in my older model car. Now the radio upgrade is customer-paid and optional. My point being, if they require the subscription I’d be careful to confirm the service is guaranteed regardless of the carriers and obsolete radios etc.
SavageBeast 4y ago
A product so valuable GM is now literally FORCING people to buy it. If I'm thinking correctly Car Play negates the need for anything OnStar does (that you might actually care about).
- xbar 4y ago
  As if I needed a reason to continue to avoid GM vehicles. I wish I wanted one.
- pdabbadabba 4y ago
  > GM is now literally FORCING people to buy it. I don’t mean to be pedantic but…they’re not forcing you to buy this any more than they’re forcing you to buy the rest of the car. You could always just buy a Ford instead.
- listenallyall 4y ago
  > Car Play negates the need for anything OnStar does I'm no fan of OnStar or forced subs. But can Car Play call 911 or the police if you are unconscious after a crash? Or prevent your car from being driven if you report it as stolen?
  - sneak 4y ago
    > But can Car Play call 911 or the police if you are unconscious after a crash? Crash detection isn't a thing in phones generally, but it's worth noting that all cellular devices, regardless of subscription/service status, can call 911 (even without a sim card). You don't need some subscription payment to do that.
    - dr_spicy 4y ago
      Maybe not generally, but it's starting to be a thing https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7055029?hl=en https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7055029?hl=en
    - listenallyall 4y ago
polski-g 4y ago
Smart people would be contacting their state legislators to ban this. Complaining on hacker news won't accomplish much.
- ziddoap 4y ago
  Thankfully, doing one of those things doesn't stop you from doing the other!
diogenescynic 4y ago
Another reason to not buy a GM. They make terrible vehicles as well, super poor reliability.
viscountchocula 4y ago
So what happens when you sell this car or buy one used? Who's on the hook for the subscription?
rejor121 4y ago
Boggle me. If I ever buy a car, I’m either gonna be so rich I’ll buy an Ferrari, or just buy a 90s fiat wagon. For now I’ll stick to my motorcycle.
jwally 4y ago
Maybe I'm dense, but; Why not just include it in the sticker price of the car? At a minimum for PR / Optics. You could argue: > Its like power steering. You don't have the option NOT to have it, and it costs us money; so its part of why the car costs what it does. That way instead of people feeling like they're being cheated out of an extra $1,500 on a $50,000 vehicle; they just purchase a $51,500 vehicle?
- xhkkffbf 4y ago
  They could do that and I'm sure they considered it. In the end, the consumer pays the same price. But I'm sure there are some internal accounting games going on. The $1500 is booked over the next three years, not all at once. So I'm guessing the accountants may have a plan.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Because Wall Street treats subscription revenue differently than one time income. So if they can put that $1500 on the books split up over three years as recurring subscription, that helps their stock price.
  - mwint 4y ago
    That feels so backwards… Does it have a root in reality? In my personal finance, I’d always rather have $1500 now than an IOU for $1500 over three years.
    - modzu 4y ago
      the idea is that you forget to unsubscribe and then pay much longer than 3 years
    - tomnipotent 4y ago
      > Does it have a root in reality? Predictability. Recurring subscription revenue is drastically easier to forecast and plan cash flow around, and the financial models can be so much simpler to work with than non-transactional sales.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
more_corn 4y ago
So it begins
natch 4y ago
US consumers seem to be in an abusive relationship with traditional car companies. I've heard that the latest thing is that when buying a car from a dealer you have to sign over power of attorney to them. Insane. Fortunately since they don't have dealers Tesla manages to be an exception to this power of attorney stuff; not needed or asked for, nothing even remotely close. Also they only charge $100 / year (totally optional) for LTE connectivity. And their mobile service including emergency roadside assistance is dirt cheap. Who would pay $1,500 for OnStar?
- sneak 4y ago
  > US consumers seem to be in an abusive relationship with traditional car companies. ...and ISPs, and retail banks, and apartment buildings, and ride-sharing services, and airlines... It's not broken; it's working as designed.
- the_pwner224 4y ago
  The power of attorney thing has been standard practice for ages. It's a limited power of attorney that just lets the dealership submit paperwork to the DMV & bank on your behalf. Nothing sketchy about it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  But it was Tesla that introduced this whole "software as a service" subscription thing in the auto industry.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
nottorp 4y ago
Is there any built in navigation in a car that can compete in ease of use and frequency of updates with a phone/tablet app?
dusted 4y ago
Car companies slowly realizing they can be leasing companies that produce their own vehicle fleet :)
Moldoteck 4y ago
At this point I am really wondering when massive shift to bikes/cargo bikes will happen? Like... it needs NO fuel or can be charged at home for electric ones, companies literally can't offer other subscription services aside from "free repair" for x$ a month, because bicycle is too simple... Maybe battery leasing, idk...? It doesn't need driver license to operate, if infrastructure is good, it can be much faster in the city and you don't need to pay a ton of taxes, in many situations you can repair it by yourself With electric cargo bikes/bakfiets a big chunk of car use-cases is gone, like buying groceries, moving light-medium objects, even take childs to school. For other 5% of use-cases, people can like... rent a car for a day or take taxi... I can't imagine how cheap this could be And for people that can't use them, there are tricycles, carts or duofiets Aaaaaand you can add a small bicycle trailer at the back, increasing further total capacity. Of course all this is possible with protected bike lanes AND at least decent public transport like buses AND bike parking. Car drivers will drive without encountering bicyclists and vice-versa, everyone happy, everyone safe, much less stress
- nicbou 4y ago
  I can see why. Cycling in Europe is fantastic, but cycling in North America is terrifying. I have a car and a motorcycle, but German bike routes are so nice that I still prefer the bike. I bike from the outskirts to the centre of Berlin on a dedicated bike path in nature. It's awesome! Canada has few such routes. You have to fight for a place on a wide, ugly boulevard lined with box stores, and the drivers take personal offence to your existence.
  - Moldoteck 4y ago
    yep, i can only imagine... I went recently to Switzerland... oh god, so many bikes, dedicated lanes, a ton of parking places inside and outside of buildings. I can imagine myself biking there, but where I live... it is still possible, but much harder(at least for now, but there are plans for improvement)
- parkingrift 4y ago
  EightSleep has a subscription service for a mattress. Bike companies will find a way, and consumers will gobble it up because we have no self control.

229 points by seitzej 4y ago

Also being discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425208

https://www.onstar.com/us/en/user_terms https://www.onstar.com/us/en/user_terms > 26. Data Collection / Privacy. GM collects, uses, and shares information from and about You and your Vehicle. The GM Privacy Statement describes what GM does with that information. You consent to the collection, use, and sharing of information described in the Privacy Statement and in any revisions to the Privacy Statement, which may be modified as described in that document. https://www.gm.com/privacy-statement https://www.gm.com/privacy-statement > We may collect information about you and your vehicle, such as name, address, email address, phone number, vehicle identification number (VIN) and vehicle performance data ... > We may share your information ... with our business partners. With OnStar, they now to track where you drive, how fast you drive, how you accelerate & brake, where you shop & eat, which friends you visit, what apps you use (over wifi), whether you text while driving, and what you listen to (over bluetooth). The value of this data is probably at least $20/mo per vehicle. GM probably sells this data directly to LiveRamp (formerly Acxiom) and other tracking companies.

josephcsible 4y ago

To be clear, it's mandatory to buy a 3-year subscription to be allowed to buy the car new. It's not required to maintain the subscription to use the car once you own it. This is equivalent to raising the MSRP by $1500 and including 3 years of a free OnStar subscription with every purchase. Viewed in that light, what's so bad about this?

ablerman 4y ago
It's mandatory tracking of your vehicle with remote disable. It's not just a walkie-talkie.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I daresay those features remain "active" even if you don't have an OnStar subscription active.
  - cbanek 4y ago
    They absolutely do (source, I know there's a sim card in there, they never take it out, it phones home, etc). You get the onstar reports, and can activate it any time using the active sim card. You can I think get into the box if you have tools, and pull out the sim though. I really want to hack that thing, so I can control the display! I'd love to be able to put linux on my car. And I deserve to. It's mine! I bought it! As long as it's still safe, why does it matter?
- fullstop 4y ago
  If I ran a fleet of work trucks I think that I'd want this if I could locate where my vehicles were. If it was a personal vehicle, I would not want it at all.
- catchnear4321 4y ago
  I’m adjusting my tinfoil hat as I type this, but can you even buy a recent non-commercial passenger vehicle without some data connection in hardware? Shoot, some even have WiFi hotspots now. And for those that don’t, there’s probably one or more cell phones in the cab. Probably some open airdrops even. So many e-flys down. The mandatory subscription doesn’t seem that shocking - that’s just a different flavor of hiding the total price. Wouldn’t be buying a car without that. (Should be.) The hardware though, this mandatory subscription just puts it in bold. Plenty of makes and models have the (sort of) hardware by default, you can take or leave the subscription and associated benefits. Please take it of course, but that hardware connection is installed either way. In case you change your mind! BMW is already trying to charge for warm butts. Gotta make that easy to toggle. Taking it to a shop for that “upgrade” is silly compared to OTA. It’s all silly, and far worse.
PaulHoule 4y ago
They used to run ads on TV about how OnStar promotes "safety". I wanted to make a parody where a white collar criminal is rushing to the hydrofoil in a GM vehicle and the police use OnStar turn the vehicle off remotely in the name of "safety".
- cbanek 4y ago
  And in reality, the "safety" they give isn't really that safe. The real feature is the ability to call the cops if you are in the car by yourself and passed out. That's it. If you can hit the button yourself, you can probably find your phone. If you never need it, then you never need it. And it's overpriced and monthly subscription at its finest. If it were at cost, I would go for it, because it does increase safety. But for what they sell as safety, it's not worth it. It probably matters for <1% of people. But they shove it down everyone's throat.
- userbinator 4y ago
  I wanted to make a parody where a white collar criminal is rushing to the hydrofoil in a GM vehicle and the police use OnStar turn the vehicle off remotely in the name of "safety". There's likely at least one dystopian sci-fi story with a similar event in its plot.
cbanek 4y ago
First off, I don't think that's true. I bought a new GM car with on star and I wasn't required to get it. But they did turn it on by default, and it was completely useless. Never used it. Not once. I also asked if it had turn by turn directions with a map and was told, "yes". I ask them to prove it, and we go for a test drive and the map and directions don't work. When told this, the sales person assured me, it would work when I bought the car, because it just doesn't work because the system isn't active yet. All of this was bullshit. I wouldn't have spent the extra money for the screen and backup camera and all that from the dealer if it didn't have the turn by turn with a map. So basically, the free market isn't free, I couldn't know what I was buying, and I was duped by the dealer in a real free market way. Second, even if true, I'm not sure it is legal? This kind of depends on FTC and anti trust law as well as contract terms. Did you know that onstar has curl in it? If you look in a GM manual, at the back they have all the licenses that contain all the licenses for free software they use. Who knows if they are actually following them. They could be running GPL for all we know and not sharing the code. That happens all the time, every day. Third, even if it is legal, I'm not sure people will stand for that kind of hidden price increase on a car these days. Every consumer is getting squeezed. They will notice this, and all the other little inflation gotchas that the companies are doing to try to milk the US consumer a little harder. But it's proving that the consumer this time isn't going to do it. And getting shafted to do it for so long tends to lead to regulation, which is the second point again. When the consumer is squeezed, regulation is almost always missing. From an economics perspective, they have the box in it tracking you the whole time if you buy it or not. So the cost of the box is really baked into the price of the car, not the subscription. If you turn off onstar they don't pull out the box or something. The box also has a sim card that is always active no matter what, so you can activate it again. So in essence, you've already paid for it in terms of the actual real cost, and now you have to pay a lot more for what amounts to a cell phone that can call 911 itself. The subscription is twice as much as just a normal cell phone. Probably 20x what it honestly needs to be. It really should be included as a normal safety feature of every car. The ability to call 911 after an accident. Same for the ability for the cops to shut down a car remotely. If you think this doesn't happen or can't, you're wrong. It's done already. Cars have governors on the fuel injectors to keep their speed down, but not limit power. It's usually illegal to remove them, because that changes the HP, and usually requires retitling the car. Sometimes this means you get pushed into a different class of car based on the HP which means different taxes. Now I believe that you should be able to modify your car how you want if you own it. It's yours. But we're heading into the car subscription model, where your car is basically going to cost you a dollar to turn it on soon just because we won't be able to stop it if all the car manufactures do it. So if we're going with the subscription model, why can't we cancel the criminals subscriptions without needing to chase them down and run them off the road, causing unnecessary road deaths and police deaths? Well, we just don't like it. Freedom, you know. But we're not free. We never really were. That's an illusion they give you, like a free lunch, where they charge you for the drinks.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
peeters 4y ago
> This is equivalent to raising the MSRP by $1500 and including 3 years of a free OnStar subscription with every purchase. Viewed in that light, what's so bad about this? For one, the latter is transparent about its pricing.
alistairSH 4y ago
This is equivalent to raising the MSRP by $1500 and including 3 years of a free OnStar subscription with every purchase. Viewed in that light, what's so bad about this? It's bad because it's duplicitous. GM advertises an SUV for $50k when it's really $51.5k. IMO, mandatory costs (tax, regulatory, or otherwise) should always be included in the normal retail price (or fee if we're talking subscription services).
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  >GM advertises an SUV for $50k when it's really $51.5k. ... you haven't shopped for a car recently, have you?
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    Lol. Yeah, just some round numbers, not actual pricing. I don't understand who's buying these new SUVs. I felt sick paying $42k for my Ridgeline and the Yukon and similar are >50% more expensive. Maybe I'm just frugal?
    - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      My point, which either was strongly-rejected or mis-perceived as snarky by readers, was more that manufacturer MSRPs for cars are certainly not now (nor have ever really been) anything more than initial anchoring points for price bargaining with dealerships, who are the actual sellers. Pricing power is with the dealers right now and so you see large markups over MSRP for "market adjustment". Three years ago, pricing power was more with buyers and no-one in their right mind would pay MSRP.
jjulius 4y ago
>This is equivalent to raising the MSRP by $1500 and including 3 years of a free OnStar subscription with every purchase. Viewed in that light, what's so bad about this? And if I would like to save that $1500 by waiving the 3-year free subscription? Do I have that option?
- brewdad 4y ago
  No. But you didn't in the old days when it wasn't broken out as a separate line item either.

jonfw 4y ago

Title is pretty misleading. This is only on certain models from those makes

theandrewbailey 4y ago
There's no guarantee that it will not be added to other models in the future. Because we're talking about a large corporation raising prices, there's no reason that a 2026 Chevy Malibu wouldn't have this. Shareholders would approve. My inner cynic says some slippery slopes are real.
- sybercecurity 4y ago
  I guess this depends on how well cars with mandatory subscriptions sell compared to before. If the number of sales goes up, or stays the same I would guess more manufacturers start doing this. And I'd say this is the slippery slope from smart home devices all requiring a subscription. Since everything "smart" requires backend infrastructure and cloud bills can't be paid for the entire lifecycle up front, get ready to see a lot of subscriptions added to things that didn't have it before.
- jonfw 4y ago
  That's a fair point, but it still doesn't make the title read accurately
jjulius 4y ago
... which is still pretty shitty.
- jonfw 4y ago
  I'm just saying that the headline reads different than the article, I'm not making a judgement on the contents of the article
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

LinuxBender 4y ago

I ran into this pricing a chevy duramax recently. On their site one can "build" a vehicle by customizing packages. I don't really know what this "build" process is for because at the end it just searches for dealers that have inventory with n out of x features one selected, or "request a quote" which is really the same thing. It's a very misleading process in my opinion. Anyway... I tried removing OnStar and the only way I could do that was to remove all the feaures I wanted and also needed. e.g. towing package, bigger engine, etc... The only way I could "build" one without Onstar was to have a bare-bones model with nothing else added. Ill try again in 5 years or so.

kube-system 4y ago
It searches inventory first because there’s no sense in ordering one to be built if there’s one sitting around already. “Request a quote” is a synonym for “because of dealer protection laws you can’t actually do anything on the website so now go talk to a dealer who can actually order one.”
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  no sense in ordering one to be built if there’s one sitting around already I think that's the catch. Given the number of customization options in the website, I would find it highly unlikely that there would be one already built with the options I selected, so I will always be guided down the path of working with a dealer.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    You have to work with a dealer no matter what. But in the "old days" (pre-Covid) you'd probably be surprised at how many vehicles were available with the options you want. I've been leasing my vehicles for a long time, and I've always been very specific in the options I want. I've never once had to order a vehicle to get what I wanted, the salesperson either had one on their lot or was able to find one nearby and trade for it.
  - kube-system 4y ago

isoprophlex 4y ago

"By including this plan as standard equipment on the vehicle, it helps to provide a more seamless onboarding experience and more customer value,” GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato told Automotive News in an email. "More customer value" clearly worth 125$/month. You're basically paying > 100 bucks a month for something that allows them to collect and sell your data to third parties. EDIT: as people mention in reply, I have absolutely zero reading comprehension skills and the fee is actually 1500 for three years not one. Still... I pay less for cellular service with near limitless data and voice.

PaulHoule 4y ago
If you don't make the payments do they turn off the ignition remotely until the repo man shows up?
- mannykannot 4y ago
  I am not completely sure, but it appears to be a one-time charge for an initial three-year subscription. I have no idea whether GM is also making some not-quite-essential but both simple and useful features only accessible with an ongoing subscription, but I have my opinion as to whether it will do so, if it is not doing so already. Plenty of other manufacturers do this.
- randomdata 4y ago
  Seems they do, more or less. I once had a GM vehicle where the OnStar system (not activated) would occasionally fail to turn off and drain the battery overnight. Although, once I discovered the source of the problem yanking the fuse made it go away.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jaywalk 4y ago
It's a three-year subscription, so it works out to $41.67/month. Still absurd though.

rachet 4y ago

When I had a vehicle with OnStar, I located where its antennae connected to the controller and disconnected it. The vehicle was fine, nothing else was impacted. It just couldn't communicate with anything anymore. I originally removed the power, but then most of the "smarter" electronics stopped working.

catchnear4321 4y ago
A hardware toggle provided by the manufacturer would be a lot more respectful of the customer. That sort of respect would even get some subscriptions out of it. But that probably goes against the long term strategy for most places - that connection is for more, later. How hard was it to disconnect, out of curiosity. Not asking for anything identifying, just wondering if it required removing panels or was just a matter of reaching an arm in the right spot. Nice to know it can be done without anything too drastic.
linster 4y ago
"I've cut the antennas out of hardware that is part of a subscription software package I'm still paying for"
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  Why not write a reply with your voice instead of just trying to rephrase what they said?
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    They're not. They're quite obviously pointing out that cutting the antenna does nothing about the fact that the subscription is still bundled and active.
    - hombre_fatal 4y ago
      As the other two comments point out, you can have the equipment without the software activated. So their guess/"quote" makes an incorrect assumption. So, what value does it add? It seems to simply exist to make an assumption that makes the other HNer look bad.

doubled112 4y ago

GM gives customers no choice but to buy from another manufacturer to avoid subscription fees? Although I'm sure that won't last long either.

rightbyte 4y ago
Aslong as there are production issues in general they might get away with it.
smnrchrds 4y ago
How much longer until buying a new non-subscription car becomes like buying a new non-smart TV?
- workshirt 4y ago
  There is some modularity there at least, I just got a fire tv for pretty cheap, but I never plan on letting it connect to the internet, instead I have a separate box which connects to my streaming apps. I feel like the situation with cara is worse.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  On star and subscription services has been available for my whole life (35 years). But there have always been alternatives without subscription services available. What would cause a change for alternatives to stop being available?
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Even if there was no benefit from the data collected by the system to the manufacturer, they might still make it a default just because there are supply chain advantages to having a single unique design (with all the hardware & software for the "connected" bit) than maintaining a separate, non-connected SKU. But of course manufacturers also benefit from the data collection and functionality the "connected" bit offers such as DRM, etc, so why wouldn't they mandate it?
pessimizer 4y ago

newaccount2021 4y ago

coreyp_1 4y ago

I don't want to re-type the story here, but I had a "fun" time getting OnStar to cancel the demo service when I purchased my pickup several years ago. Story is in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21816479#21826049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21816479#21826049).

nazgulsenpai 4y ago

The more I read about car subscriptions and the "connected" nature of current and upcoming vehicles the more inclined I am to keep my current car running until parts for it are literally unobtainable.

nicbou 4y ago
Same, and given the car I own, parts will not run out this century.
prox 4y ago
I wonder if we get new small manufacturers shops that build dumb vehicles.
- gassiss 4y ago
  I'm hoping for this as well. It's probably going to be way more expensive than normal though, considering how efficient car manufacturing is and how hard it is for new players to get into (and the loss of revenue for not having "smart" features)
- rtsil 4y ago
  I'm not aware of any dumb TV manufacturer after over a decade of smart TVs. I'm afraid the demand for dumb devices is simply not sustainable. People get accustomed to the new normal very quickly.
  - ReptileMan 4y ago
    Any TV is dumb if you cut off its internet access in the firewall. A car with a sim card requires a bit more.
    - carlivar 4y ago
      No, some still require a menu/GUI for something as simple as cycling inputs. LG, for example.

SkeuomorphicBee 4y ago

The USA really needs better consumer protection laws. In my country that would clearly be an illegal bundled sale and illegal bait and switch. If you advertise product A for X amount, then a customer with X amount in their pocket should be allowed to walk out with product A, any deviation from that should be illegal. (slightly off topic, but in my country consumer laws also mandate that sticker and advertised prices must be the final price including all taxes. The standard USA practice of stickers/adverts with pre-tax price is also absurdly anti-consumer).

nervousvarun 4y ago
Completely agree. A related question would be how does lobbying work in your country?
bushbaba 4y ago
The practice of not including sales taxes allows the government to raise sales tax without it impacting the inflation charts, and citizens recognizing the full impact to their wallet. Government gets more money this way
- niek_pas 4y ago
  Why, then, do most US states have such laughably low sales tax rates, compared to e.g. the EU?
  - dboreham 4y ago
    Because most US states also have income tax.
    - sergiosgc 4y ago
      That's not it. EU countries have income tax.
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      As does the EU. So that doesn't explain it.

AndrianV 4y ago

GM customers must buy from another company to avoid subscription fees?

quantum_state 4y ago

This is yet another reason to stop buying from GM … and the regulator should step in.

mistrial9 4y ago

prediction -- round II of this leap of technology -- uniformed services and corporate employees get financial incentives, subsidies and "valuable network services" while those outside of that system pay increased costs and have fewer choices for repair and upgrades.

vishnugupta 4y ago

This is a tangent and I know there’s already a front page story on it but still couldn’t resist. By God the cars in the US are huge. About a decade or so back mostly pick ups were kinda big but now looks like the default size is pick up and it only gets bigger from there. Even Tesla model 3 for that matter is huge by Indian standards.

draw_down 4y ago
The market has spoken :)
hbosch 4y ago
Big roads, big cars.
rubylark 4y ago
I find it super frustrating. There's been leaps forward in fuel efficiency, but car manufacturers compensate by making trucks and SUVs bigger and heavier. The newer trucks can fit a third adult in the front seat comfortably. I hope the Ford Maverick is successful enough that more manufacturers start making "little" trucks again.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > I hope the Ford Maverick is successful enough that more manufacturers start making "little" trucks again. You hit the nail on the head. Manufacturers aren't forcing anybody to buy big trucks. They respond to demand. If people show enough demand for a tiny pickup like the Maverick, we'll see competition in the space.
  - jeromegv 4y ago
    Demand is partially driven by cheap gas. Cheap gas is subsidized by all kind of benefits provided to oil manufacturers, US international policy (ie: military), removing negative externality (increased insurance rate due to global warming) etc. So I'd say that this is an artificial demand that is driven by policy. If people paid the "true" price of this worldwide oil infrascture, I'd likely be more expensive and big trucks would not be chosen just to move your family around.

ajross 4y ago

The buried lede is that it's a three year subscription. Apparently OnStar is $500 a year?! For what amounts to a screen with a modem? Good grief.

dboreham 4y ago
The subscription is for the service, not the hardware.
- ajross 4y ago
  What features of the OnStar service cost anywhere near $40/month to provide? Your phone does almost all of that for free already. The only sustaining cost is the mobile traffic. (For reference, Tesla's "premium connectivity" feature that provides YouTube and satellite imagery and remote camera streams and such is $10/month).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

_fat_santa 4y ago

"GM gives customers no choice to opt out of a $1500 subscription, leaving them with an easy choice to opt out of the brand entirely"

anonymousab 4y ago
Requiring some ongoing subscription service for fundamental features will eventually be the status quo across the entire industry. There's simply too much money on the table to give up. In this case GM has taken the perplexing case of front loading the requirement at the initial purchase, but I suspect that it was easier and quicker to implement as a pseudo MSRP bait-and-switch increase than to create a more fleshed out scheme like we see with Toyota and BMW.
- ospzfmbbzr 4y ago
  > fundamental features Fundamental features of a car are things like engine and tires. A mandatory tracking service is fundamental to an open air prison.

bee_rider 4y ago

Why not raise the price of the car by $1500 and then offer three "free" years of onstar?

draw_down 4y ago
Retric 4y ago
Because then they would need to advertise a higher price.

phkahler 4y ago

“By including this plan as standard equipment on the vehicle, it helps to provide a more seamless onboarding experience and more customer value,” GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato told Automotive News in an email. That's some slick words for "Get people to pay for shit they don't want".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

imglorp 4y ago

"I'm ready to sign! So how long can I expect this truck to serve me?" "National average is about 12 years" "Great so $1500 for 3 years is $6000, that's the stealth price hike. Take it off or give me a $6,000 discount."

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ospzfmbbzr 4y ago

And in related news the value of old cars has never been higher. Government Motors can keep their junk cars and bundled spying service. “By including this plan as standard equipment on the vehicle, it helps to provide a more seamless onboarding experience and more customer value,” GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato told Automotive News in an email. What nauseating corporate speak. I'll translate: "We are forcing this grabage on our customers so we can drive up the price and remove their ability to opt out of our tracking and spying service," -- which is primed to be used to track driver movements and 'carbon' use (Lol!) and rat back to the nanny state. Just like every electric car.

atonse 4y ago

All these companies have gotten so fatted, full of a bunch of MBA jackasses with their excel sheets and bonuses. Do they actually give a damn about building cars people want, rather than squeezing another penny out of consumers to make wall street happy and increase their bonuses? While there's plenty to complain about with Tesla, they're the first company to have their kind of success (in the US at least) coming out of nowhere. We need more like that. Tesla also needs actual competition since they've been stagnating a lot.

urthor 4y ago
It's pretty established that GM stopped selling cars to the discerning value focused customer years ago. They're in it for the MBAs, and the truck/V8/admittedly luxury interiors buyers who GM does a passable job for. Not sure they have many legs to stand on.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > It's pretty established that GM stopped selling cars to the discerning value focused customer years ago. Eh, GM makes the Bolt. That is hard to beat on TCO.
Spivak 4y ago
> Do they actually give a damn about building cars people want, rather than squeezing another penny out of consumers to make wall street happy and increase their bonuses? No, of course not and that’s totally rational for them. Being mad at people for system’s problem is like being mad at a river for following the slope of the land. You don’t curse the river for destroying your house during high tide, you build a dam.
- LadyCailin 4y ago
  If the river had free will, I would absolutely be mad at the river.
  - Spivak 4y ago

lettergram 4y ago

And the mandatory subscription for car services have arrived. Good, go out of business GM.

cpursley 4y ago
GM doesn't and never will "go out of business" as long as the USA remains a viable nation-state with military needs and financial ability to bail them out.
- speed_spread 4y ago
  It's not socialism if it's not state-owned! We're just bailing them out because, uh, Jobs! Economy! Profit! Freedom!
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  In that case the US government should metaphorically grow some balls and buy it out next time they need a bailout.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    They can't do that, that's "socialism".
ricardonunez 4y ago
Did you see the BMW subscription seat's addon?
- KeytarHero 4y ago
  As ridiculous as that is, it's not on the same level as GMC's mandatory subscription.
shostack 4y ago

tomp 4y ago

It’s included in the sticker price. So what’s the news here?

ARandomerDude 4y ago
It helps if you read the article. > The $1,500 plan is listed on the window sticker as a separate line item along with other additions to the vehicle’s standard equipment, but there is no option to remove it or order the vehicle without it. Customers who decline to activate their OnStar service will not be given a price reduction, GM said.
- tomp 4y ago
  Yes, the article is pretty clear. > It’s included in the manufacturer’s suggested retail price That's basically like complaining "what, I bought a car but the price for tires was listed separately, and they didn't let me buy the car without the tires!!!"
  - Macha 4y ago
    Because if they put on the car window: Car: €19999 Tires: €999 Just so they could have a main price tag under €20,000 while charging €21000, then they would also get complaints

sixstringninja 4y ago

Well you lost one customer

rootusrootus 4y ago

I am a little surprised how much press this is getting. They are just hiding an MSRP bump in a mandatory 'option'. A bit of an oxymoron for sure. They're not the first manufacturer to pull this stunt, for sure. RV manufacturers, for example, do exactly the same thing but on a far grander scale. I don't think OnStar is the noteworthy part. They've been putting OnStar on all their vehicles for years.

solarkraft 4y ago
it's more than just a price increase. it's a sky-rocketed, mandatory maintenance cost increase.

neogodless 4y ago

This has got to be a big competitive disadvantage, unless a lot of consumers cave at the dealership... or all the competitors pick up the same tactic. If you're comparing a GM vehicle to its competitor, you will not see price parity, as this $1500 "option" will show up on inventory web sites as part of the price (it already does now). In general, I don't want companies to fail, but I certainly want to see this strategy fail horribly. The automotive industry is huge because U.S. infrastructure demands having a car, and also because everyone wants to buy "just the right car" for themselves. But these GM luxury brands might struggle with a big price hike like this.

reaperducer 4y ago
unless a lot of consumers cave at the dealership And, they will. It was explained to me by a advertising buyer at a big regional auto dealership chain that the reason that auto dealers try so hard to get you onto their lot first is that in the vast vast vast majority of cases, if someone shows up in person, they're going to buy one of your cars. It's just up to the salesperson to figure out which one. He said the very small percentage of people who go from lot to lot are the sort of people who aren't worth the effort, anyway. Which, coincidentally, sounds very much like how the tech industry dismisses "edge cases" and people who need customer service because they aren't efficient and don't "maximize shareholder value." A large part of selling cars is about the brand, the brand's social image, and what owning a car of a particular brand means to the owner. It's why there are so many brand-loyal car clubs. It's why you find debutantes who only want BMWs. It why you find Appalachian dirt farmer who say "I only buy Chevy." If someone wants a Cadillac, they'll pay the extra $1,500 and pretend it doesn't exist because it's just $25/month hidden in a five-year contract. Personally, I've owned all kinds of cars. More than once when considering a new car, my co-workers have offered their advice. No matter who it was, the advice was always rooted in the same kind of jingoistic tribalism that infects politics and is the basis of professional sports. My brand is better than someone else's brand. Facts be damned. Here's my wallet.
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago
  At least my parents and I are the kind of people who aren't worth a salesman's time. Means we can look around for longer without them bothering us.

ilikenwf 4y ago

I ended up calling and having OnStar cancel my "trial" in my 2018 era truck in 2019, to the point I instructed them to disable the OnStar lights on the mirror and everything. This was a task as they're very annoying and persistent... Once that was done I originally pulled the daughterboard housing the entire modem but this bricked my compass and GPS. To keep those working I ended up altering the modem itself with a soldering iron per the pdf posted here: https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-with-any-4g-lte-sim-card.34865/ https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-wi... The guy there on that forum did so in an effort to use your own sim with the HMI, but using 0 ohm resistors or just solder bridging the relevant connections is enough to prevent my vehicle from getting online, but leaves the GPS intact. You can test by trying to make phone/onstar/data related actions - it just won't work. Another good measure is to remove one of the antenna leads, I forget which one is cellular primary, but the other is more GPS/aux. Doing it all this way allows you to still connect your vehicle to wifi should you so desire to, for updates and such. There are other secrets and tricks to these things, including a git repo I cloned that is now gone from the public internet, where a guy figured out how to solder an EMMC reader to a few points on the mainboard to get and modify the filesystem. Edit: here's a mirror https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git They really go out of their way to keep you from owning your vehicle. Also bought a device that lets me plug HDMI inputs into the truck, unfortunately some kind of refresh rate or resolution issue prevents it from working properly. As an aside, if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port, and used sticky tape to hide it somewhere - make sure to remove that once you're not financed through them as well (it is illegal to do so I believe before using alternative financing or paying it off).

albrewer 4y ago
> if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port ALL buy-here-[pay|finance]-here car dealerships put a GPS tracker in your car. Where it's located and how it's connected to your car's electrical system will vary, but they ALL do it using[0] companies[1] like[2] these[3]. [0] https://gpsandtrack.com/ https://gpsandtrack.com/ [1] https://www.spireon.com/gps-auto-tracking/ https://www.spireon.com/gps-auto-tracking/ [2] https://passtimegps.com/industries/franchise-car-dealerships/ https://passtimegps.com/industries/franchise-car-dealerships... [3] https://logistimatics.com/gps-trackers/car-dealers/ https://logistimatics.com/gps-trackers/car-dealers/

bastardoperator 4y ago

I got onstar with my Yukon, the subscription lapsed because I never sent them any money. The wifi hotspot though, I'm paying for that.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Pre internet-enabled vehicles are going to be the new gold.

ravenstine 4y ago
The only way I'm giving up mine is after I either drive it into the ground or crash it. I would love a more environmentally friendly vehicle but not at the expense of my ability to actually own things.
- lopis 4y ago
  Depending on where you live, legislation will also eventually ban you from driving inside cities using ICE cars older than 10 years.
  - vuln 4y ago
    >inside cities And nothing was lost.
driverdan 4y ago
IMO the best vehicles are ones from the early to mid 2000's. They have OBD2 so they're easy to diagnose and tune but no unnecessary computer controls in everything, no touchscreens, parts are plentiful, issues are well known, and they're better built than earlier cars.

giantg2 4y ago

I never should have sold my 89 Caprice... actually buttons, paperclip diagnostics, couches for seats...

circa 4y ago

lol so dumb but I get it. I'm not surprised at all. This is the future model of a lot of things to come.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ilikenwf 4y ago

Cross posting from the other thread: I ended up calling and having OnStar cancel my "trial" in my 2018 era truck in 2019, to the point I instructed them to disable the OnStar lights on the mirror and everything. This was a task as they're very annoying and persistent... Once that was done I originally pulled the daughterboard housing the entire modem but this bricked my compass and GPS. To keep those working I ended up altering the modem itself with a soldering iron per the pdf posted here: https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-with-any-4g-lte-sim-card.34865/ https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/internet-without-onstar-wi... The guy there on that forum did so in an effort to use your own sim with the HMI, but using 0 ohm resistors or just solder bridging the relevant connections is enough to prevent my vehicle from getting online, but leaves the GPS intact. You can test by trying to make phone/onstar/data related actions - it just won't work. Another good measure is to remove one of the antenna leads, I forget which one is cellular primary, but the other is more GPS/aux. Doing it all this way allows you to still connect your vehicle to wifi should you so desire to, for updates and such. There are other secrets and tricks to these things, including a git repo I cloned that is now gone from the public internet, where a guy figured out how to solder an EMMC reader to a few points on the mainboard to get and modify the filesystem. Edit: here's a mirror https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git https://repo.or.cz/bosch_hmi_hacking.git They really go out of their way to keep you from owning your vehicle. Also bought a device that lets me plug HDMI inputs into the truck, unfortunately some kind of refresh rate or resolution issue prevents it from working properly. As an aside, if you bought and financed through GM, they may have attached a secondary GPS/cell tracker to your OBD2 port, and used sticky tape to hide it somewhere - make sure to remove that once you're not financed through them as well (it is illegal to do so I believe before using alternative financing or paying it off).

gonewest 4y ago

I used to have the similar service on a 2016 Volvo station wagon. But the radio module in that car is 3G, and because carriers have been discontinuing 3G Volvo cannot provide their service to my car. There was roughly 12 months when it was impossible to upgrade the radio in my older model car. Now the radio upgrade is customer-paid and optional. My point being, if they require the subscription I’d be careful to confirm the service is guaranteed regardless of the carriers and obsolete radios etc.

SavageBeast 4y ago

A product so valuable GM is now literally FORCING people to buy it. If I'm thinking correctly Car Play negates the need for anything OnStar does (that you might actually care about).

xbar 4y ago
As if I needed a reason to continue to avoid GM vehicles. I wish I wanted one.
pdabbadabba 4y ago
> GM is now literally FORCING people to buy it. I don’t mean to be pedantic but…they’re not forcing you to buy this any more than they’re forcing you to buy the rest of the car. You could always just buy a Ford instead.
listenallyall 4y ago
> Car Play negates the need for anything OnStar does I'm no fan of OnStar or forced subs. But can Car Play call 911 or the police if you are unconscious after a crash? Or prevent your car from being driven if you report it as stolen?
- sneak 4y ago
  > But can Car Play call 911 or the police if you are unconscious after a crash? Crash detection isn't a thing in phones generally, but it's worth noting that all cellular devices, regardless of subscription/service status, can call 911 (even without a sim card). You don't need some subscription payment to do that.
  - dr_spicy 4y ago
    Maybe not generally, but it's starting to be a thing https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7055029?hl=en https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7055029?hl=en
  - listenallyall 4y ago

polski-g 4y ago

Smart people would be contacting their state legislators to ban this. Complaining on hacker news won't accomplish much.

ziddoap 4y ago
Thankfully, doing one of those things doesn't stop you from doing the other!

diogenescynic 4y ago

Another reason to not buy a GM. They make terrible vehicles as well, super poor reliability.

viscountchocula 4y ago

So what happens when you sell this car or buy one used? Who's on the hook for the subscription?

rejor121 4y ago

Boggle me. If I ever buy a car, I’m either gonna be so rich I’ll buy an Ferrari, or just buy a 90s fiat wagon. For now I’ll stick to my motorcycle.

jwally 4y ago

Maybe I'm dense, but; Why not just include it in the sticker price of the car? At a minimum for PR / Optics. You could argue: > Its like power steering. You don't have the option NOT to have it, and it costs us money; so its part of why the car costs what it does. That way instead of people feeling like they're being cheated out of an extra $1,500 on a $50,000 vehicle; they just purchase a $51,500 vehicle?

xhkkffbf 4y ago
They could do that and I'm sure they considered it. In the end, the consumer pays the same price. But I'm sure there are some internal accounting games going on. The $1500 is booked over the next three years, not all at once. So I'm guessing the accountants may have a plan.
jedberg 4y ago
Because Wall Street treats subscription revenue differently than one time income. So if they can put that $1500 on the books split up over three years as recurring subscription, that helps their stock price.
- mwint 4y ago
  That feels so backwards… Does it have a root in reality? In my personal finance, I’d always rather have $1500 now than an IOU for $1500 over three years.
  - modzu 4y ago
    the idea is that you forget to unsubscribe and then pay much longer than 3 years
  - tomnipotent 4y ago
    > Does it have a root in reality? Predictability. Recurring subscription revenue is drastically easier to forecast and plan cash flow around, and the financial models can be so much simpler to work with than non-transactional sales.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

more_corn 4y ago

So it begins

natch 4y ago

US consumers seem to be in an abusive relationship with traditional car companies. I've heard that the latest thing is that when buying a car from a dealer you have to sign over power of attorney to them. Insane. Fortunately since they don't have dealers Tesla manages to be an exception to this power of attorney stuff; not needed or asked for, nothing even remotely close. Also they only charge $100 / year (totally optional) for LTE connectivity. And their mobile service including emergency roadside assistance is dirt cheap. Who would pay $1,500 for OnStar?

sneak 4y ago
> US consumers seem to be in an abusive relationship with traditional car companies. ...and ISPs, and retail banks, and apartment buildings, and ride-sharing services, and airlines... It's not broken; it's working as designed.
the_pwner224 4y ago
The power of attorney thing has been standard practice for ages. It's a limited power of attorney that just lets the dealership submit paperwork to the DMV & bank on your behalf. Nothing sketchy about it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
But it was Tesla that introduced this whole "software as a service" subscription thing in the auto industry.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

nottorp 4y ago

Is there any built in navigation in a car that can compete in ease of use and frequency of updates with a phone/tablet app?

dusted 4y ago

Car companies slowly realizing they can be leasing companies that produce their own vehicle fleet :)

Moldoteck 4y ago

At this point I am really wondering when massive shift to bikes/cargo bikes will happen? Like... it needs NO fuel or can be charged at home for electric ones, companies literally can't offer other subscription services aside from "free repair" for x$ a month, because bicycle is too simple... Maybe battery leasing, idk...? It doesn't need driver license to operate, if infrastructure is good, it can be much faster in the city and you don't need to pay a ton of taxes, in many situations you can repair it by yourself With electric cargo bikes/bakfiets a big chunk of car use-cases is gone, like buying groceries, moving light-medium objects, even take childs to school. For other 5% of use-cases, people can like... rent a car for a day or take taxi... I can't imagine how cheap this could be And for people that can't use them, there are tricycles, carts or duofiets Aaaaaand you can add a small bicycle trailer at the back, increasing further total capacity. Of course all this is possible with protected bike lanes AND at least decent public transport like buses AND bike parking. Car drivers will drive without encountering bicyclists and vice-versa, everyone happy, everyone safe, much less stress

nicbou 4y ago
I can see why. Cycling in Europe is fantastic, but cycling in North America is terrifying. I have a car and a motorcycle, but German bike routes are so nice that I still prefer the bike. I bike from the outskirts to the centre of Berlin on a dedicated bike path in nature. It's awesome! Canada has few such routes. You have to fight for a place on a wide, ugly boulevard lined with box stores, and the drivers take personal offence to your existence.
- Moldoteck 4y ago
  yep, i can only imagine... I went recently to Switzerland... oh god, so many bikes, dedicated lanes, a ton of parking places inside and outside of buildings. I can imagine myself biking there, but where I live... it is still possible, but much harder(at least for now, but there are plans for improvement)
parkingrift 4y ago
EightSleep has a subscription service for a mattress. Bike companies will find a way, and consumers will gobble it up because we have no self control.