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If I choose to not activate their features I end up stuck with the cost of hosting their hardware. Those heated seats cost me money to transport, maintain and i

• reaperman 3y ago
  It may not be the case. The financials could be covered by the deferred revenue of expected subscription adoption. Perhaps heated car seats would normally cost an extra $1,200. If they predict a 50% adoption rate, they could charge $40/month (raised annually by inflation) and they'd get $2,400 from each subscriber over a 5-year ownership. This way the people who don't use the hardware don't pay for it, their unused hardware is paid for by those who do use it. If it functioned this way, I imagine some people would figure out how to hack the car to unlock these features without paying for them. I'd even be curious how illegal that would even be -- distributing software hacks might be prohibited by DMCA, but installing a switch that bypasses the infotainment OS entirely and directly connects the heated seats' resistive heating elements to 12V/48V rails or whatever surely wouldn't be in violation of any current laws.
  • soperj 3y ago
    > This way the people who don't use the hardware don't pay for it OP was saying they pay to cart it around the country.
  • rasz 3y ago
    >Perhaps heated car seats would normally cost an extra $1,200. how do you derive $1,200 from a ~$20 BOM change?
    • reaperman 3y ago
      Because generally, as a consumer, if I want to add a package which includes heated seats it seems to cost me about $600-1500. When I said "cost $1200" I meant "cost the consumer $1200" not "cost the manufacturer $1200".