4 ms·

As I said in other comments, this is already happening since years (and I mentioned Ford, but literally everyone else does it). Car manufacturers already give

by mk89 1y ago

As I said in other comments, this is already happening since years (and I mentioned Ford, but literally everyone else does it). Car manufacturers already give you the same powerful engine that you can't afford/don't want to buy and "shrink" it with SW. If you jailbreak it, you lose the warranty and bye bye insurance. You should not think that you're paying more for getting less. You should think that finally you can now enable more in your engine if you want to. Until today, you couldn't. You just had to know that your car is more powerful than the papers say and live with that.

AshamedCaptain 1y ago
That is not true, and even TFA points at why that can't be true: to your insurance, to vehicle taxes, etc. you declare the power _of the installed engine_, not of whatever software interlocks you, your tax advisor, or the manufacturer have decided to install on it. TFA already says the car is registered at the maximum power level regardless of the actual software cap. So you are _quite literally_ paying for it, at least in terms of increased insurance and taxes.
- tgaj 1y ago
  It is true, the performance of the engine depends on the version of the software - manufacturer declares that this engine with this software can achieve this maximum performance and the software can't be legally nad officially tuned or changed. Btw in my country tax depends on engine displacement so it doesn't really change anything.
  - AshamedCaptain 1y ago
    In most countries I know of (almost all of western EU), for electrical vehicles, you have to register the real maximum power output by the engine. If a software update allows you to increase that over the registered power, then you are in violation of motor vehicle codes and would need to a) pay a fine b) then update the registration, which is usually a $$$ process. If, like TFA, they register the power output as larger than the actual one in order to give room to these "unlocks", then you basically have a vehicle which can do less than what its registration says, which people tend to notice and riot about (you pay more taxes and insurance). In which country does the tax rate depend still only on volume?
    - mk89 1y ago
      You know that you can tune your engine right? And this is done with software that does ECU tuning. So in theory all cars are illegal? The issue is not that you can do it, the issue (as stated in the VW article) is how to update your car papers to reflect the changes. You do it illegally with your friends? You can't. VW does it through the subscription? (I guess) allowed. Don't ask me how, but when you buy such cars (with an engine that can support multiple configuration), you won't register your engine for something it is not. It's what's enabled to do. Simple example: you buy the ford ecoboost 1.0 100HPs. It won't be registered as the 150HPs model, although it's 100% the same hardware.
      - AshamedCaptain 1y ago
        > You know that you can tune your engine right? And this is done with software that does ECU tuning. So in theory all cars are illegal? You know that you CANNOT tune your engine, without going through your state's motor vehicle department, right ?? If the manufacturer tunes the ECU via whatever method and as consequence lowers/raises the power, good for him, but the final maximum power number is what will appear on the registration, and only in case of huge negligence can he change it afterwards on sold cars. > The issue is not that you can do it, the issue (as stated in the VW article) is how to update your car papers to reflect the changes. You do it illegally with your friends? You can't. VW does it through the subscription? (I guess) allowed. As I have repeated in literally each one of the 3 messages I have written in this thread: TFA clearly says the register the car for the maximum unlocked power level. Which means you _are literally paying for the maximum power even if you don't unlock it_, in terms of insurance and tax. > you buy the ford ecoboost 1.0 100HPs. It won't be registered as the 150HPs model, although it's 100% the same hardware. That's unsourced bullshit. I'm not familiar with Ford US cars, but Wikipedia clearly lists that the different models _are differently sized_. But, even if it was true, and software was used as in the interlock mechanism, Ford would have to register these engines as with their maximum, unlocked power, and that's something people tend to notice.
- mttch 1y ago
  Is this the same with EV though? The power of the installed engine is more nuanced, for example the full power is limited by software already to prevent wheel spin and improve range. Also, in the UK EVs are listed as a 0cc engine on the vehicle ownership records so effectively have no engine.
  - argiopetech 1y ago
    Effectively and technically. A motor is not an engine.
- mk89 1y ago
  It is unfortunately true and pretty much everyone does it. You should look it up [0] or talk to car mechanics. Ps: Just to be clear, it's not 1 engine type installed in all the cars from the same brand. It's more of a family type, to reduce costs. [0]: a 2016 (!!) article https://www.automotive-iq.com/powertrain/articles/engine-downsizing-and-the-future https://www.automotive-iq.com/powertrain/articles/engine-dow...
  - AshamedCaptain 1y ago
    That article says the opposite you're trying to say (it clearly says Ford uses physically different engines for different variations, just that the volume is no longer the comparable or even advertised metric). That engine volume, size (and other like metrics) no longer correlates with power has been a thing since the 1950s ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_horsepower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_horsepower ). Which is why since then the tax is not computed by size alone. It doesn't say about manufacturers using the same physical engine, and/or having software interlocks for engine power, which would imply that on paper (and on registration) you have an engine paid for X power that can only do Y (with Y < X). People would riot if they noticed such things, as like on what is claimed on TFA.
    - mk89 1y ago
      I got downsizing mixed up, you're right. We're talking about something I didn't look up for a while now, so in mind the downsizing was connected to the ability to resize the engine with software. While the downsizing was done for different reasons, the engine configuration can and is often provided through software. > One of the best-selling examples of ‘downsizing’ is Ford’s 1.0-litre EcoBoost petrol engine, which is available with outputs of 99bhp, 123bhp and 138bhp, meaning it effectively replaces 1.4, 1.6 and even some 1.8-litre engines from the past. > Other advances include the way the fuel is introduced into the engine, with powerful computers and software controlling fuel injection to the millisecond and allowing the engine to shut down in traffic where stop and start is fitted. They understood that with SW you can provide multiple configurations for the same engine. This I know for sure it's the case of Ford Ecoboost 1.0.
lurk2 1y ago
> Car manufacturers already give you the same powerful engine that you can't afford/don't want to buy and "shrink" it with SW. If you jailbreak it, you lose the warranty and bye bye insurance. What was the point of doing this prior to selling a subscription to unlock it?
- tgaj 1y ago
  To match the offer to the market - if the base engine is more powerful than the market standard at a given price then you can lower the power because the customer will not choose another car on that basis anyway. And you can take more money from enthusiasts.
  - lurk2 1y ago
    So if I’m understanding you correctly, the play here is: 1) Build engine with $market_leading_horsepower. 2) Throttle engine so that base models of a car have $market_leading_horsepower - $throttle_amount. 3) Price discrimination for enthusiasts removes the throttling back to the original $market_leading_horsepower while also saving the effort of having to design a faster engine. Is there no extra cost associated with machining the faster engine? That is, would manufacturing a slower engine for the base model not be any cheaper than just building the fastest engine they can into all models?
    - sbarre 1y ago
      > Is there no extra cost associated with machining the faster engine? There probably is but it's much less than the cost of having different engines for different performance specs of the same model of car (which is very common).
    - barrkel 1y ago
      Done right, a more powerful engine needs uprating of a bunch of other components - clutch, brakes, suspension, tyre profile, cooling, exhaust, air intake and so on. Almost certainly not a big deal with a 10% bump, but if it was a big bump, costs could be saved elsewhere in a less powerful vehicle.
Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
> You should not think that you're paying more for getting less. You should think that finally you can now enable more in your engine if you want to. Until today, you couldn't. I can think the way I want to think. I'm not going to pretend that I'm not paying more and getting less when that is what's happening! > You just had to know that your car is more powerful than the papers say and live with that. Or I voice my opposition to this sort of bullshit in the hopes that enough like-minded people can gather enough force to make it change for the better.
- mk89 1y ago
  From a manufacturer perspective it costs less to produce and test 1 engine type than 5. So it's questionable to me that you believe you're paying more. You're just getting better hardware, but it doesn't mean it would be cheaper it it was specifically crafted for your needs. (= I buy 100HP and my engine supports only 100HPs).
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
    In this sort of case my needs would be something like 'at least 100HP'. Then someone says we have this 150HP engine here that costs $X and we are going to charge you $X+markup for it (if they sold less than $X they would go out of business so for sure I will be paying for the full cost of the engine plus a mark-up). I say that's great, its better than my minimum requirements. Then they say, 'well actually, we are willfully sabotaging this engine with software so that it will never ever give you more than the minimum, but are still charging you for the full cost of its manufacture plus markup'. And I say, why would you deliberately make my engine worse. Just let me use it the way I want. And they say, because by sabotaging your engine we can make other people pay even more markup for the same engine. It's the philosophy that instead of charging more for making something better, we charge more for not making it worse. Like the mafia would charge you money to not bomb your small business.
    - pythonaut_16 1y ago
      It seems you're thinking of the "full cost of the engine" as like material + labor to produce 1 engine. So profit vs loss is equivalent to whether you pay more or less than the unit cost of 1 engine. Car manufacturer thinks of the cost of the engine as something like research + development + testing + sourcing + manufacturing lines + materials for all engines produced + labor for all engines produced. So for the manufacturer profits are total revenue of units sold minus total costs. To maximize profits they need to identify market segments and figure out the best way to sell into them, in some cases by selling one physical model at different price points. If a manufacturer only targeted your market segment with a model you wouldn't get a cheaper car, you'd most likely get roughly the same car for the same price. (Ignoring design/feature compromises made to try to address one model to multiple market segments) Not that I agree with VW or holding features behind a subscription. Just that we can understand the unit economics of why. And anyway subscriptions for hardware features are a different matter entirely.
Melatonic 1y ago
What cars is this true for and does it include all insurances ?
- dfxm12 1y ago
  I was into sports cars more in the 90s, so my knowledge of this stuff today isn't great, but I mean it was at least true of most sports cars. Most famously the Nissan Skyline R34. The RB26DETT engine is known to have been under-tuned from the factory. You can get so much more horsepower out of it.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    This was the whole point of the grease monkey scene starting back in the 50s. You take the car from the dealer, and then start adding, tweaking to get every last bit of power from it. Take a set of twin single barrel carbs off to be replaced with a single four barrel. Add a better set of manifolds. Add better __________. Once computers were introduced for air/fuel mixing, fuel injection, and any of the other things it can do, there have been shops that specialize in tuning them to max out performance. Just watch any show on your favorite streaming platform about building/enhancing cars.
  - tmerc 1y ago
    That's different. Look up the gentleman's agreement for why, but every Japanese car from that era had 276hp on paper. The supra had close to 320 as sold. The skyline had a marked boost controller hose that you could remove part of and turn up boost for more power. None of this was to sell a higher power variant using the same parts but software locked. It was all to secretly continue the horsepower war while publicly sticking to the agreed limits.
- delta_p_delta_x 1y ago
  It's true of all 'sub-models' of a given make and model. Consider the BMW G20 3-series petrol cars. Essentially all trims except the M340i have twin-turbo 2-litre inline-4 B48 engines. The engine output is tuned by the engine control unit (ECU, which is a bit of software running on an embedded computer) depending on the trim: 318i gets 115 kW, 320i is 125 kW, 330i is 190 kW. There are occasional hardware differences—typically the intake manifolds, radiators, and maybe belts, but the engine block is exactly the same across these trims—they're all B48. This is public knowledge; there is a detailed table on Wikipedia[1]. Engine 'tuning' is exactly tweaking numbers in the ECU. A stage 1 tune could involve mapping a 318i to a 320i or better without even popping the bonnet; just a laptop plugged into the OBD2 port above the driver's foot rest. Naturally, as mentioned by others, some of these tunes are less than legal, because the price, road tax, and other legalese surrounding motor vehicles are determined by the performance and fuel economy of the vehicle from the factory. A car is so computerised that nowadays there are plug-in 'chip tuners' that remap the ECU signals on-the-fly and just-in-time, and can be removed before inspections. It's not dissimilar to overclocking computer chips. This applies across all car makes, not just BMW and not even just European ones. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_3_Series_(G20)#Petrol_engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_3_Series_(G20)#Petrol_engi...
Buttons840 1y ago
How can companies get away with doing extra work to make their products worse in a market with healthy competition? What does it mean when things that happen in a competitive market aren't happening?
- GuB-42 1y ago
  They are doing less work. Designing a lower performance engine is harder and more expensive than producing more of the higher performance engine and limiting it. It works in the market because sellers sellers want to charge as much as buyers are ready to pay. People who want a powerful engine are ready to pay more, so make them pay more. The limited power option is sold at a lower but still profitable margin to those who don't want to pay for the extra. Market segmentation like this is seen everywhere. It is just that the subscription thing makes it particularly obvious.
  - Buttons840 1y ago
    Artificially limiting the engine is the extra work. In a competitive market artificial limitations would mean that you lose to a competitor. I should tell my personal background here: Half of what I'm arguing against is my own personal experience of having people tell me that free market competition rewards those who offer the best product at the lowest price. I'm saying this is a counter-example; and, yeah, I agree with you that similar counter-examples are seen everywhere.
    - nikau 1y ago
      Is hardly extra work, just a tune to reduce bust. From manufacturer point of view it makes sense, less boost is less stress on engine and less warranty claims.
      - Buttons840 1y ago
        We're talking about paid subscriptions here though, setting all that up is extra work.
snypher 1y ago
I'd like to know specific examples of what you are referencing. I don't believe you have the correct interpretation of this.
DennisP 1y ago
Generally you don't have to lose your insurance just because you modify your car. You just have to let them know you're doing it, and probably pay a little more.
monooso 1y ago
> You should not think that you're paying more for getting less. You're paying more for something that you're not allowed to use.
- RaftPeople 1y ago
  > You're paying more for something that you're not allowed to use. You only pay more if you want the extra capability, otherwise you pay less than what the person paid that did want the extra capability.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    Even if you don't pay the unlock, you're paying for the locked hardware.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
altairprime 1y ago
Insurance does not necessarily stop insuring modified cars. They do, however, require you to detail in depth your modifications and request a revised estimate of them. If your modification is “downloaded an Internet program and ran it to break the ECU lock”, they may be uncomfortable and either raise your premium or ask you to find another insurer. If instead it is “applied the attached two-byte change to the manufacturer-issued software after tracing all associated uses and determining that it exclusively activates a manufacturer-offered feature for the vehicle that is legal in my insured region(s)”, they’re probably not going to change your premium at all. Their job is to charge you a fee for the risk you pose to them, and the more effort you show in documenting and mitigating the risks of your mods, the more likely they are to be cool about it.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Insurance in the US DGAF, you just can't come to them later when a tree falls on it saying it ought to be worth more because of your sick modz. I assume Europe is way worse and that you can't even change tire/rim size without permission.
  - altairprime 1y ago
    It varies per region, whether you’re increasing body dimensions or power and by how much, and if you’re prepared to install a roll cage (look up Lithuania’s rules!).
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    More accurately, in the US they might or might not care. When you make a claim they might choose to investigate and they could deny your claim if they think it's ultimately your fault. You can also choose to ask them for permission in advance but that's (usually, AFAIU) entirely optional.
tarsinge 1y ago
If you’re talking about limiting the power through ECU it can be interesting for engine longevity. If I’m buying used I’d avoid the typical downsized turbo engine pushed to its limit and prefer the artificially limited one as it’ll have prevented the previous owners to have wear it out too much.

by mk89 1y ago

AshamedCaptain 1y ago

That is not true, and even TFA points at why that can't be true: to your insurance, to vehicle taxes, etc. you declare the power _of the installed engine_, not of whatever software interlocks you, your tax advisor, or the manufacturer have decided to install on it. TFA already says the car is registered at the maximum power level regardless of the actual software cap. So you are _quite literally_ paying for it, at least in terms of increased insurance and taxes.

tgaj 1y ago
It is true, the performance of the engine depends on the version of the software - manufacturer declares that this engine with this software can achieve this maximum performance and the software can't be legally nad officially tuned or changed. Btw in my country tax depends on engine displacement so it doesn't really change anything.
- AshamedCaptain 1y ago
  In most countries I know of (almost all of western EU), for electrical vehicles, you have to register the real maximum power output by the engine. If a software update allows you to increase that over the registered power, then you are in violation of motor vehicle codes and would need to a) pay a fine b) then update the registration, which is usually a $$$ process. If, like TFA, they register the power output as larger than the actual one in order to give room to these "unlocks", then you basically have a vehicle which can do less than what its registration says, which people tend to notice and riot about (you pay more taxes and insurance). In which country does the tax rate depend still only on volume?
  - mk89 1y ago
    You know that you can tune your engine right? And this is done with software that does ECU tuning. So in theory all cars are illegal? The issue is not that you can do it, the issue (as stated in the VW article) is how to update your car papers to reflect the changes. You do it illegally with your friends? You can't. VW does it through the subscription? (I guess) allowed. Don't ask me how, but when you buy such cars (with an engine that can support multiple configuration), you won't register your engine for something it is not. It's what's enabled to do. Simple example: you buy the ford ecoboost 1.0 100HPs. It won't be registered as the 150HPs model, although it's 100% the same hardware.
    - AshamedCaptain 1y ago
      > You know that you can tune your engine right? And this is done with software that does ECU tuning. So in theory all cars are illegal? You know that you CANNOT tune your engine, without going through your state's motor vehicle department, right ?? If the manufacturer tunes the ECU via whatever method and as consequence lowers/raises the power, good for him, but the final maximum power number is what will appear on the registration, and only in case of huge negligence can he change it afterwards on sold cars. > The issue is not that you can do it, the issue (as stated in the VW article) is how to update your car papers to reflect the changes. You do it illegally with your friends? You can't. VW does it through the subscription? (I guess) allowed. As I have repeated in literally each one of the 3 messages I have written in this thread: TFA clearly says the register the car for the maximum unlocked power level. Which means you _are literally paying for the maximum power even if you don't unlock it_, in terms of insurance and tax. > you buy the ford ecoboost 1.0 100HPs. It won't be registered as the 150HPs model, although it's 100% the same hardware. That's unsourced bullshit. I'm not familiar with Ford US cars, but Wikipedia clearly lists that the different models _are differently sized_. But, even if it was true, and software was used as in the interlock mechanism, Ford would have to register these engines as with their maximum, unlocked power, and that's something people tend to notice.
mttch 1y ago
Is this the same with EV though? The power of the installed engine is more nuanced, for example the full power is limited by software already to prevent wheel spin and improve range. Also, in the UK EVs are listed as a 0cc engine on the vehicle ownership records so effectively have no engine.
- argiopetech 1y ago
  Effectively and technically. A motor is not an engine.
mk89 1y ago
It is unfortunately true and pretty much everyone does it. You should look it up [0] or talk to car mechanics. Ps: Just to be clear, it's not 1 engine type installed in all the cars from the same brand. It's more of a family type, to reduce costs. [0]: a 2016 (!!) article https://www.automotive-iq.com/powertrain/articles/engine-downsizing-and-the-future https://www.automotive-iq.com/powertrain/articles/engine-dow...
- AshamedCaptain 1y ago
  That article says the opposite you're trying to say (it clearly says Ford uses physically different engines for different variations, just that the volume is no longer the comparable or even advertised metric). That engine volume, size (and other like metrics) no longer correlates with power has been a thing since the 1950s ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_horsepower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_horsepower ). Which is why since then the tax is not computed by size alone. It doesn't say about manufacturers using the same physical engine, and/or having software interlocks for engine power, which would imply that on paper (and on registration) you have an engine paid for X power that can only do Y (with Y < X). People would riot if they noticed such things, as like on what is claimed on TFA.
  - mk89 1y ago
    I got downsizing mixed up, you're right. We're talking about something I didn't look up for a while now, so in mind the downsizing was connected to the ability to resize the engine with software. While the downsizing was done for different reasons, the engine configuration can and is often provided through software. > One of the best-selling examples of ‘downsizing’ is Ford’s 1.0-litre EcoBoost petrol engine, which is available with outputs of 99bhp, 123bhp and 138bhp, meaning it effectively replaces 1.4, 1.6 and even some 1.8-litre engines from the past. > Other advances include the way the fuel is introduced into the engine, with powerful computers and software controlling fuel injection to the millisecond and allowing the engine to shut down in traffic where stop and start is fitted. They understood that with SW you can provide multiple configurations for the same engine. This I know for sure it's the case of Ford Ecoboost 1.0.

lurk2 1y ago

> Car manufacturers already give you the same powerful engine that you can't afford/don't want to buy and "shrink" it with SW. If you jailbreak it, you lose the warranty and bye bye insurance. What was the point of doing this prior to selling a subscription to unlock it?

tgaj 1y ago
To match the offer to the market - if the base engine is more powerful than the market standard at a given price then you can lower the power because the customer will not choose another car on that basis anyway. And you can take more money from enthusiasts.
- lurk2 1y ago
  So if I’m understanding you correctly, the play here is: 1) Build engine with $market_leading_horsepower. 2) Throttle engine so that base models of a car have $market_leading_horsepower - $throttle_amount. 3) Price discrimination for enthusiasts removes the throttling back to the original $market_leading_horsepower while also saving the effort of having to design a faster engine. Is there no extra cost associated with machining the faster engine? That is, would manufacturing a slower engine for the base model not be any cheaper than just building the fastest engine they can into all models?
  - sbarre 1y ago
    > Is there no extra cost associated with machining the faster engine? There probably is but it's much less than the cost of having different engines for different performance specs of the same model of car (which is very common).
  - barrkel 1y ago
    Done right, a more powerful engine needs uprating of a bunch of other components - clutch, brakes, suspension, tyre profile, cooling, exhaust, air intake and so on. Almost certainly not a big deal with a 10% bump, but if it was a big bump, costs could be saved elsewhere in a less powerful vehicle.

Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago

> You should not think that you're paying more for getting less. You should think that finally you can now enable more in your engine if you want to. Until today, you couldn't. I can think the way I want to think. I'm not going to pretend that I'm not paying more and getting less when that is what's happening! > You just had to know that your car is more powerful than the papers say and live with that. Or I voice my opposition to this sort of bullshit in the hopes that enough like-minded people can gather enough force to make it change for the better.

mk89 1y ago
From a manufacturer perspective it costs less to produce and test 1 engine type than 5. So it's questionable to me that you believe you're paying more. You're just getting better hardware, but it doesn't mean it would be cheaper it it was specifically crafted for your needs. (= I buy 100HP and my engine supports only 100HPs).
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
  In this sort of case my needs would be something like 'at least 100HP'. Then someone says we have this 150HP engine here that costs $X and we are going to charge you $X+markup for it (if they sold less than $X they would go out of business so for sure I will be paying for the full cost of the engine plus a mark-up). I say that's great, its better than my minimum requirements. Then they say, 'well actually, we are willfully sabotaging this engine with software so that it will never ever give you more than the minimum, but are still charging you for the full cost of its manufacture plus markup'. And I say, why would you deliberately make my engine worse. Just let me use it the way I want. And they say, because by sabotaging your engine we can make other people pay even more markup for the same engine. It's the philosophy that instead of charging more for making something better, we charge more for not making it worse. Like the mafia would charge you money to not bomb your small business.
  - pythonaut_16 1y ago
    It seems you're thinking of the "full cost of the engine" as like material + labor to produce 1 engine. So profit vs loss is equivalent to whether you pay more or less than the unit cost of 1 engine. Car manufacturer thinks of the cost of the engine as something like research + development + testing + sourcing + manufacturing lines + materials for all engines produced + labor for all engines produced. So for the manufacturer profits are total revenue of units sold minus total costs. To maximize profits they need to identify market segments and figure out the best way to sell into them, in some cases by selling one physical model at different price points. If a manufacturer only targeted your market segment with a model you wouldn't get a cheaper car, you'd most likely get roughly the same car for the same price. (Ignoring design/feature compromises made to try to address one model to multiple market segments) Not that I agree with VW or holding features behind a subscription. Just that we can understand the unit economics of why. And anyway subscriptions for hardware features are a different matter entirely.

Melatonic 1y ago

What cars is this true for and does it include all insurances ?

dfxm12 1y ago
I was into sports cars more in the 90s, so my knowledge of this stuff today isn't great, but I mean it was at least true of most sports cars. Most famously the Nissan Skyline R34. The RB26DETT engine is known to have been under-tuned from the factory. You can get so much more horsepower out of it.
- dylan604 1y ago
  This was the whole point of the grease monkey scene starting back in the 50s. You take the car from the dealer, and then start adding, tweaking to get every last bit of power from it. Take a set of twin single barrel carbs off to be replaced with a single four barrel. Add a better set of manifolds. Add better __________. Once computers were introduced for air/fuel mixing, fuel injection, and any of the other things it can do, there have been shops that specialize in tuning them to max out performance. Just watch any show on your favorite streaming platform about building/enhancing cars.
- tmerc 1y ago
  That's different. Look up the gentleman's agreement for why, but every Japanese car from that era had 276hp on paper. The supra had close to 320 as sold. The skyline had a marked boost controller hose that you could remove part of and turn up boost for more power. None of this was to sell a higher power variant using the same parts but software locked. It was all to secretly continue the horsepower war while publicly sticking to the agreed limits.
delta_p_delta_x 1y ago
It's true of all 'sub-models' of a given make and model. Consider the BMW G20 3-series petrol cars. Essentially all trims except the M340i have twin-turbo 2-litre inline-4 B48 engines. The engine output is tuned by the engine control unit (ECU, which is a bit of software running on an embedded computer) depending on the trim: 318i gets 115 kW, 320i is 125 kW, 330i is 190 kW. There are occasional hardware differences—typically the intake manifolds, radiators, and maybe belts, but the engine block is exactly the same across these trims—they're all B48. This is public knowledge; there is a detailed table on Wikipedia[1]. Engine 'tuning' is exactly tweaking numbers in the ECU. A stage 1 tune could involve mapping a 318i to a 320i or better without even popping the bonnet; just a laptop plugged into the OBD2 port above the driver's foot rest. Naturally, as mentioned by others, some of these tunes are less than legal, because the price, road tax, and other legalese surrounding motor vehicles are determined by the performance and fuel economy of the vehicle from the factory. A car is so computerised that nowadays there are plug-in 'chip tuners' that remap the ECU signals on-the-fly and just-in-time, and can be removed before inspections. It's not dissimilar to overclocking computer chips. This applies across all car makes, not just BMW and not even just European ones. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_3_Series_(G20)#Petrol_engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_3_Series_(G20)#Petrol_engi...

Buttons840 1y ago

How can companies get away with doing extra work to make their products worse in a market with healthy competition? What does it mean when things that happen in a competitive market aren't happening?

GuB-42 1y ago
They are doing less work. Designing a lower performance engine is harder and more expensive than producing more of the higher performance engine and limiting it. It works in the market because sellers sellers want to charge as much as buyers are ready to pay. People who want a powerful engine are ready to pay more, so make them pay more. The limited power option is sold at a lower but still profitable margin to those who don't want to pay for the extra. Market segmentation like this is seen everywhere. It is just that the subscription thing makes it particularly obvious.
- Buttons840 1y ago
  Artificially limiting the engine is the extra work. In a competitive market artificial limitations would mean that you lose to a competitor. I should tell my personal background here: Half of what I'm arguing against is my own personal experience of having people tell me that free market competition rewards those who offer the best product at the lowest price. I'm saying this is a counter-example; and, yeah, I agree with you that similar counter-examples are seen everywhere.
  - nikau 1y ago
    Is hardly extra work, just a tune to reduce bust. From manufacturer point of view it makes sense, less boost is less stress on engine and less warranty claims.
    - Buttons840 1y ago
      We're talking about paid subscriptions here though, setting all that up is extra work.

snypher 1y ago

I'd like to know specific examples of what you are referencing. I don't believe you have the correct interpretation of this.

DennisP 1y ago

Generally you don't have to lose your insurance just because you modify your car. You just have to let them know you're doing it, and probably pay a little more.

monooso 1y ago

> You should not think that you're paying more for getting less. You're paying more for something that you're not allowed to use.

RaftPeople 1y ago
> You're paying more for something that you're not allowed to use. You only pay more if you want the extra capability, otherwise you pay less than what the person paid that did want the extra capability.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  Even if you don't pay the unlock, you're paying for the locked hardware.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

altairprime 1y ago

Insurance does not necessarily stop insuring modified cars. They do, however, require you to detail in depth your modifications and request a revised estimate of them. If your modification is “downloaded an Internet program and ran it to break the ECU lock”, they may be uncomfortable and either raise your premium or ask you to find another insurer. If instead it is “applied the attached two-byte change to the manufacturer-issued software after tracing all associated uses and determining that it exclusively activates a manufacturer-offered feature for the vehicle that is legal in my insured region(s)”, they’re probably not going to change your premium at all. Their job is to charge you a fee for the risk you pose to them, and the more effort you show in documenting and mitigating the risks of your mods, the more likely they are to be cool about it.

potato3732842 1y ago
Insurance in the US DGAF, you just can't come to them later when a tree falls on it saying it ought to be worth more because of your sick modz. I assume Europe is way worse and that you can't even change tire/rim size without permission.
- altairprime 1y ago
  It varies per region, whether you’re increasing body dimensions or power and by how much, and if you’re prepared to install a roll cage (look up Lithuania’s rules!).
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  More accurately, in the US they might or might not care. When you make a claim they might choose to investigate and they could deny your claim if they think it's ultimately your fault. You can also choose to ask them for permission in advance but that's (usually, AFAIU) entirely optional.

tarsinge 1y ago

If you’re talking about limiting the power through ECU it can be interesting for engine longevity. If I’m buying used I’d avoid the typical downsized turbo engine pushed to its limit and prefer the artificially limited one as it’ll have prevented the previous owners to have wear it out too much.