VW introduces monthly subscription to increase car power
The German car-maker says its "optional power upgrade" is designed to give customers more choice.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62weyp4qqgoOpen linkView original on kbin.melroy.org563
Comments153
1999: "Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization."
lol. 1999 was the best time for humanity; ridiculous!
2025: Oh shit...
“We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI.”
That’s why I live my life as if it were still the 90s…oh shit, am I in the matrix already?
You wish!
Seriously. Why didn’t I take the blue pill?
You guys were offered a blue pill???
You didn't get the emails?
No. Just some weird guy in a trench coat behind a Giant Tiger offered me some white-ish looking pills. I woke up the next day with half my head shaved and my wallet was missing.
I forgot to check my spam folder
Yeah, but it was a weekly subscription fee, so I declined
I’m not sure this is the right conclusion. What seems like a “wider embrace of subscriptions” may be happening because subscriptions are becoming harder and harder to avoid. We don’t like them; they’re being forced on us. That’s an important difference.
I also think this is misusing the current statistics and drawing wrong conclusions.
Nobody is asking for these kind of subscription models.
Whag do you mean? Of course they are... everyone likes not reciving what they paid for to only have to pay a monthly charge for it... just look at what people pay monthly for... they will so enjoy this... /s
In France, people who have VW cars are not the best or brightest drivers. It could work.
FTFY
VW are garbage, have been since, well, forever.
70's VW factory replacement parts were so bad you'd get water pumps with incompletely drilled mount holes.
Today, the electrics do dumb things like combine the AC control with the power window controls in a box in the drivers door. You know, an area that will deal with moisture.
Drive down the road and note how often a VW has an entire taillight that doesn't work.
Their electrics are shit. (Other brands have their own issues, American brands are only a little better, or worse, depending on the brand and model).
Thanks.
UK too. The VW is the new Audi.
You do know that it's all part of the same Volkwagen Group? Also known as VAG.
They mean "...by management".
Hey, we did speak out and most of us didn't shut up since. Fuck EA, VW, BMW, whoever tries to push microtransactions.
I haven't bought a AAA game for well over a decade because of this shit. I'll bike and take a bus before I give in to it with a mode of transportation.
The future is a fucking farce.
Psych! You thought you were gonna get star trek style utopia, while we've been descending into fascist dystopia for several decades!?!
Woo! Techno-feudalism!
I'm still holding out hope for cyberpunk. At least it comes with skylines and cool back alley markets.
And cybernetics that won't play adds in your brain until you have a seizure!. Seriously settings like cyberpunk and shadowrun are starting to look good by the standards of what we're heading for. (Shadowrun is also old enough that you could actually just barely survive on a part time job without sharing an appartment even in the dystopia)
The difference is whether there's any room outside the system to exist in, right? Can you jailbreak your implant? Can you live in a shitty illegal slum, or are they all carefully dispersed before they can begin?
It's all about technologies of control. Ironically, the places seeing democratic backsliding are not the only or even the main ones developing and implementing them.
Our Startrek future is the Ferengi Empire.
Turns we’ve been in the mirror universe all along.
Ah yes, selling me something that is already available but is just locked behind software. And then trying to frame that as somehow a good thing for customers. Just insulting.
Sadly, it's been a good part of IBM's business model for years. They call it Capacity on Demand.
I learned this when I moved into a corporate IT environment with Power servers. I couldn't believe that some companies would pay a quarter of a million for a server that is intentionally stunted/limited unless you pay even more.
But cars are computers now. "Everything's computer!". So they will follow that subscription model.
Well, there is a reason AMD has been kicking ass in the server space lately. Mostly because Intel sat on their ass for a decade, but IBM scalping customers certainly provided a larger opening for AMD.
Fuck that noise.
What happens if the car goes out of range from the internet? Does the car just lose power the same way I can’t play Gamepass games offline?
I already bought the car with the hardware in it. I will do what I want with it.
My next car will be a 1995 Honda. I’m so tired of being tracked all the time.
You can bump 10 years ahead, my car doesn't have tracking 😄
That's an interesting insight, thanks!
You can play GamePass Ultimate games offline, though.
No, I’m serious. I’m not arguing with you, I promise.
Oh I wasn’t aware. Each time I try to open a game before my Xbox connects to the internet, I get an error.
Connect to the Internet, download the games you want and then go into settings and take your console offline.
The initial setup requires some settings tweaks but after that it’s smooth sailing.
Also, VW can suck a fat one.
I will never buy a vw again, that is a fact.
Skip all of those brands. Škoda too.
Yet people in my extended family keep buying them. They are people who are well off, too, so they could buy something nicer. They bought a trailer home for $30,000 to use for vacationing ffs, might as well invest in a nice car so they don't have to buy a new one every 3–5 years because it rusts to shit.
This is partially my envy talking, but still, I don't get it. I have a nicer car and my household makes less. Makes no sense.
These exist, they're just not in the USA. Look at what companies like BYD, MG, and Xiaomi are doing in practically every developed country except the USA. The entry-level BYD Dolphin EV is just under AU$30k (US$19k) in Australia, including taxes. Xiaomi have a sports car for around US$40k.
I don't know about the Volkswagen ID.3, but in general, I think that car prices have tended to come down slightly over the years. I was in a conversation earlier about car prices earlier (talking about how truck prices had greatly increased).
If you go back 20 years, take a pretty plain-Jane standby, the Toyota Camry:
https://www.kbb.com/toyota/camry/2005/
That'd be $33,934.10 in 2025 dollars.
A 2025 Camry has an MSRP of $28,700, about 15% lower.
Pickup trucks --- which are considerably more expensive now in the US than they were a few decades back --- are an exception to this, but there are other factors going on there.
EDIT: Though tariffs may wind up driving prices up.
I don't think this factors in things that have gone up significantly, such as cost of repair and maintenance. I think another easy thing to point to would be the amount of 84 month car loans, and how many people struggle to pay those. I will also point out in 2005 that wage inflation was much closer to keeping pace with overall inflation. It's easy to point to the one thing you did, but that misses the full picture imo.
This is way beyond "mildly infuriating". Shit should be illegal, it's terrible for progress and an epitome of greedy capitalist bullshit.
Agreed. Although that is true for 80% of the threads posted in this category.
Okay, it's high time for some serious regulatory intervention.
This is so distopian it sounds like a joke
The manufacturers fee for speeding is higher than the fine the police gives you.
Officially never buying a VW, BMW, Tesla, Or Mercedes. Who else tried this shit? Toyota, right?
I dunno if Toyota ever paywalled performance, but they definitely paywall features. My '15 Lexus requires a subscription service to use remote start. Its app based and relies on the car's 2g cellular card so it doesn't even work anymore.
My '24 Chevy does this, too. Lock, unlock and remote start apparently route through OnStar, so using those requires an OnStar subscription.
Yeah mine requires the Toyota Safety Connect or some such, I'm pretty sure it's just their implementation of OnStar.
Ford just gives you this for free. But inevitably my 5g cellular connection will age out on my 2019 Mustang. No coats for all of the added features. Ford gets a pass by my book.
I have three cars: '24 Chevy Bolt, a '24 Ford Edge, and a '79 Corvette. Unfortunately, for some unfathomable reason, the Corvette doesn't have an associated app or even any remote connectivity. However, as you observed, the Ford does; as I mentioned, so does the Bolt.
The Chevy app I mostly use to make sure it's plugged in before I go to bed. My Ford mostly stays outside of my garage, so the app primarily serves to start it remotely, letting the climate control run for a few minutes before I come out. (I also occasionally use it to honk because it amuses me, but I live in the middle of nowhere and am not bothering anyone other than maybe my wife.)
Back before the world was what it is today, I used to have a used '19 Tesla Model 3 (I replaced it with the Bolt). There were good things and bad things about it, but disregarding any social issues for the purpose of this comment, the app was better-functioning than that of any car I've purchased since. I was grandfathered into everything, so nothing was paywalled, and most of the stuff worked most of the time, unlike the Ford or Chevy apps which usually require multiple tries and sometimes chastise me for trying multiple times.
And since I'm writing about cars, I will say that the absolute best (for personal enjoyment, not external considerations) vehicle I've ever owned was a 2014 Ford Flex, Titanium Trim. There was no app because 2014, but goddamn if I didn't love that car.
My Subaru had a paid app that included the remote start option. Fuck them all gently with a chainsaw. I paid for the fucking car, I want the whole fucking thing.
Kia has a subscription service for the ability to set remote start options. They can get fucked, too.
Dunno. My Corolla doesn't have any features locked out that I am aware of. It certainly hasn't tried to upsell me any "upgrades".
German car industry has one foot in the grave. The German car industry lobbyist have successfully weakened or delayed many EU climate and sustainability initiatives. I fucking hope the German car industry collapses sooner than later and weaken Germany’s political power in the EU.
I think that all or close to it auto manufacturers have some form of subscription service now with monthly fees. It's not something specific to German manufacturers.
randomly picks from this list of auto manufacturers
Buick.
https://www.buick.com/ownercenter/onstar/learn
Is that subscription for OnStar or Super Cruise? One is a service with legitimate ongoing operating costs; the other is not.
I mean you picked an American car company. They've been garbage for decades, I've owned exactly one, a 90's Taurus, probably the most reliable American car we've seen in decades, and it just barely approaches Japanese cars for reliability and maintenance.
I say this as someone who's worked on every brand of car, from the 1940's to today. You can't give me an American car (or German, or just European). I refuse to own anything other than Honda or Toyota any more. I'll sacrifice style and features for a vehicle that just works for 100-200k miles, or more.
Buick has been a style-over-substance brand in the GM lineup since the 80's, at least. Not that any GM is particularly good, Buick just makes it worse with cheap gimmicks. Same with all Chrysler products.
But yea, all brands include some nonsense today.
I wonder if that is true though. Sure, they lobby that way when they want government subsidies.
They might be late to the e-car game (but the above article applies to e-cars only anyhow).
But all that largely applies to most car industries across the globe, yet they do adapt, if slowly. Except those under totalitarian control, they adapt faster.
I have German heritage, as does my wife. I have lived in Germany. Looking at the Germany of today, I can't wait to see its power collapse. They might (still) be the most unworthily arrogant people on the planet.
no, that would be Russians.
When buying isn't owning ..
So... Volkswagen is the next target for hacking ?
Thank goodness, my John Deere side hustle was slowing down.
This company already has another scandal brewing, since 2005 they have been installing plastic engine parts, particularily the intake manifolds have been designed as a single use item to be replaced roughly every 3 years. Custom aluminum will run you $1000 for the part itself if you don't want to keep swapping plastic, not to mention the ridiculous labour costs as well. Avoid!
For $1000 you could get a small furnace for cintering, a regular 3D printer and some of that special PLA that has metal powder in it that you can print and then cinter into a solid metal piece (The PLA bakes off) and just make the fucking thing yourself.
That's horrible! If people do that how will companies gouge customers?
Basically every car manufacturer pulls shit like this these days; good luck avoiding all of them.
If it's specific to a certain model, that would be good info.
That said VW obviously sucks for pulling the stunt mentioned in the article, which applies to (all?) its electric models.
You don't really see this with Toyota and Honda, just avoid any of the models that are joint venture with other companies.
I got rid of my last VW after I got tired of plastic parts breaking. It happened every winter, after a cold snap.
I agree. They are using only plastic everywhere at this point.
It's also a nano plastic nightmare at this point.
Car companies are parasites. America was built on trains and the investments into car infrastructure have paralleled US declines. Its just not an effecient use of public resources to build highways between cities.
You can get a lifetime subscription now, next year ‘we have reviewed customer choices and will be discontinuing the lifetime subscription’, so they can continue to milk their customers
Just a life time subscription as this. See attachment.
TomTom did this too. You paid them a life time fee and then they decided you had to start paying an additional fee every month.
Indeed. It's always the same story. So don't get fooled people. You have been warned!
How does this even work? It’s like they don’t realise they don’t own the car once it’s been sold. What’s to stop someone just hacking it and unlocking it?
It's all proprietary code. But in theory you could unlock the full potential if not more. If you can recreate their software. Ideally then also open source it please.
I assume that they try to make that fairly difficult.
I mean, modern cars are Internet-connected, have cell radios. If the vendor can maintain access to the car and can provide the initial trusted hardware, they can make it pretty unpleasant to modify the thing.
You also don't need a 100% solution to make it financially work. Just need to make the level of inconvenience high enough that the bulk of people won't do it.
This in itself is terrifying. It isn't like they are going to provide security updates for your car for decades. Unplug that modem, no reason for your car to be exposed to the internet.
They literally don't. This is nothing less than a war on property rights.
The DMCA Anti-Circumvention Clause makes it a felony.
Meet GPL. These fucking cars are running Linux.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization
I wish Linux was enough to protect us from this shit, but it's not.
If you hack it warranty becomes void and you're maybe in big insurance trouble if there's an accident or your battery catches fire in an underground parking garage. Basically similar to how banking apps etc keep people from trying to use alternatives to Android on their phone. The boundary isn't technical, it's legal.
They are surely going to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment.
In fact they should put random odds on whether you actually get extra power, so the customers can enjoy some surprise mechanics too.
Gonna go on youtube and let that Indian tech guy teach me how to jailbreak a Volkswagen.
My favorite stereotypes are the race/STEM expert ones.
South Asia - programming, IT.
East Asia - Math
East Europe - Electrical Engineering
West Europe - High precision engineering and chemistry
At least as far as YouTube tutorials go, it's basically cannon.
Those guys have saved my ass countless times.
This is grotesque. "More choice" is utter bollocks, they're insulting our intelligence with this, or maybe they're mocking us.
How about just let us get as much power as we can out of the car by pushing our foot down harder on the pedal.
This is a perfect example of "remove something, then sell it back to the customer".
Exactly. I actually own the vw id3. And I'm furious about it. I paid like 45000 euros. And now I need to buy soon an additional subscription, for.. to keep remote access available for enabling the airco via the app.
So it's much more then just subscription for 'increase power'.
The remote control is at least tolerable because VW does need to provide every car with cellular network connection and servers to make this happen.
Car power is completely different because it's a one time change. If I'm their PR, I'll do something like: VW has successfully tested new performance settings for VW ID.3 that helps to improve acceleration and driving. Upgrade is available at authorized workshops (of course with cost).
Unfortunately, it was clear that everybody was going to follow suit after this:
https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/pay-to-unlock-features-tesla-style-gain-traction-in-motorcycling
The way the article frames it as "why pay for what you don't need" is so bad.
Nah, you already paid for it, the part is physically in the motorcycle.
The real question should be: why are vehicle manufacturers inclusing features that they can't afford to maintain after they have sold it to us? Maybe stop making everything internet-integrated. Nobody in their right mind should be forking over a subscription for something they just spent tens of thousands of dollars on.
That logic might work for GPS service, but the example in the article is a bike where the battery's discharge rate and capacity are limited by software, and those limits can be increased via software if you pay a subscription.
Someone should compile a list of currently produced car makes and models that are free to modify and repair without software locks on them
I imagine it's a pretty short list.
Be the change you want to see in the world. I look forward to your list!
If it's all software, that means that you can jailbreak it, just like a phone.
The racing world will have this cracked overnight.
Unauthorized Bread
Cory Doctorow nailed it once again.
You're not giving more choice if it relies on you purposefully taking away things. That's called being predatory.
Sandwiches for sale! Can't afford it? No problem! 30% discount. I'll just cut it and toss one of the halves in the trash for you.
I thought taking away things someone else paid for was called stealing?
I've always admired the iconic vehicles VW has produced, but this assures I'll never buy a VW.
Depending on your jurisdiction, your local commerce regulator might have a different opinion of the legality of this than VW, especially when they're taking away features you already paid for.
And this is why i'll never own a vehicle with a cellular modem unless a jailbreak is already developed and there's no regulatory/insurance issue with doing so.
You could also just pull the fuse for it, my boss did that on his vehicle.
the eu almost not allowed this shit for bmw, now every brand is gonna go through
They've had this before, but you've had to change chips. Was also hacked. Except that it was a one-off payment now upgraded to subscription.
And the choice given is if you want your car deliberately crippled, or you want to cough up money.
WTF ?
I don't have any particular objection to that. They can choose whatever pricing model they want, and it's just another number for the spreadsheet in valuing whatever they put on offer. However, I rather suspect that whatever DRM they have on this ties one more-closely to maintaining an Internet connection between the car and auto manufacturer, which I do care about from a privacy standpoint.
And I wonder what happens to one's subscription if one's car is no longer able to talk to current cell towers and thus the car can no longer validate that the user has paid the bill this month. Cars that relied on 2G cell network connectivity in the past lost their network connectivity when the cell networks took that down in the US. Maybe the feature is just gone forever. Maybe the manufacturer decides to be nice and just perma-unlock the functionality. shrugs Seems like kind of a substantial unknown and difference from the past, where one could just expect a car to keep working. People have not been very happy about live service games no longer working after a shutdown date. I kind of think that having one's automobile functionality go away might also be unpopular.
Another issue is that I rather suspect that there's nothing outside of maybe their reputation keeping a vendor from increasing their subscription fees. If you've already put the substantial purchase price into a car, it's not like you can readily switch away from it to a competitor. That's not a good situation for the consumer. You're buying something where if you want the functionality, you're paying the purchase price...plus some unknown future amount in fees. You're locked in to buying the functionality from your auto vendor; there's no form of competitive market at play once you've bought in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_market
In theory, I imagine that an auto vendor with enough information about an individual --- and Lord knows, they sure are working on gathering a lot --- could do individualized pricing, charge the maximum for the functionality that any one individual will pay. That'd convert consumer surplus into producer surplus; it's a sensible move for a seller with a monopoly.
The moment I bought my id3 they never informed me about this subscription model. Soon I also need to pay if I want to keep my app working for my car, like enabling the airco via the app.
I already paid around 45000 euros for this car. And now I suddenly also need to pay subscriptions? It's not only a subscription for 'increase power'.
15k? Price crashed like that? When I asked the price in 2020 they told me 45k and I laughed for weeks after that
The fact that they pay the sim card data plan for only the first three years from purchase was known from the beginning. I'm ok with paying but not the price they're asking. They're using a $10/year iot sim card for remote access, but want $150/year from the customer? LOL get fucked I would never pay that.
PS: how the remote air control works? I tried the Peugeot one and
Allowed activation only if battery was over 50% which is a stupid artificial limitations
Literally took 10 minutes to boot and 8 minutes to send the activation signal to the car. In that time I could go to activate it manually
A service like that isn't even worth $5/decade
Sorry my bad. It was indeed 45000 euros. It's insane.
You will own nothing and be... whatever, gonna talk here and there about this, spread the news, make them drown (as much as nobody me can do that)
Would you buy a new graphic card only to pay s monthly service to use it? Of course not.
I wonder how this is going to effect stock prices. On one hand it's bad, but on the other hand shareholders might not care that it's bad.
Will probably make the price go up. The whole reason why they do this crap is to get more money out of the consumer.
So you need to pay to drain your batteries faster for more power which wears them down faster. So you're paying to shorten the battery life of your car. Only dumb people who think "I wanna go faaaaaaast" will fall for that scam.
Maybe they want to give better specs to their EVs without actually having them. The subscription might be a way to deter customers from using those capabilities because they degrade the car faster.
Owning a car used to be nice. Heck, even the notion of living in a Capitalist country used to be nice.
I hate this kind of artificial limitations but in this case I'm totally fine.
Why would you pay for something like that? The stock id 3 has enough power to drive in the city. If someone instead needs to race at the nurburgring, then can unlock the extra power. With more power available and a sporty drive, the car components (motor, battery, gears) get more stress than if you just commute in the traffic.
In a city or in the highway, when you drive safely according to the speed limits you don't need 300 HP or more under your ass
And if you're someone that just needs a higher number to feel validated by others (look at that! I paid for the extra Speed mode!), then I'm fine with that, takes money from dumb people and has the potential to make the vehicle cheaper for everyone else.
Why should you pay for that is your question ?
The question is , why should you allow them to gimp what you bought artificially
If you drive like a maniac you put more stress on the components, and on the id 3 the warranty on electric parts is up to 8 years. This offsets for them the risk of someone breaking components under warranty before the mean time to failure.
Almost all car brands are selling a faster trim that's the same hardware with just different code in the ECU. It's not necessarily a bad thing that it could be done after the first purchase and there's also the option of permanent unlock.
Now, for safety I wouldn't have it made a completely software solution but required a visit to dealer to install bigger breaks and check all the car stuff (oil level in brakes, if the steering is correct, and so on)
So basicly it's excusing either their bad warranty , their bad planning , or their bad quality.
None of the customers business and shouldn't be a subscription.
I means what's next ? 3 tires the 4th will be a subscription cause it's one more tire that needs maintenance ?
There's a $650 lifetime unlock option. What's the difference between this and the "m series" for BMW that costs $20k over stock, that must be purchased at the time of order??
At least gives an option to the user, if it's not fast enough for winning races at the nurburgring, then they can unlock full performance for $650.
In city it makes no difference except using more energy and consuming tires faster than expected
The difference is , the BMW actually changes something physically.
The 650 unlock just unlocks something artificially you already had purchased and owned.
Why shouldn't I break into your house, change the locks, and then charge you a ransom to get access to it back?
'Cause that's what VW is doing here.
It's completely different. It's a car that was sold with an option at moment of purchase. 145 HP or 200 HP for more money? Normal people chose the 145 HP because cheaper and pay less taxes and insurance and because when you drive in the city the 50 HP do not make any difference.
Suppose one day the owner needs to win races at the nurburgring instead of commuting or taking kids at school, so they give the option of unlock the full power instead of buying a new car.
If it was something like "from today you need to pay a subscription if you want to open the back windows" I would agree with you, but in this case it's a power unlock that was known from the moment of purchase and not a surprise shock.
No, that's absolute bullshit.
In your example, they absolutely and unequivocally bought all 200 HP, from the beginning, and merely got a good deal on it if VW charged a lower price than the identical car with different number on the label. But it was always their property from the beginning because that's how property works.
They owe VW nothing after the fact, and always had the capital-r Right to use every bit of horsepower the engine was physically capable of!
The only reason someone could possibly disagree is if they're a corporate whore who hates property rights and loves being subjugated. It is not a tenable position for any reasonable person to have.
Stop saying nurburgring
This is an environmental disaster. We're building cars with equipment that will never be used. It costs more materials, time, and energy to manufacture a 300 HP engine than a 200 HP engine. VW might make all models with a 300 HP engine and then require a subscription to increase the power from 200 to 300 HP. Yet, what if you don't want to use that extra power? You're still stuck with the weight of the heavier engine! You're hauling around a uselessly heavy engine, and you'll be doing so from the moment you buy the car until the end of its life. Even if you don't want to pay for the subscription-only equipment, you're still paying for the higher gas costs to haul all this redundant crap around with you. And the environment takes an unnecessary hit for us to manufacture equipment that will never be used. This is an environmental disaster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_ID.3
The lowest MPGe I see for it across the model range is 129, the highest 141.
The Ford F-150 is the most-popular vehicle in the US.
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2025_Ford_F150.shtml
The 2025 F-150 has a combined MPG rating of between 16 and 21.
The car was introduced 5 years ago, they launched this unlock right now where only the 0.1% of users will actually care and the kind that needs external validation from higher numbers is already with a newer vehicle.
IMHO with all the telemetry gathered they noticed that the motor can sustain higher than spec bursts of power for a short time and tried to cash in that
It also means they can build fewer types of engine for the models they make, requiring less tooling, less spare parts, etc. I'm not sure if that is enough to balance the environmental cost of making slightly bigger motors, but a number of companies have come to the conclusion that it's cheaper than having more engine options.
Okay, but hear me out: the notion that a business model is "cheaper" doesn't matter if it's also criminal because it violates their customers' property rights.
Oh, this sounds like a ridiculously easy case to win. So where is that case where someone had a car that was being sold in an illegal manner and they won? Just one, anywhere in the world. And not the one about the VW emissions scandal. Most diesel vehicle drivers don't really care about emissions, and no one was paying less for a non-EPA qualifying option.