German car making giant Volkswagen (VW) has introduced a subscription for UK customers wanting to increase the power of some of its electric cars.
Those who buy an eligible car in its ID.3 range can choose to pay extra if they want to unlock the full power of the engine inside the vehicle.
VW says the “optional power upgrade” will cost £16.50 per month or £165 annually - or people can choose to pay £649 for a lifetime subscription.
I’ve introduced an option to not buy their vehicles.
Nice! Does it come with a subscription model?
Life long subscription for $0!!!
That’s for the peasants. What’s the premium subscription?
Want to bet how long until you can buy an usb key to unlock it for free from aliexpress by ~3€?
It’s already available called vagcom.
Edit: I’m not joking, that’s the software to alter the car
I give it a month.
I would simply choose to burn down the dealership as an alternative option.
Dealership is not at fault. Pull a Luigi instead.
Not directed at OP, but just in general about this story, but for the number of times I feel I’ve seen this story posted in the last few days, I have some critiques and additional info that doesn’t seem provided by these articles being shared. For anyone else curious:
This appears to be old news. I don’t follow electric cars because I live in a NIMBY complex where we will not be having means to have any kind of charging in the foreseeable future. Looking this up to see what exactly is being paywalled by VW, I see forum posts from at least as far back as last August.
What is being limited is the electric motor. Basic is 150 kW, the optional is 170 kw of power. People on the id3 forums say this is essentially taking the car from the electric version of 205 HP to 231 HP.
You can do a one month free trial, an annual subscription, or a lifetime purchase, but I didn’t see if this was tied to the purchaser or the car itself. I’m not in UK so I don’t care enough to look that up.
People on the forum are also saying some leases bar the upgrade and that the insurers there wish to know if the car is “upgraded” and there is a slight premium for having it, so some may wish to forgo the added power rating and associated fees and premiums.
I have no real opinion as I have no skin in the EV game, but I am generally anti-subscription, especially for what sounds like a software setting.
I hope this helps anyone else trying to see what this story is all about. Again, no shade on the people sharing this, I just wish some articles/posts would have a little more context for those less familiar as this community is generalist and not a car/EV one where we should probably expectedly be more versed in the topic.
The upgrade stays with the car.
Thank you! That at least makes it better than most subscriptions since it should add some value to resale if it’s transferrable. The buy it outright price pays off vs the sub in about 4 years too, which isn’t too bad either.
I remember when you could just adjust or swap the carb… I would never in a million years buy a soft-locked car.
If the feature is there, it better work without a monthly cost. I’d order it factory delete, otherwise. Probably not an option with the goofy computer systems they put in vehicles these days. I loathe touch-panel controls in cars. I want knobs and buttons, not controls buried 3 clicks deep into some awful UI behind a crappy low res resistive touch panel. Gross.
And in 5 or 10 years, whenever your
carcomputer becomes obsolete and no longer connects to the control servers, what about your features then? I presume they’ll just stop working without a server to approve it.There’s nothing good about this ecosystem. It’s meant to cost you indefinitely before premature and manufacturer-premeditated replacement.
i guess they’ll start charging for the wheels to turn next. or maybe just to unlock the doors. saves me money, i wasn’t buying one anyway.
Sadly, we’re about 10 or so years away from pacemakers and shit that have DRM and require a subscription.
Idiocracy has long been touted as a documentary. Little did we know Repo Man was also one.
I’ve never owned a VW and am less likely now with this subscription nonsense.
Then people only enable the option for one or two months during holiday season and they freak out and insist you have to subscribe for the full year.
Fuck cars.
You still have the option to purchase in full. I couldn’t care less about these plans.
