Around a decade ago, almost all major automakers decided to pivot to being mobility companies. This was generally regarded as a bad idea. Years later, we’re now seeing the big picture really getting in motion, and man, is it ugly. Subscriptions for in-car features are now everywhere, and in Europe, the new Audi A3 features some of the most egregious examples we’ve seen in a long time.
So, are these subscriptions for anything useful that strictly needs to be supported by Audi on the network side? Perhaps cloud-based integrated dashcam storage, or digital key sharing, or vehicle tracking? Nope. They’re all for stuff you get as standard for life on a Toyota Corolla, most of which even comes standard on the base model. In Audi’s words:
Up to five individual infotainment and comfort functions can be added online via the myAudi app, even after the vehicle has been purchased. In addition to MMI navigation plus including Audi connect services, the A3 and A3 allstreet can be upgraded with the smartphone interface, which integrates iOS and Android smartphones into the MMI system via Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Other functions include adaptive cruise assist, high-beam assist, and the ability to expand the standard air conditioning system with two-zone comfort air conditioning. All functions can be booked for one month, six months, one year, three years, or permanently, depending on the customer’s individual needs
Translation: Audi wants customers to reach into their wallets for some incredibly common features, many of which come standard on a base Toyota Corolla. Yeah, because forcing a subscription to use Apple CarPlay worked so well for BMW. It’s worth noting that not all markets have fully fledged subscription greed — British cars will only offer adaptive cruise control and automatic high-beams on subscription — so it’s hard to say what this means for America, but it paints an overarching tale of, to borrow a term from Cory Doctorow, enshittification that we should all push back on.
If all it takes is a subscription to access features like adaptive cruise control and automatic high beams, that means all the hardware necessary to support these features is already installed on the car, which brings up concerns about repairs. In the event that something goes wrong, owners may be stuck paying for physical repairs to systems they don’t want or use.
Oh, and it’s not like owning a PC without an operating system. With any decent assemblage of desktop hardware, you could easily and legally eschew Windows for Linux Mint or FreeBSD if you’re that sort of person, but cars come with embedded systems, and modifying those on today’s connected vehicles is prohibited by end user license agreement chicanery. Add in real-time monitoring and over-the-air updates, and getting around factory-installed digital gates won’t be as simple as say, jailbreaking an iPod Touch with redsn0w.
Then there’s the issue of end-of-life support. Sure, it may be possible to subscribe for now, but what happens when 5G eventually becomes an obsolete standard? For instance, 3G is largely being sunsetted in the UK this year after about 20 years of widespread coverage and has already been phased out by major American carriers. However, technological overlap means that cars depending on 5G might not be truly knackered by the time mobile network coverage gets switched off. It’s worth noting that 5G launched in Britain in 2019, and if 3G’s sunset cycle is anything to go by, it could be on its way out come 2039. With the new A3 launching this year and the post-facelift previous generation car having a four-model-year run, there’s a chance the newest facelifted fourth-generation A3s could be just 11 years old by the time network connectivity shuts down.
Once that happens, will an upgrade path still exist, or will the door be shut on adaptive cruise control and automatic high beams forever? In the reasonably probable event that the latter scenario happens, all purported advantages are lost, and all disadvantages of toting around unnecessary hardware are cemented in concrete.
Every time a manufacturer floats the concept of microtransactions for access to physical or embedded functions, the air reeks of MBAs losing sight of what luxury really means. Luxury is supposed to be a state of great comfort, and by making fairly common hardware-dependent features available on subscription, Audi is making the new A3 slightly less luxurious than the obvious alternative of having those systems come standard since all of the hardware’s installed anyway. Make no mistake, this is a future worth pushing back against because not actually owning every piece of hardware on the second-most expensive purchase you’ll probably ever make is a disgusting thought.
So in the meantime, if you want a small car with luxurious convenience, why not take a good look at a Toyota Corolla? Sure, it might not have Audi-tier interior materials, but it does come with automatic high-beams, adaptive cruise control, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto at no extra cost. Who makes real luxury cars now, huh?
(Photo credits: Audi)
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I think where this is headed is actually subscription cars.
Ie I subscribe to a car, I want it for 3 months, I’m the only person it in, and only drive during the day, but in traffic. So I don’t need the high beam thing, or dual zone AC. I then hand the car back.
Jenny the subscribes to the car for 6 months. She often drives at night on country roads, after lacrosse training, she picks her partner up from backgammon on the way home. They want dual zone AC, and the headlights, but no need for the cruise.
Audi then chooses to sell the car second hand, they can then choose the effective trim level, or allow the customer to choose.
So on and so on.
If this was a fixed trim, they need heaps more cars, which will be harder to sell down the line.
I’ll be clear, if I’m buying a car, I don’t want anything to do with subscriptions. But I can see a clear use case here, where it does actually make more sense. I think they need to be careful marketing though, otherwise they’ll alienate buyers.
Yeah, eat turds, Audi.
The answer should be including more standard equipment so you can add things at scale, not nickel-and-diming the hell out of your customers.
You’ll own nothing and be happy.
> all major automakers decided to pivot to being mobility companies
Wtf does that even mean?
Gating car play and android auto behind a subscription feature that requires a sophisticated car OS, a mobile app, and Bluetooth to JUST ORDER IT is brazen rent seeking. I’m impressed by the gall.
It’s corporations doing corporation things. They decided that being just a car company was not good enough, so they rebranded themselves as “mobility companies” who make “transportation solutions,” often with lofty ideas about flying cars, or smart scooters, or something like that. Then ten years down the road they’re still just making cars, but now they have crappy features like subscription-locked hardware.
Ummmmmmmm……Frick no! So, do I get a rebate check for every trip I take and don’t use the damm cruise control at all or use the power windows that are in the car? These A hole greedy companies gotta play fair if they’re gonna do crap like this.
Honestly I would pay extra for a car without automatic high-beams, adaptive cruise control, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto.
The car I bought last year didn’t have em’ but that was a squeal of a deal.
That old Chevy with a 383 and sniper injection sounds like a steal compared to these modern automotive pirates..
Subscription? Hell no! Not unless I can activate it with a button.
We live in hell…BOYCOTT these companies. This is a total joke. You already bought the damn car. This makes me angry at these companies just reading this.
FUCK car “subscriptions!”
No one wants this (besides fools)
It’s been pointed out that it feels like the true economic powers of this world want to destroy the concept of ownership. Obviously software is a big one where you don’t get physical media as a general rule anymore. You buy a copy, and hope if you need to ever replace your computer, you don’t have to buy it again. But who knows with the license agreements.
The upside with cars vs. software is there are more competitors in the marketplace that if people decide to pick a different brand because features are an ongoing fee on one car but included on another (either as a one time purchase or just included in base price), that has a chance to change things. But I still can’t help but feel eroding the concept of ownership is coming from all sides now.
It is EXTREMELY depressing to read industry-side reports that tout subscriptions as a new source of revenue.
The hell it is. If you make me pay for kit that’s already on a car on a subscription basis, I’m walking away.
How is a function built into a car something you have to pay extra for. Its already there. You bought it! You’ve already paid for it. You simply should not be able to pay money to unlock a piece of hardware. Software is different, it doesn’t already exist, but when it comes to hardware – like auto headlights, its there, its been installed, its been paid for when it was built. This stuff is just bloody nuts. Consumers have to say no to this crap. If I went into a dealer and they told me ‘oh to use the adaptive cruise you need to either pay $x up front, or $x every month’ I’d leave. My friggin base model Corolla has adaptive cruise and auto headlights.
Funny how this repeats itself. Most run-of-the-mill hotel/motels throw in WiFi for free. You stay at a fancy-ass joint and they’ll charge you. I guess that’s how they try to cover the cost of the 45 pillows on the bed.
I believe it was Kierkegaard who said it best, or perhaps it was the Sex Pistols – “Fuck EULAs when you own the hardware.” I bought the car, not rented or leased. I’d pay a hacker to enable hardware I already own before I would pay a subscription fee for these kinds of things. It’s not like nav systems that do need continuous updates – I could understand paying for that (or more likely I would just use my phone).
I hope they make the CEL a subscription so I can opt out.
So if someone doesn’t pay the subscription for Adaptive Cruise Control, do they just get regular cruise control, or no cruise control at all? When I’m shopping for a car, anything that’s handled by subscription will simply not be counted as a part of that car, in my evaluation.
It’s even worse, not only is it not in the car feature wise, it actively makes it worse than not having it at all. Extra weight, extra insurance cost, and the good chance that one of these systems will break and send an error message your way.
In the event that something goes wrong, owners may be stuck paying for physical repairs to systems they don’t want or use.
This is a wrinkle I never thought of. All these systems are pretty well linked, that’s why they are all installed generally. Cameras and radar (or whatever) is connected to the infotainment and the steering wheel and the brakes etc. What happens when your “base” A3 with no navigation, adaptive cruise or lane assist gets into a fender bender and all these expensive systems total the car? Systems you never ordered? Because “active” by subscription just activates the “on” button, these systems are still inextricably linked to the major systems you did choose. Or a rat eats the camera wires and your car is a misbehaving mess of warning lights even though you didn’t choose any options needing a camera?
Very likely, yes. In the old days, not so much, but with CANbus systems, everything is connected, even if they seem completely unrelated and that’s why I roll my eyes when I protest having this crap that I won’t use installed and someone responds with: “So just don’t use it. The OEM is saving money bundling it.” The second point is even more eye-rolling, because it’s not like they’re passing that savings on to the customer!
It might be apocryphal, but someone told be that some of the higher end Mercedes cars can get totaled from “minor” front end damage. The expense of repairing the all the sensors and CANbus exceeds the value. This potentially serious issue aside, at least in this subscription model we bring car options back to the old days. When I was looking at GTIs I wanted the higher end stereo, but that by default came with leather and the problematic sunroof in the “SE”. Neither options I wanted. There was a turning point in the 80s, when options started to get bundled by force, an automatic transmission came with the “comfort package” that included AC and then included power windows. Now we have trim levels with very few real options. Not that I think this is a viable compromise, as we agree the risk outweighs the reward.
I guess it depends on how you want to look at it and if the subscription cost is worth it to the buyer and if it’s cheaper in the long run than the purchase price of the option on the earlier models (if there’s truly a direct comparison if talking software-driven features) even discounting the value of stuff that had previously come as part of a package that you might not have wanted to pay for alone, but came with something you did want and you end up using anyway, say a sunroof you didn’t care about but end up using since it came with the swiveling headlights you wanted. I can see in some cases it working out for people, though I would be surprised if there was any savings of significance. I look at it like I paid for the equipment as it’s installed already and now they’re charging me for access. To me, it’s like buying a house with 6 rooms, paying taxes based on all 6 (though there’s quite a gulf in difference between excise and property tax), having to maintain all 6 (windows and exterior condition, maybe heating if there’s running water), but having to pay rent on top of the mortgage to access 2 of them and—even worse—still having to pay rent to access them even if the mortgage is paid off.
Slightly Off-Topic:
I think we should start normalizing reliability as a standard feature on “luxury cars”.
Fewer things are more luxurious to me than having a high degree of certainty that the car I own won’t randomly break something expensive that should just WORK because reasons.
Having to choose between boring yet reliable cars and exciting yet fragile cars is frankly ridiculous. It is why I will never own a JLR product, BMW, AUDI, Mercedes, etc.
BMW scores pretty high on reliability. It’s just that scheduled repairs get more and more expensive as the car ages
Maybe I have confirmation bias, but I’ve read way too many stories about certain BMW engines that you have to avoid because they have some sort of flaw that makes them unreliable.
If I buy a new BMW, I don’t want to worry whether or not the engine it comes with will become legendarily reliable or legendarily unreliable.
That’s what I consider luxury: something built to last with minimal fuss, that has a solid construction and any of the inputs and controls have a quality feel, is reasonably comfortable, and displays a kind of timelessness in design and execution that won’t make it feel out of date in 5 years. Basically, something I could and would actually want to own for decades without it feeling or looking worn out, like old MB or Volvo were known for. I can’t think of anything today that qualifies.
Get an old Mercedes!
Crap like this will push the average age of cars yet higher. Life is expensive enough without yet another subscription for features standard on older cars. Paying $550 a month for 72 months for the base payment plus another $20 or so per month for subscriptions on already installed features gets old.
I enabled Apple CarPlay in my 2017 BMW. Something that the dealer wanted $200 to activate when new and that they no longer activate, especially if you’re the second or third owner.
Coders always find a way, software is inherently hackeable so thank you Audi for adding all the physical parts and equipment needed for these options to be enabled by the community later on.
Interesting point, buy a 5 year old “base” A3, sans depreciation and buy something like an OBD eleven and return every option known to
manAudi. win win win?Great till you buy a hack from a bad actor and find yourself locked in your car rolling into a lake with the brakes rendered inoperable and just seconds to send bitcoins to wherever.
RIP to your audi when they brick it with an OTA update because you turned on your seat heaters.
Using Toyota as a comparison here is a little amusing since they were slow to add CP/AA and got heat for the remote start aspect of their connected services – in addition to the app, there was a physical way to start it using the fob (not a separate remote start button but a sequence of lock button pushes), but if you didn’t subscribe after the trial was up, the fob starter was disabled despite being built in.
Plus – they discontinued connected services (or their OnStar safety feature equivalent) on certain older vehicles in 2022 when 3G services went away like you mentioned, so you had cars as little as 3-4 years old where that no longer worked. But that’s not really limited to Toyota either of course, every manufacturer will try to do something similar if they can. Though safety features might end up being, er, safe in our market as I think the IIHS and probably Consumer Reports would raise a stink and dock a vehicle’s rating for it.
Toyota’s remote start from the fob works without the app subscription. I bought a 21 Highlander Limited a few months ago and didnt want to pay for remote start through the app.
Question: what is the purpose of remote start?
Letting the heating/aircon change the temperature inside your car to something comfortable before you get in and freeze/boil. It’s not essential, it’s a luxury feature.
The rest of us peasants have to either start driving in an uncomfortably cold/hot car, or remember to start it manually some minutes before we want to set off. Although how important it is depends a lot on how comfortable your local climate is.
Some of the systems will also now turn on seat heaters or defrosters as well based on ambient temp. I didn’t on my only car with one (my one automatic, back to manual means no more), but at a minimum it’s nice to get a head start for a minute to get fluids flowing. I cringe when I hear someone start a car and immediately drop it into reverse or drive and set off all in ~5 seconds.
Gotcha. I live in a temperate area so that never really becomes a need.
I couldn’t remember if they caved to the pushback after that and restored the functionality so I hesitated to mention it, but they did indeed do so. They also previously offered an accessory remote starter, separate from the connected services aka paying for the app (I guess duplicative might be a better way to put it unless they specifically didn’t install it on cars with the appropriate connected system), though that might be based on regional distributor as it always showed on the port-installed option on cars in my region.
Weird thing about this is I can see a way it makes sense. When I had a company car in the UK I had a set amount based on my grade that I could spend on the monthly lease. I was free to add options to the car that took the lease cost over the allowance but I had to pay for the extra myself (I never did but some of my colleagues did). In that situation being able to subscribe to having certain options when I wanted such as heated seats only in winter actually appeals.
My last company car was a BMW leased through BMW’s own leasing company. It would be pretty easy for them to manage the subscriptions through the lease then I guess permanently unlocking the options when the car is sold off at the end of the lease.
I would like to think consumers will cry foul on this, but with everything going to a subscription model I fear eventually too many will just accept this shittiness.
As for me, any car that charges a subscription for features that don’t have ongoing maintenance costs is off the table.
That is exactly how restaurant owners were able to get you to pay twice for their labor costs.
Hah, that’s funny, an 11 year old Audi. I think 5G will be the least of that 5th owner’s problems.
Came here to say this.
The assumption that the average modern Audi will still be worth owning (or perhaps even in drivable condition) in 11+ years is highly debatable.
Audi thinks people won’t notice because the subscription costs pale in comparison to regular maintenance and repair costs anyway 😀
Audi wants European A3 customers to regularly replace shit that never dies on a base Toyota Corolla 😛
Even some of their timing chains are by subscription.
As much as I hate subscriptions, if there was an Audi subscription that was effectively a timing chain warranty, I might actually consider it.
What’s the word for when you dislike something so immensely you purposely go the complete opposite way of the trend? At this point I might start driving a Briggs and Stratton go-kart to work
I’m so disgusted by modern cars that I don’t even care about the greater safety anymore, so I started looking at old cars that are in restored/like new(ish) condition. Yeah, going by some insane prices for pretty ordinary old stuff, I thought of that too late. And I don’t think it’s related to the floor on used cars being raised post covid, I’m talking cars decades old that nobody would be buying as a basic daily, like an ’80s B-body coupe. Some of it will be nostalgia/vintage charm, but I think a good chunk is attraction of the simplicity as things get more complicated, annoying, and disposable while losing all charm.
A similar thing is happening in the agriculture world. People are seeking out clean older tractors to avoid DEF, digital everything, and imposable-to-repair equipment due to the consumer not being able to get the right tools. It drives the prices of older tractors way way up
I mean, you can still get relatively simple and more modern cars that still lack in those bothersome features – unless one of those features is fuel injection, that is. I have a 2010 Honda Fit Manual that is approximately as feature-laden as my 1993 Saturn SC2 was, except that it’s OBDII instead of OBDI, but it’s massively safer and parts are still easy and relatively cheap to source.
It’s not the engine tech that bothers me (well, not until pretty recently as they cut down displacements too far for the weights of the cars and chase down margins of safety to eke out an extra 2 mpg while halving the life span and doubling repair costs). Even DI is fine (as long as it’s not made by Germans, but anything from Germany is off the table). It’s electric steering, stability control (even if it can be shut off because it doesn’t stay off), external communications, lack of visibility, and CANbus architecture that I hate. I either want something with visibility, character, and actual steering feel with an over-engineered or under-stressed drivetrain or, if it’s going to be disconnected, something relaxed that rides like a boat and I want that as a coupe because I love the stupidity of giant 2-doors—basically what nobody has made in quite a while and they’re now way too expensive for what they are.
Mine does have EPS (although it’s pretty decent – far more feel than a lot of HPS cars I’ve driven), but otherwise lacks any kind of SC (it has ABS, but that’s it. If you don’t like ABS, then you’re an idiot); no external communication (it has an integrated GPS antenna on all models, but it’s not connected to anything unless you have the head unit with navi – otherwise it’s just an old-school CD player head unit); it has a CANBUS, but almost nothing is connected to it; it has a big, bright, open greenhouse; and the engine is about ideally stressed at 117/106 hp/ft.lb. from a 1.5l NA engine.
I’ve read great reviews about the steering feel in my car, but it only seems good in comparison to the other modern cars I’ve driven and maybe I’d be fine with it if I didn’t remember steering that was great, plus I think some people confuse accuracy with road feel, though TBF, really good steering feel was always a bit tough to find and I’ve been bitching about it for decades, but if what I’m dealing with is considered good and exceptional as such, then there’s no hope going forward. I sometimes wish I had never known the difference so that I could be easily satisfied by the mediocre and left ecstatic from the merely decent.
I understand the difference between feel and accuracy. The new Honda Civic loaner I was given? Very little feel. Accurate, decent resistance, but still felt disconnected – and this is a car that has been praised for its steering.
As for TSBs, engine failures, and recalls – that’s hardly anything new. Cars have had significant issues with these for many decades. I want data to show that the number is increasing. You also seem to ignore that modern materials science and modern imaging and testing are significantly better than at any point in the past, so what we do with modern cars couldn’t even have been done with older ones.
Now, could you be right? Absolutely. But you’re claiming it as truth without evidence to back it up. I find that disingenuous, at best.
Also, do you have hard evidence that modern engines no longer have long lifespans, or is it just an assumption?
I don’t think those numbers are out there as the engines are still mostly too new, but they don’t have to be. Industry-wide TSBs and recalls, physics, experience, and anecdotes all seem to show an increase in engine failures in the last decade, coinciding with increase of upsized cars with downsized engines of higher power per displacement while trying to chase the last tenth of a MPG (at least on paper) and meet ever-tightening emissions targets. If something is under greater stress (heavier vehicle and smaller engine is a double whammy) it won’t last as long. The latest generations of downsized ICEs necessarily run under higher load more often and generally have to run higher rpm for a given load demand while being less tolerant of imperfect conditions, which is the world’s MO. Add to that most OEMs cutting R&D for existing and new ICEs to reroute the capital to EVs. Then there’s the sometimes contentious goals of meeting increased mpg with tighter emissions targets plus maintaining margins on vehicles that aren’t getting cheaper to produce (hence the dropping of low end models) and something has to be sacrificed, which is lifespan and resilience. The question isn’t whether they’re less durable, it’s whether that lower durability will affect the average customer or how many it will affect. Recent generations of engines could usually do over 200k miles without special treatment or major work, which is plenty for most customers (at least the ones OEMs care about most—the original owner). If the newest crop are still able to do 200k miles, but need a new turbo or some other fairly expensive maintenance is that still good enough? Probably. What about 100k? What about just out of warranty? Then there’s the applications. A lot of people just jump in their cars and go, tailgate, don’t check the oil, aren’t too concerned about oil weights, fuel quality, etc.—it’s an appliance that they don’t like spending time in or thinking much about. Where a lower-stressed engine can shrug that off for quite a while, the new tech is not so tolerant and you can’t sell them all to diligent people who drive like they’ve got a state trooper behind them. A Hellcat engine makes more horsepower than a PACCAR MX in a semi tractor while weighing less and taking up a lot less space, so why don’t they just buy Hellcat hemis instead?
Hence the return of the flip phone. And words like ” hence”…
I only went to a smartphone years ago because a woman I was dating kept calling me a drug dealer for still having a flip phone and (pretending?) not to understand my real job. When I looked to go back a couple years ago, they weren’t any cheaper than the lowest end smartphone and looked like a kid’s toy from 2007. There was the Black Phone smartphone, which I did like, but it was too expensive and I’m way more boring these days than I like to think for something like that. Still, if I didn’t now need the smartphone for certain work apps, I’d choose my flip in Tonka yellow. I miss slapping it shut.
Motorola makes a flip smartphone! You could get the best of both worlds.
https://www.motorola.com/us/smartphones-motorola-razr-2023-all