No kink shaking please. They like to watch when daddy X smashes their bank accounts, there's nothing wrong with that.

Which should be illegal. I get not adding a feature, but software unlocks or subscriptions to hardware you paid for is absurd. Also see Tesla batteries.

Tesla actually market it as a positive.

Car manufacturers have to setup different manufacturing lines to provide different feature levels. Tesla argue this makes them more expensive. Tesla cars have all features installed, just disabled and the optional extra packages are cheaper compared to their rivals as a result.

To be honest there is a certain logic, if you've ever been in a Ford Focus LX (bottom range) its pretty clear they had to spend quite a bit of money on more basic systems. I honestly thought each LX was sold at a loss

I've thought for a while that Tesla relies a lot on people who a) have money to throw at a car that's too expensive, b) have money to throw at features that should be free, and c) do a and b because they think Tesla and Musk are cool.

Not defending this practise but this is nothing new and has been happening for decades on other cars. It’s typically cheaper to manufacture everything on mass, including the higher features, and just not wire it up in lower end cars. Very common for things like heated car seats, I remember one of my old Mitsubishi had everything in the seat but just didn’t have the heated seat control button and fuse.

Locked by software is a whole new level though.

Even ICE manufacturers have been including hardware that software disabled for a while

It won’t just be electric cars, it’ll be all new model cars from manufacturing companies. At least until ICE is phased out.

Have you seen the automotive industry as of late? This isn't a EV issue nor is it really new. We've had things like OnStar for years and the entire industry has started to chase the gaming industry's microtransaction BS for a while now.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature

https://www.thedrive.com/news/43329/toyota-made-its-key-fob-remote-start-into-a-subscription-service

The future looks like a potential live service hell scape for the auto industry EV or otherwise.

I have a Rivian and it works great with no subscription. The only thing you can add via Sub is a hotspot, which seems reasonable to me.

No, don't! He has enough kids.

Unlikely, but expect to see more language in sales contracts that "if absolutely any of the software is fucked with in absolutely any way that wasnt done by us the vehicles warranty is absolutely null and void. We also reserve the right to refuse to provide any and all parts and services to any vehicle found to have had its software modified outside of factory parameters." And you best believe they will keep a list of vins and wont care if it was the previous owner.

We can all do our part by not buying anything from those who do this.

Right? Probably for attention grabbing, cause they do say the same flaw exists in zen2 and zen3, and the article is by no means slamming AMD for it. But the title does come off that way

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