In the end, the KIA car company made its cars into subscription models, I really hate this because in the end the car we buy with our own money doesn’t feel like it belongs to us. Should we finally buy an old school car ? so as not to be affected by this subscription models or is there a way to crack the software installed in it ?
I love all the comments saying “yeah well that stuff isn’t free someone has to maintain it”
YOU’RE PAYING 100K FOR A FUCKING CAR
That’s the payment. That’s what they get their money from.
Wanting more in perpetuity is fucking stupid no matter what the excuse is.
There’s also the fact that remote start, while shorter range, has existed on key fobs for like 20 years. My ex wife’s 2022 Hyundai has remote start, but only through the app, while my 2013 Focus has it on the key fob.
That’s honestly the only feature that’s bundled in those subscriptions that I really want, though the alarm notification is a nice to have.
I have a 22 kia with remote start. I also have the app (that costs the same as this post so I don’t pay either). The remote start sets the car to 72 with nothing else on. No way to change it via settings. Paying for the app remote start is the only way to do the defroster, heated seats, steering wheel, etc. It’s so fucking lame.
app
nah
Low effort.
Not only that, but if you have no choice but to buy a car with internet connectivity, these are supposed to be the kind of bells and whistles they give to at least make it SEEM like you’re not being completely taken advantage of. It’s like a double-dip. “We’re giving your car connectivity so we can sell your telemetry, AND we get to charge you for all the useful features, too!”
If it costs SO much to maintain these services, cool. I’d be happy to save the poor little car manufacturers money by buying a model that uses no connectivity whatsoever. But, for some reason, they don’t seem to want to offer that. Gee, I wonder why.
Demand more out of them, because they’ll always be looking to get more out of you.
This reminds me of the video game industry. Make a complete game, then choose to remove pieces to sell later as add-on content. Lol. The only thing I see costing them money is if they have to pay for an LTE subscription to maintain that internet connectivity so you can start your car from an app.
Not to mention the data they mine from you with their “app” that they can sell to advertisers.
A 2024 Kia Telluride is right around $50,000 USD (fully loaded specs), but I get what you’re saying with regards to vehicles in general.
Like BMW and Tesla having “creature comforts” behind subscriptions.
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They have considered how much the gains from being evil assholes offset the cost of alienating some people, and found that they make more by being evil, it’s not stupid.
Finally someone who gets it
Glad to see you here my fellow comrades
Honestly the people who defended subscription models for something that you already paid & own are dumb (or maybe just trolling around) like people who defend adobe for subscription modelsHonestly the people who defended subscription models for something that you already paid & own are dumb
You don’t own the cellular towers your car needs to connect to in order to work with the app.
But you do pay to use the network. So, you’re still paying for it.
That’s the point. It IS a subscription. The person I’m responding to believes that it shouldn’t be and that they’ve paid for it already.
Cars shouldn’t require cell phone towers to function. It’s a CAR.
It doesn’t. The car works just fine. The features that require a cell phone are specific to operating your car while not present at your car.
Finally, the voice (text) of reason.
Thank you!
The issue is that with ongoing service across time, the longer the service is being used the more it costs Kia. The larger the time boxes Kia uses the bigger the number is and the more you’re going to scare off customers.
Using Kias online build and price, looks like the most expensive Telluride you can get right now is $60k MSRP, cheapest at 30k
Let’s assume Kia estimates average lifetime of a Telluride to be 20 years so they create an option to purchase this service one time for the “lifetime” of the vehicle. Taking in good faith the pricing Kia has listed, using that $150 annual package, and assuming that price goes up every year at a rate of 10% (what Netflix, YouTube, etc have been doing) across those twenty years you’re looking at around $8.5k option. At the top trim thats still 14% extra that is going to make some buyers hesitant, at the base model that’s 28% more expensive.
Enough buyers will scoff at that so Kia can either ditch the idea entirely as they’ll lose money on having to pay for the initial development and never make their money back, or they find some way to repackage that cost and make it look like something that buyers are willing to deal with.
To me the bigger issue is the cost of the service vs what you’re getting. Server time + dev team + mobile data link cannot be costing Kia more than a few million annually, mid to upper hundred K is more likely so they must not be expecting that many people to actually be paying for any of this
Assume the communication with the app it through Internet. The car must have a 4G chip (too early to see 5G in cars, I think?). So no matter what you pay, it won’t work when 4G is retired. With marketing pushing to get new standards always faster, 4G may not last another 20years.
Anyway, bear in mind that once you subscribe, they will most likely collect detailed data about how you use the features and sell that as well…
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Kia is actually among the most reliable brands now according to consumer reports (at least for EVs? I don’t have a CR subscription so I can’t check the overall numbers)
you should absolutely choose a vehicle without subscriptions, and make a point of stating it at time of purchase
this is your one moment to make a difference
Not until my 2007 Tundra literally collapses into a pile of rust and plastic. Hopefully it’s not too late by then.
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No, you should choose a vehicle with but steal it and pirat the subscription software.
Just download a car
You wouldn’t…oh goddamnit
This type of subscription is actually kiiiiinda understandable because the company has to maintain servers, staff and keep the software secure because they’re handling sensitive data such as location etc.
I also remember that BMW I think? Had a heated seat subscription and that’s really not justifiable imo
I had a 2023 Elantra, and iirc it had these features for $30 a year after my subscription ended.
These prices are way higher. Seems like every company agreed that subscription = $10(ish) a month, regardless of the actual cost the features justify.
Qne is this not already part of the purchase? Cars like everything else went up in price. Labour and raw materials cost more. But not even for a second am i under an illusion they’re not baking the upkeep of servers and updates as part of the cost with a hefty margin.
Yeah for connected features, there are those costs. A vehicle we own would let me remote start it and lock and unlock doors from the app…if I paid $15/month. It’s not worth it to me, so I’ve never paid for that service, and the vehicle works fine without it. I mostly even forget it exists. I might be more interested if it would report things like fuel level, oil and fuel filter replacement time, and so on, but it doesn’t (but even then I’m not sure it’d be worth $15/month).
A subscription for heated seats, though? No. I don’t want a subscription service for something that doesn’t have an ongoing cost to the manufacturer. For us in particular, we buy our cars with the intention of keeping them a long time, and I’m not paying that fee for the life of the car. I like cars that are paid off.
If I’m on a heated seat subscription and they break for some reason, who pays for them to be fixed?
Comparison on the heated seats repair question: I rent the water softener at my house for $29/month. (The previous owner set it up, and I haven’t gotten around to replacing it…it’s a “it’s working, and I have bigger issues” situation.) At this point I’ve paid for two of the highest-end home water softeners available, and I haven’t had a single issue with the one I have, so it’s definitely not the best setup financially. But, if my water softener dies today, I can call them, and they’ll come right out and fix it or replace it, no charge. So there is a benefit to that monthly subscription price; they take the risk of it failing, not me.
Totally agreed, it would be nice if you could set it up yourself but that’ll never happen. Even if you did set it up yourself it wouldn’t be free though
Simple. Buy an older car and spend the extra money maintaining it. Reducing demand is the only language consumers have that businesses understand.
It doesn’t have to be ancient; even 5-10 year old cars don’t have this bullshit.
Honestly, doesn’t even have to be old. My Toyota Yaris is a 2023 model and it has no subscriptions. Such cars still exist, but they are mostly in the lower end market, because automakers assume if you have the money for an expensive car you also have the money for a subscription.
The list of manufacturers I can morally buy from is ever shrinking… Soon Dacia will be the sole manufacturer I could buy from without weird BS attached.
Kia and Ford were EVs I considered but ultimately turned down.
You could say that’s… great news.
Yes and no, I’m never happy about having less options. Plus my boycott does very little.
My “dream” car is a V6 Accord from the last year they made them, which I think is 2016. I’d buy one of those right now and just keep repairing it, and hope no one t-bones me. Unfortunately I think my wife is still in the mindset of “we should buy a new car and keep it forever”, which used to be my mindset, too. But she’s not seeing the news on this stuff like I am, either. I suspect if I explained “heated seat subscription” to her (a feature she will not buy a car without) she would object strenuously.
But I don’t like where new cars are going, at all. I don’t like subscriptions, I don’t like the backseat driver nanny features that blare out false alarms, and on the whole I’d rather not have adaptive cruise control (there are times when adaptive cruise is nice, but overall I prefer the old-style cruise control).
We have a 2020 Mazda that I absolutely hate driving; if that is the future of cars, I’m not interested.
I’m hoping my car and our pickup last forever. The other day we took the Mazda for an errand in poor weather because, as I said, “It’s the most expendable car.”
Just don’t buy a 5-10 year old Kia or Nissan. Nearly every one on the road is going to have their engine sieze or transmission have issues
Could you unpack the Why?
Not even 5 years man my 2022 is nice and doesn’t have subscriptions.
I mean okay but in 5-10 years these are going to be those older cars.
We’re talking about now 🙄
Yeah, the point is, do it now and change the status quo, because later, it will be too late.
The comment you’re replying says to buy older cars so we’re not buying the new cars, hence decreasing the demand.
I agree with that. And my point being “Start the movement (of buying older cars instead of new ones) now and change the status quo (of high demand for new cars) while also being able to get older cars that cannot be subscriptionified, because later, even the older cars will be such, that they will have a subsciption, making even 2nd handers to pay the OEM”.
Change the status quo now and stop buying cars. Move to walkable Transit orientated communities where you don’t need one. Stop supporting this shitty industry that’s always been pay to play with gas / electricity, insurance, maintenance, payments.
It seems already too late for that movement - at least in places like the more “developed” states in the US.
I use a bicycle for commute btw.
Which is why we have to stop it now if we don’t want unfeatures.
A jeep from ww1 can still function today with regular care a maintenance, and so can a 5-10 year old car. The point isn’t the age, it’s how you treat the vehicle.
Yeah but in 100 years the cars from 5 years from now will be 95 years old
And then you can’t use it when the temp is 0F because they decide to do some maintenance
Imagine your car need an updates or you don’t paying subscription fee or but the server are offline & you’re in emergency situation, and the worst of it your car won’t start without it OMG… that’s scarred me the hell out of it
My spouse was just telling me about someone who got stuck waiting for an hour because their car decided to unexpectedly do an update
I do find that the days I need it the most it’s slower than molasses.
I own a Kia. I don’t enjoy the subscription anymore than the next guy but I’m calling bullshit.
The only features behind a pay wall are the ones the app provides. The ones that require an always on internet connection and server infrastructure to maintain.
None of the in-car features are limited. The remote start on my key fob, seat heaters, onboard nav, all work fine without a subscription.
This isn’t like the crap bmw was pulling with the seat heaters.
The cost to maintain the servers to send extremely small packets of data to instruct the car for the entire fleet of cars they sold could be less than $100/m.
Indeed; what we need is a jailbreak and a way to operate these systems on our own independent or third party / aftermarket resources. In a REAL competitive market, someone else could set up a server and offer to run these applications (or others!) for a different price. Not that I’m even particularly fond of capitalism myself nor how vulnerable it makes your car to turn it into an IOT device.
This WILL be hacked though, eventually.
The question is, who will venture deep enough and understand all the hurdles like the car self-bricking after even trying to peek at the SW or HW.
Someone figured out how to remotely take control of Chrysler vehicles with the Uconnect 8.4 systems a while back. So people are out there working on these things. Also, the more popular the car, the more likely someone is working on it.
To FCA’s credit in that case, they listened to the researchers and implemented several fixes very quickly to address the problem. I wouldn’t put it past many manufacturers to do the hands-over-the-ears “la la la” thing when faced with the same situation.
cough cough KIA cough cough
Are you talking about people breaking in and stealing them? While I agree that was a stupid problem, it’s quite a bit different than a remote hacker taking over your brakes while you drive.
Well, it’s only a small step from there. Still, it’s dumb and it’s hard to trust the cars nowadays. Hell, some of them may be already infected and waiting for order 66.
Are you going to jailbreak roadside assistance?
It’s called working at a towing company, and I already have. I know what those “roadside assistance” firms do from the inside, because we’re the ones who actually do the work when they call, and most of them are trash; you could just skip the middle man and call us directly, but the good ones actually pay decently and are more likely to get our help. Prices become better for individuals when they act as a group who collectively pool resources to subsidize cost on the basis that having a lifeline to fall back on when you don’t need one is better than not having one when you do need one. Technically any handful of people can found a private social club that they all pay ten bucks a month into but don’t always use, and such a club’s warchest will snowball to thousands of dollars while no one is looking. Then when suddenly one person is in trouble, the club swoops in and eats the cost. Socialization of risk. Mutual aid. Wish more people did that.
It probably won’t be hacked for most of these cars, though. Just the ones interesting enough to attract that kind of attention.
Those prices on the screenshot are annual, not monthly.
I’ll agree that the services are overpriced, and I know I’m in the wrong place for this sentiment, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a reoccurring fee for something that costs actual money and man-hours to maintain. And I’d rather that fee be a bolt on vs baked into the price of the car (or whatever) so I can choose whether I want to pay it.
All that being said, I don’t pay for the kia online svcs because I think they’re overpriced.
You forget the absolute amounts of data harvested, storage won’t pay itself.
That’s what i pay for gigabit fiber and unlimited 5g combined. (Admittedly my cell plan is one of those crazy grandfathered plans.)
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The only problem with services as a subscription is THE FUCKING IDIOTS THAT PAY FOR THEM
If nobody fell for shit like that, manufacturers would drop it like boiling diarrhea
This is true.
Go and buy a car from a manufacturer who doesn’t insist on subscriptions… whilst you still can!
Something like the XBUS seems like a good choice. They seem to focus on the important and practical stuff, and I can’t find any information about any sort of related subscription.
Finally someone who gets it
Glad to see you here my fellow comradesThis is where capitalism is failing because people are dumb 🤷
This is where capitalism is thriving because people are dumb
Fixed. It thrives on human stupidity and laziness
or… we just need more FOSS alternatives to the car manufacturers proprietary OS.
I already see GH issues like: “breaks stop working when going above 200mph.”
I might be the guy that shows up at the revolution for the most trivial reason but I hate that it says $59.00 per annually like companies think they’re so smart for having business school graduates on staff charging for things only business school graduates would think to charge for but they can’t even get basic grammar right.
Worth noting that these features appear to require your car to be connected to a cellular network. This isn’t the same as BMW charging a fee for heated seats.
They could have just put a SIM card in your car and required you to pay your cell phone provider for a connection.
You don’t need a cellular connection for long range, low bandwidth communication. There are networks such as Lora that don’t require a paid subscription to use.
That’s not what this is though. I have a Hyundai Tuscan that is always connected to a cellular network.
I can always connect with the car with my phone if both the car and phone have internet access. It’s also how the “find my car” feature works. And also I believe software updates (OS and maps).
I meant that they don’t have to use a cellular connection, they could use something else if they wished. LoRa is a two way data connection designed for low bandwidth, long distance. Range can be anywhere from 3-10 miles depending on obstructions/obstacles. There are other similar protocols out there.
3-10 miles is nothing though. With a cell phone connection your car can be anywhere a cell tower is and you can connect with it.
That’s farther than a cell phone. A cell phone might get 3 miles maybe more if you have the high ground. It’s a lower frequency and therefore has a longer range. There are both public and private gateways for LoRa. So you can use it even if you don’t own or operate a gateway.
Maybe you misunderstood me. My car can be in New York City and I’m in Los Angeles and I can check it’s location and lock/unlock the doors
You could do the same thing without using a cell network.
I have something similar for my Subaru but it’s only 4 dollars a month.
It’s a fee I gladly pay to be able to start my car and set the interior climate from my phone. I imagine there’s some cost the access a network to have that functionality and I don’t see a problem paying for it.
The old style that started from a key fob required you to be a lot closer to the vehicle to start it. Right now I start it a few minutes before I leave my building a quarter of a mile away. I could start it from a different country if I wanted to. Needing to be within a few hundred feet would be pretty useless to me.
What about when a security vulnerability is discovered and your car can be started and unlocked by someone else? That’s one of my concerns with smart features from companies that aren’t primarily tech companies
Congrats on the new Subaru. I also happily paid for the app using the introduction 3 year plan. Hit me up when you hit year 4 and see the REAL price tag they charge.
This is free elsewhere. The fact that you’re okay paying monthly for remote start is hilarious and sad. Probably don’t tell people you’re okay with this.
The tesla app does an INSANE amount of shit no other vehicle app does and its free. But you want to pay monthly to turn your car on 😆
Yeah but you need to use a Tesla.
Except it’s a Tesla.
It’s like the Mr. Garrison’s dildo mono-wheel “it” vehicle, it’s fucking you in the ass!
Yea… You are part of the damn problem
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You have already pay for it. Soon “cant turn Air on if you dont pay 1dll a month”
Yea, maybe like 4 cents a month lol it’s nowhere near 4 dollars a month to handle a hundred lightweight API calls
Very personal opinion of mine, I hate subscription crap. However, I have to agree that, based on what you say, Subaru’s cost is much easier to digest than Hyundai/Kia POS.
Same for me. I have the blue link with Hyundai. It’s free for 3 years, then a reasonable amount after that.
While I’m generally against subscriptions, for the most part the above are things that require cellular service and cloud infrastructure…
While the price may be too high. I’m normally ok with subscriptions for things that have on-going costs to the seller.
You wouldn’t download [the basic features of an item you already purchased.]
How is unlocking your car over the internet a basic feature?
Your oxygen subscription expires in 2 weeks. Please take note that absence of oxygen leads to hypoxia. Due to the detrimental effects of the war in Ukraine we have been forced to increase prices by 420%. Would you like to extend your subscription?
How is that related to unlocking your car from your phone?
Because the cost of the app to do that isn’t $60 a year.
No the cost of the Servers and the maintenance and the work required to have all that kept online and secure is.
Do you think admins and security guys work for free?I’ll refer you to unexpctedkeg’s comment
will refer to my already posted answer to that comment
Both are, or at least should be, ridiculous.
Yes, an app costs money. Yes, servers do cost money. But do they need to use servers? No. For example, self-hosting. Or just connecting the car to the cellular network (which they already do, mind you) and just let the phone talk to it directly, no manufacturer server required. Just pay an ISP for cell service and you’re set. Are there problems with such a solution security-wise? Yes. And while I’m not an expert in cybersecurity I think the risks are about the same for this and a server model.
Hell, they might not even use servers for anything other than checking if you’ve paid your subscription in order to lower costs already (as if a few thousand unlock requests a minute couldn’t be managed without a problem on a Raspberry Pi). They don’t need some huge, expensive and power-hungr supercomputer for that, so I don’t see a need for such a steep price.
Are the features useful? Absolutely. Would someone be willing to pay this price? Also absolutely. But the festures objectively don’t cost that much to maintain and competition should and could put an end to it.
It’s just corporate greed, and it feels to me as if we’re getting closer and closer to the fabled oxygen subscription, and we have to call manufacturers out on their bullshit while we still have air to breathe.
Just don’t buy their cars or at least their subscriptions. Get your car ‘jailbreaked’. What will they do, remote disable it? I think we’re still not that far down the dystopia plotline that a boycott couldn’t work.
You want to selfhost your own server that communicates with your car so you can ulock your car from your phone? Are you dumb? Do you want to lose your car in a week?
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Then *** don’t buy the subscription ***
It is very easy. the design is very human.
Why do I need to unlock my car over the internet? What is the use case over a FOB?
Nice strawman.
Dont get the subscription if youre fine with a fob.How is asking you a follow-up question a strawman exactly? What do you think a strawman is?
Because the question was answered in my original question. You don’t. That’s why it’s an additional subscription feature.
My question was why the guy claimed it was a basic feature when it never was.
And then you came along and asked “well hurr durr why do i need to unlock my car from my phone”
You don’t. So you don’t need the subscription. Done.That’s why it’s an additional subscription feature.
So why is it worth a subscription? You’re defending it as something that is not a basic feature that validates the subscription, but asking what the feature actually provides is somehow a strawman?
Oh you were seriously asking? It allows me to unlock the car from my couch when my wife wants to get something out the car real quick. Or i don’t wanna carry my keys around.
I can also start the A/C 30 minutes before i leave so i dont have to freeze to death in winter.
The crazy thing is that at the price you are paying for a friggin telluride they could easily raise the price by a few hundred (ie several years worth of subscription) and it would be unlikely to shift sales by much at all but would not piss off the buyers like this. You can’t put this crap on your car loan either. I really get the sense there is a conspiracy level concerted effort to try to indoctrinate generation Z into allowing every corporation they deal with to stick an IV into their bank accounts.
They intentionally didn’t roll the subscription into the sale price. That’s the goal. They want that sweet, predictable, monthly income that they sell their investors on.
They also figured that if you’ve found your car, you’re less likely to walk away for what is essentially a fraction of the car’s price.
I honestly hope the next car I buy has shit like this. Because boy am I going to make it my mission to jailbreak it and release my code open source.
If you are clever, confident, and savvy about it I think you could get your next car for free. If there was a kickstarter type project where I could pledge an amount in support of a jailbreak for a car I owned or was thinking of getting, I’d pledge a decent amount, I think a lot of people would.
That’s the irony of all of this. I too would donate to a project that was actively trying to do this, even donate to their legal fund. I’d probably pay more than the subscription!
These asshole companies just don’t realize that a determined developer and engineer will move heaven and earth to make sure that their freedoms (as in speech) aren’t restricted.
I don’t care if it’s illegal. It’s my fucking car. Once you sell it to me, it ceases to be your property. You leave $100 bill in the glove compartment before you sell it to me? Well it’s mine now.
You leave software on my car’s computer? Welp, it’s mine now.
Right to repair is a main line issue for me
Keep us posted on make and model. I sure as hell will try to get one myself and help you test the shit out of that jailbreak.
They’re training people for even worse subscription models.
10 years of this subscription is $1500. Would anyone blink if they were buying a new car for 1500 more? lol
I would… I don’t want the feature. So why should I pay for it?
I miss when you didn’t need a cell connection for remote start, like my fob can lock and unlock my car from the third floor of my building why can’t I just have a button on my remote that does the same as unlocking my doors.
Although, the roadside kinda makes $60 a year worth it just for the peace of mind, gotta atleast give em that.
Kia’s just suck in general AFAIK. My friend has a 2010 Kia Sorento and he has some “device” on top of the positive (?) terminal of his battery. The terminal ring is a bit loose so it doesn’t make proper contact with the battery terminal and he has to hold it against it so that he can start his car.
I thought he was bullshitting me at first because he’s not a car guy and told me before that when his car was fucking up that it was the transmission, but it was the coil packs. Nope, there’s a big black box on the top of the battery and he said that only Kia can service it, and it’ll cost like $800 to fix.
