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 ?
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.
Agreed.
No, you should choose a vehicle with but steal it and pirat the subscription software.
Just download a car
You wouldn’t…oh goddamnit
And then you can’t use it when the temp is 0F because they decide to do some maintenance
I do find that the days I need it the most it’s slower than molasses.
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
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
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When you buy the car, you also pay for that integrated, albeit disable, service. To enable it you have to pay a subscription. I agree with the OP. This should never be the case. Now, the culprit is not the car manufacturer, but the people that pay for it. If nobody, or aven few people, paid for this, they wouldn’t have a business for that and they would likely stop. Bottom line is, you don’t like it? Give your money to another brand.
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Until they take that away from the fobs
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I’ll take that bet in the next ~10 years.
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Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=Z6UaZSZAOA4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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
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It would be reasonable if what that app did was anything that actually needed internet servers to work. Why not just pair up the phone with the car, ad-hoc like you could with a PSP, or any sort of peer-to-peer between car-phone, and call it a day? Oh, right, because then you can’t create a service you can charge monthly for.
That people are willing to pay for effectively a remote temperature control and shutdown timer, that does not need to be an internet service to work properly, can and should be dunked on.
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It’s for office workers or inner city dwellers in cold regions. They can start their car which is in the parking garage blocks away. It makes sense and it costs money to run.
Theres nothing wrong at all with this. At all. Image is FUD
Because you actually believe you didn’t already paid for about 5 years of the service when you paid for the car? Human stupidity and laziness is the accurate reason for manufacturers doing this.
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Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=Z6UaZSZAOA4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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.
Yea… You are part of the damn problem
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!
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.
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I think op just doesn’t understand what the subscription is for.
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Same for me. I have the blue link with Hyundai. It’s free for 3 years, then a reasonable amount after that.
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.
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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?
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
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.
Fuck sakes. Those features were free on my 2020 Telluride.
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.
Are you going to jailbreak roadside assistance?
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.)
That’s nice to hear, because my 2021 can’t Remote start without paying for the subscription. Most aggregating part is that if I had gotten the base model I could have added Remote start cheap, but because it came with Remote start already on it, it’s tough shit.
“You wouldn’t download a car.”
I would absolutely hack the heated seats to work without my credit card.
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.”
Even better, an open source car!
There’s already an open source bike. Carrying several tons of metal everywhere you go is kind of a bad idea anyway.
What about people that don’t live in the city where public transportation between towns is trash?
Don’t you think it’s interesting that even though the vast majority of car trips are a single person going less than a mile, every time someone brings up bikes the rebuttal is always “what if I need to move my family of 16 and their refrigerator 800 miles in freezing rain!?”
The US was built on rail. The infrastructure could be fixed. It’s a choice not to fix it. It would be better to put in energy to fixing this than creating an open source way to access a proprietary transit system. Infrastructure is the problem, car vendors are just exploiting it.
Edit: correction, 52% of trips in the US in 2021 were under 3 miles and 28% are under a mile according to US DoE (https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1230-march-21-2022-more-half-all-daily-trips-were-less-three-miles-2021). 2% we’re over 50 miles. Over 60% were under 5 miles, which is still pretty easy with an eBike given functional infrastructure.
Yeah, but I’m not from the US, I’m from a small town in Europe, you can put “all that effort” in both places at the same time because they are 2 completelly different problems
They aren’t two completely different problems, they’re in direct opposition. Making cars more tolerable increases demand for cars. Improving mass transit and bike infrastructure decreases demand. One is sustainable, the other is not.
I think the term you mean is old car especially from before 2018
in the end old cars basically open source you can modified it whatever you want as long as not breaking regulationsSo my two options are a repairable old gasoline/diesel car or a non reparaible electric/hydrogen car?
Yup, that’s the only choice not you but everyone get
Nissan Leafs are plenty DIY repairable. It was part of our decision making process when considering buying an EV. There’s also electric conversions if that’s your jam.
Some of us want all the internet connected options. And want to own their machine and have good security
Open source car software and firmware would do that
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.
Lol, I pirate public transport every day
Teach me your ways
Step 1: get on the bus
Step 2: there is no step 2
Yep, step 3:
don’t get caughtrepeat step 1I have to admit it’s a lot easier in places without turnstiles
True, but I think that is the implied final step in most acts of piracy
Aye, yourr right
Let me guess…you do carding or some kind of script that bugged transaction details
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.
