Originally Posted by
Alex Zeller
The problem with subscription based services is that people (or companies) find a way around it. Whether it's reverting to an older version, hacking it, or just replacing the software with something free. Android sales took off mainly because of Apple's tight control over everything iPhone. The first car company to try this will most likely lose sales to other brands. GM has tried to offer monthly services like On-Star but it's never taken off. I've seen a few vehicles that say they can connect directly to the internet (for a monthly fee) yet if it was popular every model of every brand would have it as an option. Why would I want to pay an extra fee to make my vehicle connect to the internet when my phone already does and is much more portable than my car? That's the great thing about capitalism. If you get too greedy someone will undercut you.
Perhaps you misunderstand what it means to have your vehicle connected to the Internet. You will connect your car to your in-home WiFi, just as you connect your smartphone to your in-home WiFi. The reason for doing this is so that you can receive software updates to your vehicle. Your vehicle will also report its maintenance status to the company so that they can inform you of problems that need service. I suspect they will collect a lot more data that they don't tell us about. When you drive away from your home, you will lose that Internet connection.
This connection to the Internet is not just for EVs. Ford, for example, does this for all of their new cars.
Regarding hacking the software in a car, there are ways to detect "foreign" software in a system, as your virus detection software does. I suspect that if they detect any "foreign" software they will treat it as a virus and shut down that part of the car, or even the whole car. It will likely also void the warrantee. Tesla has a pretty robust software protection system in their vehicles - I haven't heard of anyone hacking it yet.
If there is a hole in the software security, they will send out an update to patch the hole, as Microsoft does with Windows today. Hacking a vehicle's software is something that a lot of people have spent a lot of time thinking about. If your vehicle's software could be hacked, a lot of dangerous things could be done. For example, your brakes might not work, or your car might accelerate to 70 miles per hour and you wouldn't be able to slow down. Keeping foreign software out of the vehicle system is a very high priority to the companies.
Regarding subscriptions for various features, we'll just have to wait and see. But the financial advantage to the company is so great that I don't see any way to stop it.
Mike
Last edited by Mike Henderson; 05-02-2021 at 9:12 PM.
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