Subscription-Based Pricing Coming to Features Your Car Already Has


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There's already a subscription for remote start via the Toyota App. It's free at first or for now.

"Consumers don't seem as excited about the trend as car companies."

No kidding.

I personally struggle with how "connected" new vehicles are becoming, which in turn leads to the ability of a manufacturer to control access to features remotely like they describe in this article.

I purchased a 2018 F150, sold it to a wholesaler a little over a year later and was able to remotely track it throughout its journey from Alberta, Canada, down south to an auction house, then to the dealer who purchased it at auction, then to the new owners home using the Fordpass app. Before selling the truck i wiped the system clean and reinitialized the fordpass app, so I could follow it on its journey. I periodically checked in on its progress to see how long the process took, and ultimately what kind of asking price a US dealer was going to ask for it. Once the vehicle was sold to a private owner, I wiped my access to the vehicle, deleted the app and let the new owner enjoy his truck, but that whole process really made me think about how creepy it is that a manufacturer has that ability to view every vehicle it makes, including tire pressures, how much fuel is in the tank, how long its been since it was serviced, miles driven each year, etc.

Ultimately, if manufacturers go this route, I can see aftermarket companies creating bypass controls or software hacks to solve the subscription requirement just like companies made Auto start/stop bypass modules for the vehicles who come with that feature from factory. I installed one on my f150 the first week I owned the vehicle personally. Best $150 and 15 minutes I ever spent on that vehicle.

Sorry for the long winded response, but this is such a open ended topic.

What I’m concerned about is the dealer retrofitting a bunch of subscription-based crap onto pre-existing vehicles as part of some “recall”.


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Not at all. I find this fascinating but at the same time very disturbing. It’s bad enough that the car can be tracked but being hacked scares me more. The possibilities of someone being able to hack your car and control it is what scares me the most. To be honest I don’t think I will ever buy a new car again. I’ll just keep my 4Runner forever.

Forget hacked. What about some government mandate to keep you home enforced by your connected vehicle? I used to think that was unthinkable. Now, not so much.

Yes I’m aware of the new law that the government is requiring a back door kills switch be put in cars by 2026. That’s another reason.

Its quite possible that future cars, possibly even some existing ones (i'm looking at you Tesla) can be remotely hacked and the self driving feature could be controlled by a third party.

To a much lesser extent and probably more realistic for now, its also possible for these features to fail or not work correctly in a given environment and cause a crash, which is the reason I purchased a used 2014 T4R for my offroad rig and not a brand new 2021-22 with TSS. I assume it can be disabled for offroad use, because I can't imagine what the pre collision warning would think when I dip the front end into a mud pit. haha

They're already doing it with personal cell phones. The Canadian government was just found to be tracking the movements of 33 million Canadians during the pandemic. I'm sure, in some way, its happening with vehicles too. Its certainly possible from a hardware standpoint. Insurance companies who give you an OBD dongle to track your driving habits have been doing it for years.

Seems like a valid concern but hopefully hardware limitations of already manufactured vehicles will limit the ability to do that via software updates. Who knows though.

Subscription models are *everywhere* and I hate them. You don’t own shit any more.

Katzkin is about to make bank LOL


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Next they are going to tell us we're allowed one personal item and one carry on for free, but there's a fee for any other luggage. Click here to get the lowest rate by paying online now!

It's a super interesting topic. I've been doing some reading and agree with much of what has been said in this thread. One of the things I think about often is at what point will those of us who don't want to be subject to subscription cars and control need to buy our "dumb" car that we'll need to keep forever.

I've seen on other forums people talking about how once someone figures out autonomous driving to a better degree than it is today, what's to stop them selling that patent and tech to the government and we all end up forced into the autonomous driving box because of the software backend in our connected vehicles. No speeding, no offroading, no racing, none of the things many enthusiasts like to do.

The wormhole is limitless when we go down this path. How quickly some of those things become reality is going to be interesting. I know I can say without a doubt, I'll never buy a car that has subscription heated seats or features that are considered "base" by many buyers today.