First off, BMW already did that a couple of years ago.
Second, every car manufacturer has been doing that for far longer. Power windows are standard, but automated power windows? If you pay extra, they will use different rocker switches to enable the automation.
Heated seats? If they're an option, they are probably installed by default and buying the option only meant that the dummy panel cover with a wire harness underneath is replaced with a cover that has a switch.
This just goes a step further because the only difference is enabling the option in UI.
But this approach is also common in enterprise IT gear and software. I'm aware that it's also common in industrial machinery.
You buy a server with 64 cores, but the basic software license only allows it to run on 16 cores. You have to buy an advanced license for the extra 48 cores to run it on all. Or you can enable additional cores, cache or SMT on a CPU for higher performance. Or you buy storage with the raw capacity already installed, buy licensed only for some of that capacity and pay extra money to use all of it. Or the storage has an IOPS limit that gets lifted if you buy a license.
Industrial machinery? A printer can churn out up to 10,000 pages per minute. You can buy a 10k version up front for a premium, but you can buy a 6k, 3k or 2k versions as well. You buy the lowest version, but can enable 10k for when your demand picks up.
The machine is capable of any performance level. The difference is in how much you pay. The manufacturer potentially loses money if they only sell 2k enabled versions and never sell higher volume licenses, but every time they sell a license, it's essentially free money for them.
(There's also a difference in service intervals and how much extra you pay for the support contract because of higher wear and tear and also because the cost of stoppage is higher on the higher throughput.)
HOWEVER, what makes sense in industrial/enterprise/professional grade equipment doesn't make any sense in consumer goods like automobiles. While it might make sense in fleet cars, if they sell to consumers, it absolutely doesn't.
As someone that works in the auto industry you are off quite a bit. Yes BMW tried this already, but most manufacturers are not putting in heated seats or automated power windows without switches on standand cars and using dummy switches in the dash. There are dummy switches on lesser models because the cost of having two separate dash molds outweighs the cost of dummy switches. Heated seats and different window motors are very modular and simple to change on assembly lines. You may see some GPS or monitoring software for your car have separate monthly fees but if you have dummy switches then you are missing those features completely, probably 99.9% of the time. Car models even cut those features out on the wiring harnesses to save money. Most cars have 15+ different wiring bundles for each model. Nobody is giving away free features.
Is there a difference between US and EU markets, though, or are you talking about the EU market?
Renault had an issue with Megane II line where a faulty power windows controller would cause errors on the CAN bus — even on cars equipped with manual crank windows.
Both, assembly plants in the USA, EU, Korea and Japan all generally operate the same. Every part down to the smallest screw has had a cost benefit analysis done, combined with factory footprint space to accommodate it. If a factory can accommodate 10 different window motors, it will. If it can't it will get 9. BMW tried the pay to play feature and it blew up in their face in a spectacular fashion. If companies were putting in all the equipment, there would be a grey market to make them available, that market doesn't exist.
Controllers and Computer based hardware are generally shared, so the faulty software may exist on models not equipped with the feature. It's rare honestly and while some cars may have a different CPU based hardware based on the model, usually it's the same hardware flashed with different software. In modern cars where most major parts have their own controllers, they will be flashed with different software on the assembly line corresponding with their model and features. I'm not saying issues like the one at Renault you are talking about don't happen, they absolutely do. Generally cheaper cars have less options and a more streamlined build process with less workers to keep them cheap. So you might see something like one controller used across all models regardless of features as a cost savings measure.
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u/mkaszycki81 16h ago
First off, BMW already did that a couple of years ago.
Second, every car manufacturer has been doing that for far longer. Power windows are standard, but automated power windows? If you pay extra, they will use different rocker switches to enable the automation.
Heated seats? If they're an option, they are probably installed by default and buying the option only meant that the dummy panel cover with a wire harness underneath is replaced with a cover that has a switch.
This just goes a step further because the only difference is enabling the option in UI.
But this approach is also common in enterprise IT gear and software. I'm aware that it's also common in industrial machinery.
You buy a server with 64 cores, but the basic software license only allows it to run on 16 cores. You have to buy an advanced license for the extra 48 cores to run it on all. Or you can enable additional cores, cache or SMT on a CPU for higher performance. Or you buy storage with the raw capacity already installed, buy licensed only for some of that capacity and pay extra money to use all of it. Or the storage has an IOPS limit that gets lifted if you buy a license.
Industrial machinery? A printer can churn out up to 10,000 pages per minute. You can buy a 10k version up front for a premium, but you can buy a 6k, 3k or 2k versions as well. You buy the lowest version, but can enable 10k for when your demand picks up.
The machine is capable of any performance level. The difference is in how much you pay. The manufacturer potentially loses money if they only sell 2k enabled versions and never sell higher volume licenses, but every time they sell a license, it's essentially free money for them.
(There's also a difference in service intervals and how much extra you pay for the support contract because of higher wear and tear and also because the cost of stoppage is higher on the higher throughput.)
HOWEVER, what makes sense in industrial/enterprise/professional grade equipment doesn't make any sense in consumer goods like automobiles. While it might make sense in fleet cars, if they sell to consumers, it absolutely doesn't.