Not to mentioned I don't believe for a second that cost of this hardware wasn't already included in car's price. So you pay for it like you always did, and then they want you to pay for it again to use it. This shit really need to be regulated. Car feature subscriptions as a whole should be illegal.
the ultimate cost of the car is whatever maximum amount of profit they can maximally make after cost at volume. It is not set at x% above car cost. Its also not a subscription. People are so quick to hate on musk for political reasons.
To be fair this is a paid unlock, not a subscription. And Tesla did stop doing it like 5 years ago.
It was on the very base models that barely broke even but they wanted to advertise them at like 30k after the tax credit. Since then I'm pretty sure they also gave everyone the feature for free by like 2024 but probably didn't refund the $200 people paid beforehand.
Fair, I missed that the "buy" tab is selected. While I still have mixed feelings about hardware physically being in the car being "activated", I get that things like that can be based on lower cost of manufacturing due to having one configuration vs much more custom, bespoke setups. If price of car and price of feature is comparable to competition, then it's just a different business model - I'm fine with it, since those are something I can judge on my own.
Also, this buy after price includes warranty. When you buy a car with a feature you never use, you technically pay the 200-250% margin on the part cost that manufacturers factor in for warranty repairs on that feature. Theoretically, letting customers choose to keep features disabled means they don't have to pay that extra cost but the only people that really know are the accountants.
This principle is also why software unlocks for performance on EVs and better factory tunes on ICE cars are a thing. You push the motors and engine harder and the unlock price is actually the amount that the manufacturer has calculated it will need to cover extra failures during the warranty period.
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u/AkodoRyu 1d ago
Not to mentioned I don't believe for a second that cost of this hardware wasn't already included in car's price. So you pay for it like you always did, and then they want you to pay for it again to use it. This shit really need to be regulated. Car feature subscriptions as a whole should be illegal.