Halfway through he describes this as malicious compliance with the “right to repair” law. Apple and others are making a mockery of the law.
Halfway through he describes this as malicious compliance with the “right to repair” law. Apple and others are making a mockery of the law.
Of course you can do business that way. If the heating costs $x, and half the customers pay for it but $5x is charged then that is a profit.
The alternative would be to make two sets of cars (with and without heating). Or four sets of cars if another similar optional feature is shipped like this. Or 8 permutations if there are three features etc
It can certainly be cheaper to install them by default even if not all customers pay to enable them. ie it is mathematically possible that their system is cheapest for both the manufacturer and the consumer. The alternative would be no different for us cold-bummed drivers but possibly more expensive for the toasted-tush drivers.
Two sets of seats you mean. The car is the same. These days they don’t even have to blank out the buttons because it’s a touch screen anyway.
I already had heated + ventilated seats with the optional multi-contour (air based) cushions, but without the memory package, so they weren’t fully electric. Then there were the different materials available. Each of these things was an option, and there were more that I didn’t have that I probably didn’t know. Somehow they made a profit off the car. I also had the four zone climate control as opposed to the two zone, which was also an option over the manual air conditioning. There were a ton more options present and many missing (seriously, who tf optioned the sunroof, but not adaptive cruise???)
This was a 2003 car. No subscription, you just paid for the options you wanted. In fact the sunroof necessitated different body shells according to the parts catalog. How is THAT still an option? That makes for a lot more complexity than any other item being an option.
In 2025 I would expect heated seats to be standard in any car more expensive than the very base model Dacia. Super simple tech, very easy to make, and pretty much a necessity in some areas of the world, particularly where I live.
Two sets of cars, not seats. The seats would be pre installed. Dealers do not be assemble to taste (except for maybe small items like radio).
Chances are that the savings in doing it the current way are not passed on to the consumer but mathematically, technically they could be. Same like self-serve checkouts.
With software it is common to pay extra to unlock premium features. You don’t pay and then download those features. This is the same concept.
Uhh… You do realise that you can choose options when you order the car, right? There are enough options on some cars that if you wanted to stock every combo, you’d need billions of cars.
Some of those options are easy to retrofit, others require assembling to order.
There is a reason why odd colors cost more. If they could change the color with software but the base color was white, it would be fair to only charge those who wanted to employ the tech for a fancy color and let the others have it at the old price (even though both customers have the enabling tech on board).
None of these get retrofitted on new cars. They’re literally built to order unless you buy a demo vehicle or an in-stock vehicle and those usually don’t have a lot of variety anyway, they’re meant for fleets more than anything.