[RDale]

https://fordauthority.com/2022/12/ford-patent-filed-for-upgradable-vehicle-system/

Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for an upgradable vehicle system, Ford Authority has learned.

The patent was filed on December 6th, 2018, published on December 13th, 2022, and assigned serial number 11528330.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Sounds like over the air updates with a subscription for a new service.

 

[Russr]

Excellent... so when they eventually get the parts for a heated steering wheel, they'll make us get a monthly subscription in order to activate it - ala BMW. Just great! With all the "death by 1,000 (bills) cuts courtesy of streaming subscriptions, cloud-storage/security camera stuff, etc., we've all become so numb to that model it's kinda sad.

Too late to yell "ENOUGH!", but there, I tried!

 

[quikag]

It's coming. You can pay $900/year or something for more horsepower on some of the new Mercedes electric vehicles if you so choose.

 

[ChrisC]

So you pay close to $100K for features that you cannot use unless you pay for a subscription? Greed is not good

 

[Russr]

So you pay close to $100K for features that you cannot use unless you pay for a subscription? Greed is not good

When I read about the BMW stuff, I was thinking how bloody brilliant it is (from a manufacturers' perspective, that is). Thunk about it... you're going to pay for all the hardware on the day the vehicle is purchased/financed. Manufacturer get's paid out at that time - cracks open a bottle, etc.
Then us consumers (that don't have enough of a wad to just pay it in one go) start paying a compound interest model... let's say out $100K vehicle costs us $165K (not allowing for npv, blah, blah, blah).
THEN, the manufacturer adds a consumables-based model, where they charge us to switch on the hardware we've already paid for...
Gotta love it.. I mean, it's brilliant - for them.