Carmakers want a piece of the Tesla pie and throw subscription services for everything, including the full use of a physical key fob in Toyota's case.
People are used to buying cars with lots of extras, be they for comfort, safety or the eyes’ pleasure. Those extras were also paid for upfront, for the remaining life of the car, so buyers would not bother past the dealer’s gate. Those days are all gone now, as Tesla pushed a new reality to market. All Tesla cars have all the features included, hardware-wise, but you can only use them all when you pay for them. Again, this can be done upfront (like the $10,000 Tesla Full Self-Driving suite) or using a subscription (which FSD will fall back to in the future). What is really disturbing is that Tesla basically owns the keys to your car, and you will be locked out once you fail to pay the subscription. Tesla also controls what car offers what feature, which makes it that used or salvaged vehicles don’t have all the features you expect. That can go as far as Supercharger access. This degree of control over customers’ cars is something that all carmakers fancy, and it is not at all unexpected that some of them try to copy Tesla, clumsily though. We already know BMW wanted to charge $80 a year for access to Apple CarPlay in their cars, only to backpedal on that after taking a lot of flak from their customers. Mercedes-Benz charges in Germany $576 a year for full-tilt 10 degrees rear-wheel steering, while Audi also wants $85 per month to use the navigation system in newer models. Many of these functions (except for the rear-wheel steering in the Mercedes EQS, obviously) are available free of charge in many moderately-priced cars, so you see the conundrum here. Well, it looks like Toyota wants in the game too, as some disgruntled customers found out. The carmaker that refused to offer Apple CarPlay and Android Auto a long time after those functions were ubiquitous is trying to make a living out of subscription services. Well, now comes the funny part, as Toyota wants you to pay a subscription to use the car’s key fob. More specifically, in the case of newer Toyota cars equipped with a remote start function, you can only use this function with a Toyota Remote Connect subscription. To be clear, this function is activated via a radio-controlled remote and it does not require a connection to Toyota’s servers to justify the subscription. Nevertheless, Toyota wants you to pay $80 a year if you want this function to work. As far as we know, the Japanese carmaker is the first ever to charge a subscription for full use of your car’s key fob.
How well will this be going for the more traditional automakers is something to be seen. I expect people will sanction greedy automakers just like they did with BMW. Plus, a lot of functions that are sold under a subscription are not exactly groundbreaking or at least useful. And for many, modern smartphones already offer better alternatives.
Keyword: Carmakers Want a Piece of the Tesla Pie, Subscription Services for Everything