Mahindra recently rolled out a software update and now I have to depend on the eSIM network which is more unreliable than anything else in the car.
BHPian abirnale recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Background:
I am sure you are using a smartphone and know a lot of applications that are either one-time cost or pay-per-use / monthly, annual subscription-based ones! Have you heard that BMW once started charging its car customers / owners for CarPlay as a subscription fee? Yes, not the one-time activation or installation fee – the subscription fee to keep it alive!
When I bought my XUV7OO last year, I knew I was getting into something similar – the Adrenox feature set will be available only with a subscription. I didn’t think much about it as it had a host of features with it and I did not know the yearly fee then. It’s only now that I started realising it from many other folks whose subscriptions have expired – I need to pay too next year!
With the latest ICE update on XUV7OO, Mahindra has gone a step ahead and enabled Map My India’s latest map offering called “Mappls”! Read more about Mappls here.
So far so good? This is a great innovation, my thought when I first got it.
What’s happening:
With my experience of using connected car features and the latest experience with Adrenox / Mappls, I started thinking: as more and more cars are coming up with connected car features, it inevitably requires network / internet connectivity. This also means that every car will have an eSIM and pay-per-use / subscription is unavoidable if you want those features.
Of course, this also has risks related to privacy, tracking of your car as well as continuous spending on these features. More importantly – automobile manufacturers have discovered the hen that gives the golden egg: they can now charge you for these features in a recurring manner!
As a customer, we are thrilled to have the phone-like features on the car ICE. In fact, this is one of the USPs for many cars – ask M&M or Hyundai about it! As an Indian car owner, we don’t see any issues in this model – with a huge population, everyone is craving attention. We would be more worried if no one identifies us.
Fair enough – no issues so far. I am ok to pay for that service too and so are many. Whenever one gets the OTA updates for new phone features, apps – they love it. So why not have the same thing with a car? Ok, again this is fair too.
Someone from silicon city may think that the cars can be hacked, etc etc but that’s ok – not all are targets. So this is fine too.
What actually is a show-stopper in this frenzy is: while you move things to online, connected world features, what about features we always needed regardless of the connection? Like, say your turn indicators or brakes? Don’t be confused – this is the habit we are in: most folks can’t drive without directions. Ask them what happens when Google loses connections and / or their mapping app stops working! The navigation to us is almost like assuming we have indicators to use every time we need them.
Mahindra recently rolled out an ICE update to its newest cars: there are no more offline maps! Everything is connected: if you have a connection, it will work. Else, go figure it out yourself!
Some reference links you may want to visit on related stuff:
- Scorpio N – ICE Update gets Mappls
- XUV7OO – ICE Update
- Mahindra Thar
This increasing trend of connected features is good but that need not take away what already works in offline mode. In my car, the maps were perfectly alright – they were built by Map My India and had all data on the car ICE. Never needed internet connectivity. It may not be the best navigation software but I was always relying on it to get me out of the woods, literally.
Now for the craze of Mappls, M&M took away the offline maps.
I am now left with online-only maps on my car. The only rescue is Google Maps offline download feature: which may not be ideal for navigation anyway for iPhone users. The reason I am not happy with this move is – M&M took away something from the car that was not broken. And I am unhappy not because it just got sleeker online only maps, but because they gave me the eSIM network that is more unreliable than anything in the car – including legendary M&M electronics !
The problem with eSIM-only navigation software is also: the inability to seek the GPS fix faster. The reliance on the non-existent network to get an initial GPS fix is a stupid idea when the car itself has its own GPS antenna. It happened to me – I drove for about 5 KMs without the car knowing where it is on the map – this may just be a bug but then many other such things are waiting to be unleashed, I am dreading.
TL;DR
It’s great to have innovative features, even recurring revenue-generating features in cars. I do not resist them. What takes my goat is: when then there is no connectivity, I still want the car to have certain features that we have come to accept as must-haves – navigation is one of them. Next is what – indicators? Just Kidding.
What are your views and experiences on this matter?
And finally, I could catch this picture to make my point a little clearer:
Why fix something that was not broken? There are a dozen apps including food order on the go that are in ICE and instead of adding this Mappls there to try and make it better, M&M chose to replace the existing properly working offline navigation!
Here’s what BHPian Dr.AD had to say about the matter:
Great post, Avinash, and I agree with most of your points. You have explained the issues and the weird behavior of the OEMs very accurately.
However, I am unable to take a clear stand here as to who is to blame. As a technology seller myself, I know that such subscription-based features are the future (unfortunately for many of us as consumers) in most areas of life. Every player in the technology ecosystem (including startups building new innovative solutions and selling to these OEMs) wants a subscription revenue. The investors (for these startups and other technology companies) want subscription/recurrent revenue. The stakeholders in large software companies want recurrent revenues. So the whole technology/software ecosystem is pushing for these recurrent subscription revenues. And the automobile OEMs, who often merely buy these products or their licenses, are pushed into this game of subscription revenues.
Of course, I am not saying the OEMs are saints or they do not want a pie of this subscription money. Of course, they are tempted by the spreadsheet calculations showing the subscription fees becoming a huge chunk of revenue over the next 5 years (I have personally attended a few financial meetings where such subscription fees were shown to reach ridiculously high levels in 5 years; not that I believe in those predictions, but they look very powerful in the spreadsheets and board meetings), and they want to push for these subscription revenues from otherwise traditional product sale such as a car.
I am not an expert in finance, so please correct me if I am wrong here, but I find it funny how the modern revenue model trends are. Most service companies who are having strong service revenue still want to become product companies, and the traditional product companies (like automobiles, the classical example), that have strong product revenues, and trying hard to get subscription revenues. Everyone wants to try different and new revenue sources than what they have been used to and making the most money from in the past.
Anyways, coming back to Mahindra, they are a different game altogether. In my Thar, there is no eSIM and no connected features. So subscription is out of the question. Even then, they removed the offline navigation feature that they had when the new Thar was launched in 2020. Sometime in late 2022, they removed this navigation feature altogether.
Now it is possible MapMyIndia wanted to push a subscription license to Mahindra for Thar, and Mahindra had no way of pushing that to Thar owners since the car is not a connected car. So they removed it altogether. Or it is possible that Mahindra just decided not to pay the subscription/license fees to MapMyIndia and save some money for themselves. I do not know. I am purely suggesting the possibilities here. The point is, we do not know whom to blame for this or who/what is driving this new trend.
Personally, for me, I do not miss the offline maps in the car. I have almost never used offline maps in any cars in the last 10 years, since the onset of Google Maps as the navigation tool. I download offline maps in Google Maps of all the areas I plan to visit for each trip, and that is working very well for me. Further, I have purchased a license of the MapMyIndia app on my phone, and have downloaded all the maps on my phone by paying the one-time fee. Now I have the offline maps and the offline navigation from MapMyIndia as Plan B, and Google Maps on my phone as Plan A for my navigation. I have driven plenty of drives in areas with no connectivity, and yet never faced a problem with phone navigation.
Here’s what BHPian Ltinsane had to say about the matter:
This issue is not just limited to the automobile sector. There are so many other gadgets which end up either not working or in landfill due to “Always connected” features. Till the government doesn’t come up with an End-of-Life protocol, the future looks bleak for offline services.
This always-connected system in automobiles isn’t going to work in the long run. What happens when the 4G network shutdowns? Since the world has moved on to 5G or 6G networks. It already happened with Subaru in the USA. They were using a 3G network for their cars, well 3G shut down and they had to replace network cards in every vehicle that had an active subscription plan.
There certainly are no laws regulating what is offered in these subscriptions, the OEMs could easily add or remove features with OTA updates and as a consumer, we have no control or say over it.
What if you decided to buy trim A over trim B of the same car based on one particular feature you liked (There may be several different features, but You based your decision on one particular), and OEM decided to remove that feature with an Update?
It is the same with other gadgets such as always-connected video games. Like man I just want to play offline cricket on my Play station, If my internet is down, I can’t.
Or the 8 years old tablet laying around which is useless as Google had ended support for that Android version and I cannot even watch youtube on it. Won’t the same happen to cars? One day you start your engine, and the infotainment system displays the error that you can’t play the music anymore since your hardware is not supported by the latest version of the music player. You might be forced to buy a new Infotainment unit.
Here’s what BHPian shrk_18 had to say about the matter:
My few points:
- Do not force the update, give an option, till the subscription is valid
- Vodafone Idea is the worst network I have seen in the 20 years I have been using cell phones. It’s in the stone age, if you are going to make this change, either change the network provider or allow people a choice of their networks. ALLOW FOLKS TO PORT OUT !!! (Caps intended).
- Subscription revenue is fine, but for people who pay, allow the download of offline maps.
This is just not done by M&M.
Here’s what BHPian diwakarmuthu had to say about the matter:
Globally many brands like Ford, Porsche, Tesla, BMW, Toyota, and Cadillac amongst others already have subscription plans in place. Called “Function as a Service (FaaS)” this is an upcoming new revenue stream for automotive OEMs. With the invasion of technology, this is seen as a logical extension to conventional car ownership.
As a customer what would the pros and cons be?
Pros
- Subscription enables OEMs to keep revenues ticking even after the car is sold. This is a big opportunity and I doubt if the OEMs will let go.
- As an OEM, you are essentially locking the customer with the company. Long-term customer loyalty I guess.
- Even if the hardware is not there, OEMs will eventually come up with a plan of selling the hardware separately, thus enabling additional revenue sources.
Cons
- If you are buying the hardware, you rarely leave it without exploring the features. When the car is sold, it is imperative that as customers we end up buying the subscription too.
- If your salesperson is not aware of the complete features, you could end up with a car that has bloated features that one would rarely use.
- This change in car ownership experience will make customers feel cheated.
In my view Subscription works only when there is connectivity, I don’t understand M&M’s strategy of removing it from vehicles that are designed to go places. How would someone stay connected?
Maybe, this is their way of saying, we will cut the connection first and customers will accept to pay up for the offline services.
Keyword: Offline maps no longer available on my XUV700: What's happening?