Featured Toyota debuts its first SDV (software-defined vehicle)

A system designed to get as much money out of you every month as possible. I mean certainly you'll want keep all your vehicle "features" working perfectly by paying and paying and paying and if you stop paying monthly rent on the car you own, you can't drive it anymore. You wouldn't want that, would you?

 

FSD is currently $8K, not 15K, and included in some cases (like them trying to sell the disastrous CyberTruck).

On my Prius PHEV, the SOS feature stopped at exactly 3 years, as they said it would. We could have re-subscribed, but we have cell phones with us always. If your SOS alert still functions without a subscription, then you might have an anomalous winning streak going. When we bought ours, the key functions were included for life of vehicle, but now I think they make you subscribe to something now for all those features to work past the free 3 years. Tesla's cell connection (for the car) is $100/year, but it includes a lot of goodies.

 

every mfg is playing the subscription game. 'to the victors go the prizes'

 

There's already been established case law that says an automaker denying a vehicles safety features by putting it behind a paywall causes the automaker to carry significant liability if the owner of that vehicle experiences injury or death. It's just a matter of time before the abuse of monthly fees to use a vehicle that you own gets so extreme that legislation will pass to protect consumers on this. Of course its gonna be a few years and the abuse is gonna get worse before it gets better.

This is just like the right-to-repair laws that were created after farmer's were paying more for older tractors that they could fix themselves than the cost of a brand new tractor that prevented the farmer from repairing their vehicle. All it took was a bunch of pissed off farmers and all of sudden right-to-repair expanded to alot more than just tractors.

 

Software developers too.

 

I haven't gotten used to having a touchscreen in my car or using Bluetooth. I have no idea how a software defined car would be like.

 

I haven't gotten used to having a touchscreen in my car or using Bluetooth. I have no idea how a software defined car would be like.

 

I still hate smartphones and often swap mine for my flip phone. All of 2022 I went the whole year on just my dumb flip phone (no app store, no internet, just dialing and a terrible camera and FM radio). There is literally only one app that keeps me coming back to using my smartphone, which is still my first brand new smartphone that I've ever owned in my entire life. Smartphones are the bane of my existence. I really dislike smartphones and often wish they never existed.

 

Look into Light phone if you don't want a smart phone.

 

Smart phone is okay, but not while driving

 

right, wouldn't want a dumb phone car either.

 

Why else would they do this? What would be in it for them if not that?

 

Car...just like Windows OS? You need new hardware to go with the new software now. Pay up twice.