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Brands are eager to turn our cars into a subscription service. Honda has reminded us again

April 16, 2026 by usatoday24

Buying a car today can be a whole box of surprises. Sometimes for the better, and sometimes, as recently happened to a Honda Passport owner, for the worse. And just as has shared user on Reddit, the function to open your garage that previously came as standard, has become an option included in a subscription package offered by the firm. The story has some nuances that are worth mentioning, but the reality is that this example has become another reflection of something that has been happening for years in the automobile industry: manufacturers are determined to turn your vehicles into recurring revenue platformsand software is your main tool to achieve this. From opening the garage with a little button in the car, to doing it from an app The Honda Passport in question has removed the rearview mirror with integrated Homelink, the system that allows the car to be synchronized with the garage receiver via radio. In your place now offers the function as standard through the MyQ applicationintegrated into HondaLink. For it to work, the user needs an internet connection in the car, Apple CarPlay or Android Autoand you must also install a MyQ receiver connected to the home Wi-Fi at home. The result is a system that provides more technical complexity to do something that was previously solved with a small radio control attached to the visor. Sling confirmed According to CarBuzz, customers receive a free 30-day trial period, after which they must contract a three- or five-year subscription. If they don’t, the feature is still accessible through the standalone MyQ app, and Honda also sells a rearview mirror with Homelink as an additional accessory for around $170. That is to say: What used to come as standard now has to be paid separately. The main advantage of the new system (being able to check if you have left the garage open from anywhere with a connection) makes some practical sense. But the price of the subscription, between $129 and $179 for three or five years, plus the possible connectivity costs of the vehicle itself, turns something so simple into a payment chain that is difficult to justify. BMW and heated seats: the case that started it all To understand where we are today with the issue of subscription services in vehicles, it is worth remembering the most talked about episode in recent years. In 2022, BMW began to offer in some markets (South Korea, the United Kingdom, Germany, among others) the possibility of activate seat heating through a monthly subscription about 18 dollars a month. The problem here is that the hardware is already installed in the car from the factory, and it is the owners who had to pay a monthly subscription to unlock this feature. Both the press and the users attacked them so much that they had to back away. In September 2023, BMW Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Pieter Nota will confirmed to Autocar the end of that practice: “What we no longer do, and it is a well-known example, is to offer seat heating in this way. Either it comes from the factory or it doesn’t.” But BMW did not abandon the subscription model, but rather reoriented it. The brand confirmed that it would continue to expand the services and functions it offers through subscriptions, but that it will stop charging for hardware functions already installed in the vehicle. After the move, the firm continued with its plans to add subscription services, but this time only in its software, such as driving or parking assistance systems. Through your ConnectedDrive platformoffers functions such as adaptive suspension, high beam assistant, adaptive cruise control or even welcome animations with the lights, through subscription. Mercedes: up to 80 horses per subscription BMW’s example ended up spreading to many other firms. Mercedes-Benz launched its “Acceleration Increase On-Demand” function in 2023 for the electric EQE and EQS models: for $60 per month or $600 per year in the case of the EQE, or $90 per month and $900 per year in the EQS, owners could unlock between 60 and 80 additional horsepower and cut the acceleration time from 0 to 100 km/h by up to one second. They also added a single payment option for life, which is around 2,000 or 3,000 euros, depending on the model. Mercedes’ logic with which it tried to distance itself from BMW’s case was that standard hardwired functions, such as seat heating, would not be offered as “digital extras”, leaving subscriptions for software upgrades. However, the principle is the same– The car has the necessary hardware, but the feature is blocked until the user pays. Mercedes-Benz aimed reach 2,000 million euros of revenue from software subscriptions in 2025, with plans to reach between 7,000 and 9,000 million euros before 2030. This growth would be driven above all by its own operating system (MB.OS) and its autonomous driving system. If we think about it coldly, electric cars usually have lower maintenance costs than combustion cars, which reduces the income of dealers and the brands themselves. Software subscriptions are presented as a way to compensate for that loss. Tesla, GM and Ford: the model that already works Tesla has been the benchmark for this model for years, and in its case the discussion has important nuances. Your system Full Self-Driving Supervised (supervised autonomous driving) could be purchased for about $8,000 as a one-time payment or as a monthly subscription. And we tell it in the past tense because earlier this year, Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla would offer this mode only as a subscription service and not as a one-time payment. The good news is that those who had paid to get the lifetime feature will continue to have this feature. The subscription option costs about $99 per month. Perhaps the main difference here with BMW or Mercedes is that Tesla updates its software continuously with new capacities, which gives greater meaning to the recurring fee model. In the case of General Motors, … Read more

Europe is eager for cheap electric cars. Europe’s solution: copy Japan

November 8, 2025 by usatoday24

The European Union needs electric cars to be purchased. At least if you want your emissions plans to be met. So ambitious that they have forced ban combustion engines from 2035 in a decision that countries like Germany and Italy want to reverse because, in their opinion, their industries are at stake. The truth is that more electric cars are bought every day and the number of followers goes growing. Especially in countries with greater purchasing power, with a better charging network or that are simply doing things better like Portugal where aid is given at the time of purchase and frictions have been eliminated when loading the car. There are a multitude of factors but the truth is that manufacturers feel that, despite growing, the embrace of the customer is not enough to get the industry off the ground. There are fewer and fewer brands that maintain their marketing plans. jump to “all electric” before 2035 because they feel that the sales of this technology is not driving amortizations that they have to do when designing new vehicles, readapting their assembly lines or creating a new network of suppliers around them. The big promise is that “cheap” electric cars will drive these sales. But as we have talked about on other occasions, these vehicles have a fundamental problem: their autonomy. The average European citizen, according to ACEAtravels 34 kilometers by car every day and only once or twice a year he faces long trips (he makes just over 12,000 kilometers annually) where a car with a battery less than 60 kWh of capacity would have to stop on more than one occasion, extending the trip beyond what was desired. However, at the same price, it is logical that you opt for the combustion version because you will have a car that does not cause headaches on those trips (for just a few days a year) and you will also be able to face an unforeseen event with solvency if necessary. The maintenance cost takes a backseat. Right now, the European industry is at a difficult inflection point. It is difficult to make electric cars cheaper because the battery remains the main obstacle when it comes to saving costs. The new Renault Twingo promises to sell for less than 20,000 euros but its 27.8 kWh battery barely anticipates just over 150 kilometers off-road, which makes it practically useless outside the city. Nor does what is to come offer much better guarantees and 25,000 euro cars face combustion options that, as we said, do not cause headaches on weekend excursions or long trips despite the fact that they later lose out in the general maintenance of the vehicle. And small cars have become much more expensive in recent years. As a solution, the European Union is trying to carry out a new regulation for small carswith a contained size and price in line with that of a purely urban vehicle. For this they want to base themselves on the kei car Japanese, a type of car located below the passenger car that offers certain tax advantages… but whose success can only be explained by Japanese particularities. A new category with everything to prove In search of solutions to lower the prices of electric cars and make these urban mobility options more attractive, we know that the European Union is working to create a new category of cars. The idea is to frame it between current passenger cars and light quadricycles. A new category with a contained size and whose main incentives were lower maintenance costs with tax advantages and facilities for manufacturers to reduce car prices. Taking into account these premises, François Provost, CEO of Renault, has confirmed that if the European regulations go ahead they could convert their Renault 5, 4 and Twingo into this type of new vehicles. In statements collected by Coachhas dropped that they could be cars that were below 4.1 meters, with entirely European production and whose emissions in the production process were less than 15 tons of CO2. The words are relevant because the Renault Group has been pushing in this regard for some time. Luca de Meo, its previous CEO and former president of the ACEA employers’ association, He was also in favor of this new category. The French have recently presented the Dacia Hipster, which aims directly at this market. Stellantis has also been betting for some time and has launched up to three heavy electric quadricycles, which is the closest thing to the category at the moment. and in Xataka We learned two years ago that the European Union is working on specifying such a category. Inspiration is kei car japanese. These miniaturized cars develop a maximum of 660 cc and have some very strict length and width measurements. Curiously, they do not have them high up so most of them, to maximize space, have very square shapes in the minivan style. All in all, it is a category with a very particular development that even has sports versions such as the legendary Daihatsu Copen. In Europe, legislators seem willing to copy the philosophy of these cars. As? It is what remains to be defined. In The Coches.net podcast They gave some alternatives to lower prices and one of them is very clear: eliminate obligations regarding safety and driving aids. The mandatory systems that the European Union has introduced such as the lane departure or fatigue warning seat have special relevance outside the city but very little inside it, just where these cars should stay. These are systems that have made urban vehicles more expensive and would be a push to lower their costs again. Furthermore, having a contained size is an incentive for some cities where there is less and less space available. The biggest problem for Europe is that the formula of kei car Japanese triumphs because it is an extraordinarily particular market. In fact, except BYD that has shown its first car For Japan with these premises in … Read more

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