Mazda recently surprised customers by requiring them to sign up for a subscription in order to keep certain services. Now, notable right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann is calling out the brand.
It’s important to clarify that there are two very different types of remote start we’re talking about here. The first type is the one many people are familiar with where you use the key fob to start the vehicle. The second method involves using another device like a smartphone to start the car. In the latter, connected services do the heavy lifting.
Transition to paid services
What is wild is that Mazda used to offer the first option on the fob. Now, it only offers the second kind, where one starts the car via phone through its connected services for a $10 monthly subscription, which comes to $120 a year. Rossmann points out that one individual, Brandon Rorthweiler, developed a workaround in 2023 to enable remote start without Mazda’s subscription fees.
However, according to Ars Technica, Mazda filed a DMCA takedown notice to kill that open-source project. The company claimed it contained code that violated “[Mazda’s] copyright ownership” and used “certain Mazda information, including proprietary API information.”
Ok, let’s grant that as true (by that I mean we will ignore arbitration as a whole thing). Suddenly Tesla stock drops, again, and they push an update that puts remote unlock and navigation and heated seats behind a subscription requirement to boost revenue. Your car will lose those functions immediately with no input from you. Then you file a lawsuit. You will not be granted an emergency summary judgment. Which means your car will immediately lack those capabilities. Absolute best case scenario in 5-7 years your car will get the features back after it has turned into a pile of rust. The expected outcome is you will get a class action settlement (which again, you actually signed away your rights to) that cuts you a check for a few hundred dollars. That will only happen well after the expected service life of the vehicle you “own”.
If you read this and think I’m just a cynical jerk, please provide me just one example where the individual consumer won a lawsuit in the US against a large vendor when features were removed after a software update and was made whole in a timely manner. Just one is all I ask for.
No need to ignore your arbitration distraction. As a customers you can opt-out of arbitration. I did. I can sue Tesla.
“You may opt out of arbitration within 30 days after signing this Agreement by sending a letter to: Tesla, Inc.; P.O. Box 15430; Fremont, CA 94539-7970, stating your name, Vehicle Identification Number, and intent to opt out of the arbitration provision. If you do not opt out, this agreement to arbitrate overrides any different arbitration agreement between us, including any arbitration agreement in a lease or finance contract.” source
The only updates that Tesla pushes out OTA are recall fixes. Other patches are pushed over wifi. If you don’t configure wifi, the car won’t download patches. I’m currently running 4 patch releases (about 3 months) behind. I know a couple of folks that are intentionally running at a patch level over a year old.
Assuming none of the above applies? Sure. A company can break the law too and no actions undo the lawbreaking the only remedy the justice system can offer is after-the-fact and even then the plaintiffs may not be able to be made whole. I’m not sure what your point is.
Cars don’t turn int a pile of rust in 5-7 years, even Tesla cars don’t. Do I need to link a used car page showing, now 12 year old, 2012 Tesla cars for sale that aren’t piles of rust? Also, I think you’re blowing Tesla paid features out of proportion because of what you’ve heard about other car makers.
Tesla doesn’t have subscription or even paid seat heaters with the very rare exception of a short run of Model 3 Standard Range cars, and even then it was just the REAR seat heaters, and even then it was a one-time $300 payment. This is similar to the other much talked about “battery unlock” feature, which again, was only on a short run of cars (4 years ago I think?) that Tesla put a larger battery in the car, but didn’t charge customers for it. Later they offered a paid feature for customers to unlock the extra portion of the battery, which Tesla never claimed was there and customer never paid for to begin with. The only other paid features are “acceleration boost” which I didn’t pay for so there would be nothing lost.
The “subscription seat heaters” was BMW, not Tesla.
As you point out, most people can’t sue Tesla, but I can because I opted-out, so there likely won’t be enough people to form a Class to have a Class Action. So if I sued, my case would likely go forward by itself. We started this discussion with the included Tesla Standard Connectivity feature. Since subscribing to Premium Connectivity (priced at $99/year) would be a remedy that is easily converted to dollars, I could even sue in Small Claims Court without a lawyer. The max judgement in Small Claims Court is $6000 (in my state anyway) so since the prior terms say I was entitled to Standard Connectivity for the life of the car, I could sue for 60 years of service and still be inside the claim limit.