• Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
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    3 months ago

    Tesla’s connector was never really the problem for adoption by other cars, it’s the authentication and authorization the car does to get the charger to actually send power. These things aren’t just power plugs, if you don’t have the right subscription it just won’t work.

    But there are other stupid subscriptions in cars. Map updates, for example, they go back decades now. Things like heated seats have also turned into subscriptions, as are software features like lane assist. Can’t exactly install a competitor’s lane assist tool into your car! Back before digital cars, the hardware wouldn’t be installed until you paid, but with the current models you’re lugging around hardware that you need to pay to unlock, installed for “free” because the extra materials are worth selling subscriptions for.

    I’m sure that it manufacturers legally could, they’d sell exclusive fueled cars for a discount.