Shopping for a “new” BEV while waiting for the Scout Traveler BEV.

[Gottesacker]

She is frustrated with the way car manufacturers are installing hardware (increasing R&D and hardware cost), passing cost on to the customer and then charging a second time (subscription) for its use. She’s already annoyed with Ford for making the non-optional option of the BlueCruise hardware bump up the cost of our Mustang and then charging a subscription for it (and integrated navigation and a few other things). We’ve let the trial expire; no point in falling for the sunken costs fallacy.

Manufacturers shouldn't be making those of us who don’t want all that subsidize it for those who do. Vehicles without that hardware could easily be $2500-$5k cheaper if they only charged the people who wanted it instead of distributing the costs to everyone. Even if we don’t subscribe to yet another “only $15/mo,” we’re still paying for it. At that point, we’d rather not even buy the vehicle.

Hoping Scout doesn’t do it this way.

I have to agree. I have zero desire in paying for a subscription for a service when the hardware is there and should just work.

 

[R1TVT]

Manufacturers shouldn't be making those of us who don’t want all that subsidize it for those who do.

I get that. My response was only in relation to Rivan's Connect+ subscription option. Maybe I should have posted the features that are included as part of their "STANDARD" offering for everyone.

If you don't subscribe to Connect + I don't see how you are subsidizing the cost of something like WiFi in your truck (for example) that others are paying for - you are not paying the subscription fee. I do understand your point about R&D and the HW required for some of the features and "baked-in" production costs, but as an OEM you need to compete with others in your category. Rivian would be foolish not to enable these features and not to provide capabilities on par with other competitors, because there are a lot of buyers that will want them, and will be willing to pay a reasonable fee to enable them.

Not everyone is the same, so at least they have provided some degree of optionality around choosing whether or not you may want to pay for certain things. Personally, I work from my truck at least once a week, travel with kids jumping on WiFi, and use video streaming from time to time. In my case, having really good in-truck WiFi is a low-cost item for the derived value it provides at $149/yr. I could probably expense it, but don't.

These are the standard items that are included (without the subscription):

 

[Gottesacker]

Not everyone is the same, so at least they have provided some degree of optionality around choosing whether or not you may want to pay for certain things. Personally, I work from my truck at least once a week, travel with kids jumping on WiFi, and use video streaming from time to time. In my case, having really good in-truck WiFi is a low-cost item for the derived value it provides at $149/yr. I could probably expense it, but don't.

Is the WiFi really faster than hot spotting off your phone? We just traveled from Texas to Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska, and back and the kids just hotspot off our phones. Does the in-car WiFi have better reception? I've just never understood how it's worth paying another phone line essentially.