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.”
I don’t want anything smart in my car. I want a(n electric) engine that starts with a goddamned physical key that turns in a physical ignition. I want a volume knob that turns with a 1:1 ratio to the volume, ditto for climate control fan speed and temperature. The only thing I want my phone to do in conjunction with my cLilar is display the GPS.
So true… for me personally, I’d love to have a battery EV vehicle, but i just want a regular vehicle with a battery powerplant. I don’t want a mobile IOT advertising surveillance DRM non-repairable planned-olsolescence mobile which is how so many new vehicles are designed.
I’m very excited for Apreras vehicles and hope they are successful. Their whole philosophy is hyper efficient vehicles and they are committed to open repair and bring consumer friendly.
They seem to be the only company making cars or attempting to make cars that makes a point to say that they will make it as easy as possible for you to control, repair and fix your own vehicle.
Paid subscriptions to use features of the car you bought should be illegal
Reason number 29474929273 why we should ban internet access on cars
Reupload on Russian github.
I remember a time when these features were just “standard” and car makers ad campaigns all around features just being standard, making the car more enticing than their competitors.
Now I dread the idea of getting a vehicle in the future because of bull shit like this.
But fuck the consumer amirite?
I don’t think unlocking or starting your car from an app was ever standard
Y’know you’re likely correct and that’s totally my bad. I got confused about the remote start from the key fob. I can understand the remote start from the app being a paid thing for sure, like OnStar or specifically in my case the myChevrolet app.
I can understand the remote start from the app being a paid thing for sure.
But why would it need to be? The connectivity from the app is there already, it takes the manufacturer very little to handle the occasional web request. Especially if it can be done for free through third party software.
