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 get it but also Mazda is not the only one doing this. They all are. Your only option would be to buy an older car without connected services and hope that you never need another one.
Toyota, Mazda and Honda are the only makes I’ve really ever considered, or ever plan to consider. Of those 3, Honda has not gone that route yet as far as I know. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Honda collects and sells your driving history without your consent.
ALL of them do this. Literally all.
Is there a sim card buried in there somewhere that can be removed or is it soldered in, potted, etc?
… Or your car bricks if you remove it wouldn’t surprise me, regardless.
Could very well be an eSIM …
Yeah there’s a SIM card in most new cars, usually in a place that’s not easily accessible.
Might as well throw Subarus into that list. They’re LGBT Toyotas lol
Subaru has their own set of issues
https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/02/23/subaru-right-to-repair-fight-cars
Toyota tried to push this exact same remote start subscription BS as well so cross them out too
Subaru does the same thing, on my car it was free for three years then you pay or lose all connected features. That includes remote start, there is no way to start the car from the keyfob.
At least it sounds like they told you this. They probably aligned it with the most common lease period. Mazda just suddenly decided to make it a subscription.
Ideally it should be longer, like 8-10 years.
Yeah it was not a surprise, and I understand someone has to pay for the bandwidth those features use up. But I still resent them for making remote start app-only.
I am otherwise happy with the car itself, but this does leave kind of a sour aftertaste. I feel like it’s only going to get worse with my next car…
22 CRV here. Fob based remote start, no subscription for that or anything (though I would like to get the maps updates without payin) :(
I’ve used three remote start once in almost 3 years and I live in Wisconsin. It’s just really not that necessary. The car warms up quickly just driving.
It took me 6 months to find a newer truck that had no Internet connectivity at all, and it was a royal PITA.
Yeah Android Auto should be all the connectivity you need.
For some reason AA doesn’t work on my phone. I suspect it’s a USB permissions issue, but I’m not motivated enough to dig into it any deeper lol.
As much as I’m sure this answer will be hated, Tesla cars don’t require a subscription for basic remote services. What comes free is:
With the phone app there are zero regular features that require a monthly sub. Free things include:
Tesla does have an optional monthly subscription but that gets you:
However the car operates just fine without any of that optional stuff and therefor there’s no mandatory fee for regular functionality.
All very true but they’ll also charge you (1-time) to software-unlock your seat heaters, motor and battery.
Those things are free…for now….while they feel like it. There’s nothing stopping them from charging for that stuff when their stock price dips another 20%.
They could change it for cars purchased in the future, but they can’t do what Mazda did and start charging for it now. So its either lifetime of free Standard connectivity, or at worst 8 years. These are part of the purchase agreement.
“All new Tesla vehicles ordered on or before July 20, 2022, will have Standard Connectivity features at no cost for the lifetime of the vehicle (excluding retrofits or upgrades required for any features or services externally supplied to the vehicle – e.g. telecommunications network). As additional features and services become available in the future, you will have the opportunity to upgrade your connectivity plan.”
source
I still don’t understand how that stops them from charging a subscription when their stock drops a bit more.
Contract law.
You know that “Terms and Conditions” you agree to all the time that binds you to things. It binds them too to those terms. The terms I posted above were what both car buyers and Tesla agreed to at the time of purchase.
The same courts that continue to allow the sale of “Full Self Driving”? You have a lot of faith in a system that has aggressively and repeatedly shown that it does not care about you.
There are many legitimate complaints about Full Self Drive. I’m happy to respond to you but which specific complaints about FSD are you referring to?
This website is probably a good start. I mainly object to the “full”, the “self”, and the “driving”.
Edit: but that’s not really the point of the discussion right now, my point t was more that: yes, I agree that’s what some written words on a website say in terms of what they promise, but my point is that they can literally just alter that any time and there is less than zero recourse for the consumer to do anything about it. You can’t disable updates. You signed away your right to sue them. You won’t get anywhere crying to the press because the headline “Tesla breaks promise made to customers” is just another day that ends in Y.
Oh noes, somebody said something positive about Tesla! Get 'em boys!
Seriously though, I would like to see some legislation that made them offer connectivity free models. All the connectivity crap should be opt-in. If you don’t opt in they don’t connect the SIM card.
We don’t need “connectivity free models”, just give us a way to disable it.
On my phone, I just pull down from the dropdown menu and toggle off whatever connectivity I don’t want on at the time. EZPZ.
There will be financial repercussions with the car. They want to sell that data, if you’re going to deprive them of that, they’ll expect recompense.
Teslas unlimited Internet package is also super cheap at $100/year the last time I checked. Competitors are multiple times more expensive.
I was planning on going electric with my next vehicle and I’m really hoping they force all the Chinese brands to disconnect them for national security or whatever. Just that will make the special import tax worth it.
I’m also kind of pissed at most car companies anyways, they have been dragging their feet when it comes to climate change. At least Byd is trying to offer cheap evs even if it’s to fuck with our economy.
Don’t know if you can guarantee they’re disconnected.
Oh hey, looks who’s defending a billionaire!