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.”
Subscription services or software restricted features for cars should just be outlawed entirely.
Nobody likes these, if someone is willing to deal with a subscription product then they can do that aftermarket. The car itself should never come with something that will require recurring payments.
Nobody likes these
Shareholders love them
Having a car without internet connectivity would be a feature for privacy minded consumers
Everything is becoming public and opt-out. Privacy is beyond dead.
I was considering a Mazda for my next car. Now I’m not.
I live in a place that gets fucking cold in the winter. If the normal fob option were always available and you get the option to pay for the convenience using an app, that would be one thing - though $10/month for that is ridiculous. But removing the fob option and locking this basic feature behind a subscription is exactly the sort of game I don’t want my vehicle to play with me.
Go ahead and sell roadside coverage, parts/repairs, batteries, get royalties from Sirius or whatever for extra cash flow. Make a great app that adds new convenient live-service features and is worth paying for, even. But fuck all these new subscription un-gimping games.
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They all are. Your only option would be to buy an older car without connected services and hope that you never need another one.
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:
- traffic aware navigation updates
- OTA software updates mandated by recall
- phone app access
With the phone app there are zero regular features that require a monthly sub. Free things include:
- HVAC controls
- heated seats
- charging stats and start/stop chargin
- unlocking all doors, frunk and trunk
- even changing radio/SiriusXM stations
Tesla does have an optional monthly subscription but that gets you:
- streaming radio
- unlimited internet
- traffic density notations on nav maps
- satellite view in nav map
However the car operates just fine without any of that optional stuff and therefor there’s no mandatory fee for regular functionality.
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%.
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.”
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.
Wait… Even if users don’t pay for this, their car still comes a WWAN module that is hardwired to their ignition. Yes, I realize it’s more likely bolted on to the infotainment system and/or the car’s RTOS, but it’s still baked in.
Depends on the manufacturer’s implementation, but yeah in recent years they’ve made it really difficult if not impossible to remove
Some models are as easy as removing a fuse or unplugging an optional component from the infotainment system. So a “quick” 1-hour process can remove that noise from the car.
But I really shouldn’t have to rip apart my car just to remove spyware and nagware.
I might regret not searching about this before running my mouth here, but I would assume most automotive manufacturers, in 2024, are soldering the wwan modules onto the main board of the infotainment system for cost, and to prevent user removal of their subscription vector.
I would also assume most manufacturers who are converting standard automotive features into paid subscription services that dubiously rely on SaaS backends, are NOT also designing isolated architectures that separate the IoT infotainment system from the car’s critical systems like drive control, transmission, brakes, etc. I’m guessing most at least have CAN bus connections linking them together.
But I don’t know enough about cars and automotive systems to even pretend being knowledgeable. So, if anyone here is actually well versed on this subject (and not just searching forums before replying to me), please tell me I’m wrong, and how so.
Seriously, I want to be wrong about this.
actually well versed
That’s not me, I mostly searched forums and whatnot. My cars are all old enough that they don’t have this nonsense, and while I am handy with cars (do all my own maintenance), I’m not a mechanic, so I don’t have direct experience.
That said, at recent-ish Chevy cars w/ OnStar seem to have separate power and board for the wwan. I’ve watched a couple of these videos, and they seem pretty legit.
And with a quick check on Mazda, It seems you have two options:
- call customer support to have the TCU disabled - ends data collection and interaction, but the device can still be detected and communicated with
- remove the TCU - need to look up where it is, but for the '23 CX5, it’s below the center console; removal would turn on warning lights since it can’t find the device, but AFAIK it shouldn’t prevent vehicle registration or regular car operation
Again, I haven’t actually done this for any car, but it’s definitely something I’m going to be looking at before deciding on a make and model because I intend to remove whatever tracking BS they put in.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but OnStar is a 3rd party service, so it makes sense they would have a bolt-on device that can be removed without too much concern for the rest of the car’s functionality.
Also, isn’t a TCU something that controls a car’s drivetrain and transmission?
Edit: nevermind, just searched and found telematic control unit. Interesting, thanks for the info, I might look into this more if I have more time later.
TCM is the thing that controls the transmission
“capitalism promotes healthy competition”
Don’t forget innovation:
Hilariously, due to the teardrop shape, cars like this would be more aerodynamic if the shell was reversed.
Car companies do not want to innovate, because aerodynamic cars are “lame”, “soy”, etc.
People seem to have a low tolerance for what is considered weird when it comes to cars. That’s why most cars look the same. (Likely due to marketing and peer pressure)
Bar Atera, Ariel and a couple of other “unconventional” designs, and a handful of other concept cars. (Fuck the cybercrap, it’s the opposite of innovation)
TL;DR: cars could be way more aerodynamically efficient, but they aren’t, because people are peopleing.
Interesting and strange that there really as a car “uncanny valley”.
And Communism does so much “better”:
An API is not copyrightable 🤔
Doesn’t stop companies from sending bogus DMCA takedowns to sites like GitHub.
There are no penalties for filling a bogus DMCA takedown and the legal cost for restoring the content falls on the victim of such a takedown: the DMCA legislation was designed exactly for it to be used as Mazda and many other use it against individuals and small companies who can’t spend thousands of dollars fighting bogus takedowns.
Why is there no big alternative hosted outside of the US where your DMCA does not apply?
There are other centralised code hosting services, for example Codeberg, but they are equally scared of any legal action even when it doesn’t directly apply.
It’s intent is harassment.
