Subscription fatigue appears to be reaching its zenith and select automakers seem to have noticed. Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Ram, Dodge, and Chrysler, has announced that it will soon be making numerous connected services free for 10 years.
Free trials are nothing new. In fact, they’re an essential component in helping automakers rationalize the pivot to connected features. Nobody would want to pay for formerly standard equipment as part of recurring fees.
By making them temporarily free, automakers can avoid consumer backlash while also normalizing the subscription trend. As a convenient byproduct, the trial phase also lets the customer know what they’re missing once it lapses — encouraging the likelihood that they’ll re-open their wallets to get those services back.
But those free periods typically don’t last more than a year or three, making Stellantis’ 10-year grace period rather unique.
According to the automaker, the plan is to update the “Connect One” connected services package to incorporate more features and a longer grace period. This will include things like remote start, remote entry, over-the-air (OTA) software updates, service scheduling, vehicle health reports, remote recall alerts, automatic emergency calling, and several vehicle apps available via the in-vehicle marketplace (e.g. games).
However, the brunt of that will still be tied to using a connected phone app (above) and should eventually default to you having to pay a monthly subscription. That creates some privacy concerns and questions about how long these features will be maintained. As automakers have pivoted increasingly toward software-defined vehicles, they’ve also created a situation where those systems need to be supported to continue functioning.
Based upon what we’ve seen from other industries, and are starting to see from the automotive sector, there may come a time when the finance department decides to adjust the price to improve profitability. Support for those features will also end someday, creating a scenario where owners will have to seek out aftermarket solutions to keep them operational.
In the short term, this feels like an intelligent play from Stellantis. The company has effectively created an incentive package for customers that doesn’t require lowering the purchase price of its products. Buyers who don’t mind connected features will undoubtedly be tempted by the prospect of getting a bunch of them for “free.” However, the plan still contributes to some of the anti-consumer practices we’ve seen from the industry of late and will likely have little influence over people who are concerned with privacy and traditional ownership concepts.
The recent trend for all companies has been to gradually scale back the value proposition of goods or services in the quest for profits. While there are numerous ways to accomplish this. Businesses can tempt users by offering above average service, only to walk that back years later as they gradually raise their prices while introducing fresh monetization via things like unwanted advertising. Operating costs are often slashed to further overall profitability, resulting in worsening support.
You’ve probably seen this taking place with media streaming services, especially if you were among the first batch of customers to climb aboard. But it’s likewise happening to physical products.
Smart phones have become significantly less feature rich over the last decade, with manufacturers being accused of introducing planned obsolescence due to things like captive batteries and shady software that lowers performance over time. The phenomenon has gotten so prevalent that humans have even created a new term for it, with countless equivalents in other languages. That word is “Enshittification” and automobiles seem to have embraced nearly every aspect of the concept.
New cars have been made intentionally more difficult to service, with automakers now keeping many formerly standard features behind subscription fees. Larger models have been prioritized by manufacturers to improve per vehicle profit margins, assisting in the roughly 30-percent increase we’ve seen in vehicle pricing since the start of 2020. Decontenting interiors by leaning heavily upon touch screens reduces production costs while likewise creating lucrative marketing opportunities attached to corporate partnerships. Then there’s the data collection, which continues to grow by leaps and bounds so entities can sell information about their customers to third parties.
In that kind of world, we can see how a company offering 10 years of any free connected services would feel like a win. But the fact remains that the relevant hardware already exists on the vehicle and was assuredly already incorporated into the initial purchasing price. While it’s nice of Stellantis to go beyond what its competitors have done, the company is presumably just attempting to boost sales during what’s shaping up to be a rather lean sales period. For creating value for customers, this is still Stellantis taking one step forward after the whole industry took about twelve steps back.
For those still interested, the company expects to offer the updated Connect One tier of connected services on basically everything it produces by 2027. This includes all the Fiat Chrysler legacy brands, including the Italian nameplates.
However, customers interested in things like wi-fi internet, navigation, or remote vehicle tracking will still need to shell out $15.99 per month. The only exceptions are if they’re buying an Alfa Romeo or some of the pricier Jeep models that haven’t been selling that well (e.g. Wagoneer). Stellantis has opted to give those models an extra three years of upgraded connectivity features for three years.
There are also exemptions for some older models, like the Dodge Durango, which use last-gen architecture. Since they lack some of the relevant connectivity features, Stellantis has said it would offer these models three years of satellite radio and a free safety bundle for a decade.
“We’ve been listening to our customers and simplifying connected services to give them more value, more clarity and more control,” said Cristiani Campos, senior vice president of Stellantis' software business unit. “By including essential software for the full life of the vehicle and bundling popular features like Wi-Fi, we are giving our customers a connected experience that works better for everyday needs.”
While this is a nice gesture and a rather shrewd marketing strategy during a period where a lot of people are fed up with subscriptions, it's hard to view this as an outright victory. It's also interesting to hear someone from the company openly state that they view ten years as "the full life of the vehicle" when the average American car is now about fifteen years old.
[Images: Stellantis]
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via Autobuzz Today
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