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 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.
The subscriptions is free for the first few years so if you plan on trading it in definitely still worth it. While this does piss me off I still really like my mazda 2020
“you wouldn’t download a car” was prophetic
“Of course I would” has always been the response though.
“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”.
There’s an empty spot at the bottom of that list and the author – who by the way is a monster – could have easily included Subaru.
One of the biggest lie of all time.
But but, did you see the new “brand x brand x brand” product? The one where all the brands are owned by the same mega-corp and they just decided to smoosh their products together?
Innovation is dead and buried.
And Communism does so much “better”:
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.
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.
Services. Services!? What the actual fuck are you talking about!? Remote start isn’t a fucking service, it’s a feature, that they are trying to control through greed.
Edit: I will give a small concession to the remote remote start, as that does need an OTA service. The service of course shouldn’t be any more complicated than a SMS setup, so $15 per year is the absolute most you’ll be able to get out of me…
2nd edit: And you damn well better include free modem upgrades. None of this $50+ for a fucking map update shit the other companies are pulling. That shit should have been an OTA update, Christ knows the damn thing tries to find an open Wi-Fi…
There is no need for the internet to use remote start
I just bought a new car and it has internet enabled remote start. The salesman touted the feature. My response: “oh so I can start the car in [one state] while I’m in [another state] so it’s ready for me when I get back?” He didn’t have a good response for that. Nice car, dumbass feature.
I use mine all the time. I have about a 1/4 mile walk to get to my car, I like to start it in winter to heat up, or summer to cool down before I get to it.
It’s a luxury, but one I enjoy.
Maybe if you don’t live where it gets cold or you work in an office within range of your car.
Some people live in these tall things that are called, “not a single family house” and so starting the car from up there you would need some way to communicate to the car, keyfob ranges are limited.
It’s a good thing we invented remote start at the same time as the car itself, I can’t imagine the horror of only operating a motor vehicle I’m next to (let alone touching)
What are you talking about?
Remote start of any kind is a luxury and it’s wild to me that someone would defend internet car controls as any way important or even desirable. That’s what I’m talking about. Physical keys work totally fine and add like two seconds of time to the process.
Not when your door is frozen shut. I wrote another comment detailing my personal struggle as a second shift worker during the polar vortex in -40 degree weather. The guideline was five minutes before you began to risk serious damage, and that was about the length of my walk through the lot. Have you tried opening a car frozen shut by a literal sheet of ice while standing on another sheet of ice while your joints are already starting to stiffen from the cold despite the layers of winter clothing you’re wearing? Remote start stopped being a luxury for me when the Midwest winters started getting deadly cold.
Remote start of any kind is a luxury
Who said it was not?
Physical keys work totally fine and add like two seconds of time to the process.
YOu know except for the fucking case I described where you don’t live in a house so the keyfob might not reach so you need some other way to connect to the car to be able to remote start it.
it’s wild to me that someone would defend internet car controls as any way important or even desirable.
not my fault you struggle with social skills and can’t relate to other people
I mean, his point is still valid. Take the 2-3 mins it takes to go down and start the car.
We managed before so let’s not pretend that wireless fob are necessary.
Counterpoint: During the polar vortex everyone was told that staying outside in the -40 or lower temperatures for more than five minutes risked frost bite. I worked 2nd shift so I was getting out dead of night at the coldest time, walking to the back of the lot to a car covered in a sheet of ice that simply did not allow me to even open the door to physically start it. That’s a 4-5 minute walk already to a car that I can’t open, who knows how long to chip away ice I can’t see, sometimes can’t even reach leading to struggling with the door using brute force trying to get leverage standing on icy pavement just to FINALLY enter my car, which is still -40 inside.
Or I could have had remote start and skipped the potentially lost fingers. Thank goodness I had coworkers who started staying behind to help those that didn’t.
And then what genius? Should I sit in the cold car or stand next to the cold car while it heats up?
The point of the remote start is to avoid this, are you all some brain damaged kind that doesn’t understand user experience?
Do you usually start the car from your bedroom?
In the winter I would, yes, if my car had it, sitting into a cold car in the morning fucking sucks, starting it 10 minutes before take off and have it defrost, and turn on seat/steering wheel heating would be the fucking tits, and I don’t live in a house so might not even have a line of sight on my car so keyfob wouldn’t be enough
Huh, TIL.
Nice for you to live somewhere mild enough your car doesn’t need to pre-heat but some people live in Chicago and other places where it still snows and pre-heating the car is a must 3 months of the year.
I live in a snowy climate and we did just fine before the invention of wireless starters. My car does not have one and we manage just fine.
That is a great QoL, but let’s not pretend this is necessary.
My main point is fuck subscription for every fucking thing to try and squeeze more money, even worst by removing features and putting them back behind a paywall.
However, we need to stop saying that things are necessary when most of the time they are convenient.
Because that is how they get us to pay. Every little inconvenience is treated as if it absolutely needs to be adressed.
Then, we can say fuck off to these companies and live with the inconveniences they left on purpose to sell a subscription.
But until, companies will push these hardware subscriptions because it nets them more money.
I live in a snowy climate and we did just fine before the invention of wireless starters. My car does not have one and we manage just fine.
That is a great QoL, but let’s not pretend this is necessary.
Yes, but we have had remote start without the internet for decades. It’s nothing but a cash grab. That’s what people are upset about here I think.
They took a feature that did not require the internet, then made it require the internet, for literally no purpose except:
But until, companies will push these hardware subscriptions because it nets them more money.
It’s one thing to withhold a feature. It’s another thing to overcomplicate a feature for the purpose of withholding it.
I agree with you all the way. But we can kick and scream all we want, but if enough people buy the subscription, car manufacturers will keep hiding features behind paywalls.
When I was like 20 or so and needed to drive every morning and it was -25C or colder outside, I’d go outside in my t-shirt, start the engine, remove the key (because the ignition lock was so worn, I could remove it), lock the car, go back inside
Woke me right up and afterwards when I went outside with proper winter clothing, I didn’t feel the least bit cold. Plus the car had a nice big gasoline V6 as opposed to the diesels I mostly drive nowadays, so it actually did manage to defrost the windshield in <10 minutes no problem.
There is no need for the internet to use remote start
…in Chicago … pre-heating the car is a must 3 months of the year.
I don’t believe you’ve lived anywhere cold for very long. Cold places existed long before remote start. The car warms up while you finish shoveling and brushing off the car. You’re warm from shoveling, and the car is ready to go. If it’s just cold and you’re late to whatever, you sit your shivering ass down behind the wheel and drive away anyways…
The issue isn’t “I don’t want to be cold.” The problem is when it’s below 20F/-7C, you need to wait long enough for the coolant to warm enough to evaporate the moisture in the defrost vents and the inside of the windshield. Otherwise the inside of the windshield frosts over and you can’t see well enough to drive safely. And the colder it gets, the longer it takes.
Do you need remote start? Nope. I don’t have it on my vehicles. But you will need to wait long enough to keep the windshield defrosted.
…coolant to warm enough to evaporate the moisture…
Where I come from, we just scrape off enough ice to see where you’re going, and crack a window to keep it dry enough the interior doesn’t freeze. But, hey, if you know how to leave early enough to get to places on time in a warm cabin, more power to you 😉
You ain’t likely to want to do that at -20F at highway speeds.
By the time you hit the highway you’re usually warm enough that things have defrosted.
In truly cold weather, starting and idling your car doesn’t properly warm it up in any sane amount of time and can even be bad for the engine. What you want is an auxiliary heater like Webasto or Ebersprächer (sp?)
Remote start would be nice with with mild weather or on a hot summer day when you need AC though.
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As a Midwesterner, pre heating is a luxury. It’s often a nice and affordable one, but I park outside and just wear my coat in the car.
I promise you that there are plenty of people in Chicago without the ability to preheat their car and they’re surviving just fine lol
Why does the car need an internet connection? Rather get a car from 2005-2010 that doesn’t connect to the internet, more have a stupid subscription.
Yep, I got a very basic trim 2010-2015 car. I think it’s about as new as you can get without really bad enshitification. The upper trims even had some of the gimmicks and techy stuff. I loath to think if the day this car dies. I may only ride my bike from that point on.
If you do get an e bike later know that some brands are very bad with reliability and support so you can end up with a $2000 brick on wheels. Case in point: Rad Power Bikes, their batteries can die just a year after purchase even with good maintenance and their support will simply ignore you if you try to claim a warranty repair/replacement.
Preach. Got a benz from 2009 that has all the features I want (heated seats, automatic climate control, rain sensor, etc) and none of the things I don’t want (remote connectivity, spyware, subscriptions).
This needs to be banned. In fact, “licenses” for things you buy should be outright banned entirely.
Yeah. Feel this is a slippery slope. First it’s supposedly luxury extras like heated seats and remote starts. Next something more critical when folks are habituated to the practice? Enpoopification all around.
Well, crap! Was seriously looking at the CX50. I’m not paying monthly to use stuff that’s already equipped in the car. Just madness.
Love the CX-50…
I acknowledge the cell connectivity in the car costs Mazda money to keep running. Most cars with that kind of connectivity charge for it. But, I think 10/month is too much.
The connectivity doesn’t work that well anyway. I don’t give a crap about remote start and climate control but my wife uses it when it’s super cold out and only at work. Not worth paying for at all, even from her POV. The car (CX-90 PHEV) is still fantastic to drive.
I believe it comes with a 3 year trial
Reason number 29474929273 why we should ban internet access on cars
Paid subscriptions to use features of the car you bought should be illegal
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.
assholes
Reupload on Russian github.
We have one?
Damn, I wish I knew about this workaround before the takedown, I know someone who could benefit from it
I’ll clone this, thanks!
Also, lol, RUN DMCA
STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!
I would download a car
