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.”
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”.