Zero Motorcycles announced their groundbreaking new battery "technology", in which they sell you a large capacity battery in a motorcycle with powerful motors and advanced traction control systems, and then lock all that away behind a software paywall that you can unlock (for a fee) in their app.
https://newatlas.com/motorcycles/zero-motorcycles-2022-battery-paid-upgrades/
Zero is not the first vehicle company to do this sort of thing. Notably, Tesla sells vehicles with capabilities that can be unlocked via software "upgrades". This strategy is also common in the CNC machine tool industry; it's long frustrated machinists that they can buy a machine with all the hardware, but then have a sizable portion of memory, advanced motion smoothing, and other functions locked behind activation keys, which often cost several thousand dollars. In that industry at least, if you know the right people and have a machine with a common control, you can get what you need to unlock it through other sources.
I anticipate a similar approach in the vehicle market, which has long sold "tuner" chips and has a great deal of modding enthusiasts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIJiXNzpRMY
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 13 2021, @12:09PM
first of ... what a shitty name "zero motorcycles".
second, it's just marketing gimmick. the price is the price. the " crippled" version isn't a real version. they just go thru the trouble of adding that "feature" to be able to cripple it.
obviously this "feature" will make the contruction and management more costly.
a competitor will just not implement this gimmick, quote the real price and make more profit.
also who wants a motorcycle that phones home?
i just freed myself from the oil lobby and their gasoline stations and locations (every house has electricity) so why would i tie myself to a new motorship? motorcycling is about freedom?