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from the for-a-modest-recurring-fee-you-can-get-better-SN-story-Departments dept.
Automakers are pushing subscriptions, but consumer interest just isn't there:
The last decade or so has seen the creeping techification of the auto industry. Executives will tell you the trend is being driven by consumers, starry-eyed at their smartphones and tablets, although the 2018 backup camera law is the main reason there's a display in every new car.
But automakers have been trying to adopt more than just shiny gadgets and iterating software releases. They also want some of that lucrative "recurring revenue" that so pleases tech investors but makes the rest of us feel nickeled and dimed. Now we have some concrete data on just how much car buyers are asking for this stuff, courtesy of a new survey from AutoPacific. The answer is "very little."
AutoPacific asked people looking to buy a new vehicle about their interest in 11 different in-car connected features, starting with a data plan for the car for a hypothetical price of $15/month.
The results may chasten some of the investors demanding that the car companies keep traveling down this path. The most in-demand or desirable feature was Internet connection with a Wi-Fi hotspot—not an unreasonable demand for $15 per month. But only 30 percent of people looking to buy a new car said they were interested in paying for their car's Internet access.
[...] AutoPacific also broke down some of its data by age brackets. The 30- to 39-year-old group was consistently the most interested in connected subscription features for their cars—28 percent want to stream video directly to the infotainment screen, 20 percent want to play video games on the infotainment screen, and 18 percent want in-car video conferencing. As you might expect, the 60- to 69-year-old bracket was the least interested in any of this stuff; just 10 percent would want in-car video streaming, with video conferencing at 5 percent and in-car gaming at just 4 percent.
In other news, water is wet...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday March 28, @01:12AM (2 children)
Usually the people like that have a comfortable standard of living but want to be seen as rich. They also feel the need to get iphone upgrades when they come out, lease cars instead of buying them, and run for office in Home Owner Associations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28, @08:33AM (1 child)
And hold a lot of debt that financed their display of wealth.
I know too many truly very wealthy people who are not apparent at all. And they want it that way.
And I know all too many people in hock to their eyebrows trying to give the illusion that they are wealthy. The banks make a pot of money carrying the balance of their charge cards at exorbitant interest.
They pay more money in interest than I make!
Funny that anyone would hire them given their demonstration of piss poor financial acuity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday March 28, @03:01PM
>Funny that anyone would hire them...
Who exactly do you think is encouraging them to be so irresponsible?
All that false affluence drives sales, and being in hoc to your eyebrows makes you desperate for work, putting our employer in a much stronger negotiating position.