Want To Open Your Car Remotely? You Can With A Subscription Fee

Toyota is planning to start charging customers a subscription fee to remote start their car with a key fob for those who have a 2018 or later model. This isn’t the first time car manufacturers have charged a subscription fee for a feature that should be free. For example, BMW charged customers a yearly subscription for a long time to gain access to Apple CarPlay. Which, for those that don’t know, CarPlay relies on a connection to an iPhone and requires minimal effort on BMW’s end to support. Most, if not all, other cars offer CarPlay functionality for free or for a one-time upgrade fee.

The car industry isn’t the only industry trying to push subscription fees on everything. Over the past several years, smartphone apps have slowly gone from one-time purchases to a subscription model. While some apps justify their subscription fees, other apps are having a much tougher time getting users to pay a monthly or yearly fee.

However, Toyota’s new subscription requirement is a strange one. As confirmed by The Drive, Toyota will require owners of 2018 or later models equipped with the manufacturer’s ‘Remote Connect’ functions to purchase a subscription to remote start their cars with a key fob. Depending on the vehicle, it’ll either have the option for ‘Audio Plus’ or ‘Premium Audio,’ in which the remote start functionality lives. If the car supports Audio Plus, owners will get a three-year trial with remote start via the key fob included. However, cars compatible with Premium Audio will get up to a 10-year free trial. In either case, owners will lose remote start functionality if they don’t start paying after the free trial. Toyota confirmed to The Drive that “enhanced” vehicles built before November 12, 2018, will not require a subscription to access remote start on the key fob. Both Audio Plus and Premium Audio will run owners $8 a month or $80 a year.

Subscription Fatigue?

This seems to be a heavy-handed move from Toyota. Similar to the CarPlay situation with BMW, charging a subscription to start a car from the key fob makes zero sense. Unlike remote start from a phone, tablet or a computer, the key fob isn’t connecting to Toyota’s servers to start the car. It would be a different story if the fob were communicating over Bluetooth to a smartphone app or over a cellular network. Instead, it’s locally communicating over a direct connection to the car.

Logically, it doesn’t make sense. Toyota says older cars will retain remote start functionality with the key fob without a subscription. But newer cars will require a subscription to work? However, it won’t matter for most owners at this point. Even with a three-year trial, those who bought their cars in 2018 would only now be running down the trial. And those with ten-year trials will likely trade-in or sell their cars before that trial runs out.

Source: The Drive

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