It's £165/yr for 27 more hp.......27hp. Jesus fuck is that insulting.
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
424 points (99.1% liked)
Not The Onion
17774 readers
1729 users here now
Welcome
We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!
The Rules
Posts must be:
- Links to news stories from...
- ...credible sources, with...
- ...their original headlines, that...
- ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”
Please also avoid duplicates.
Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.
And that’s basically it!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Even more so when you understand the car already has it... so they take it away just to make you pay for it
Every car has more HP than you get. Cars are tuned to be as reliable as possible in every condition with a variety of fuel qualities. That is why you see test vehicles on the road, they are gathering data to refine the engine tuning.
That is why you can tune as car and get more HP or even to make them more efficient without changing a single part.
Yes, but in this instance are they just changing the tuning of the car or did they litterally just make your car worse to charge you for it? And call it an upgrade?
Edit: this sounds like they want to charge you for sport mode... which is basically on all newer cars... either way its pretty trashy move
But a subscription? That's more akin to saying we'll send someone to de-tune the car you've had tuned unless you pay us protection money monthly.
Its also available as a one time lifetime payment.
I had a Volvo V70 that I could get an extra 30hp for $2000 through the factory supported polestar tune... I decided not to because I couldnt try before I bought. If I could have bought it for a month then decided I probably would have.
The Lemmy community is outraged by this, car enthusiasts just see this as business as usual.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
Ofc that subscription covers the extra fuel cost. Right?
Right???
Friendly reminder. VW was founded by the nazis as a nazi car.
Still not the most nazi electric car out there..
There's a spin on "no one out pizzas the hut" but I can't make it flow smoothly...
'no one out nazis the cu--' maybe
Cult?
Curt?
Curb?
Cuba?
Culo?
Don't leave us hanging, we need to know!
load more comments
(1 replies)
Own nothing, pay everything. This bs subscription models for everything need to die. And people who thought about them along with them.
You wouldn't download more ponies...
It's pretty much inevitable that someone will figure out how to jailbreak that car. When that happens, you could just download an unofficial patch, get rid of those BS restrictions, and unlock the full potential. Might be also wise to disable whatever wireless communication hardware came with the car. Like, disconnect the antenna or whatever.
ALERT, ALERT, COMMUNICATION FAULT! VEHICLE WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 5 SECONDS. 5, 4, explodes
There may be some casualties as the process iterates through to eventual success. The martyrs of the new world.
load more comments
(3 replies)
When I bought my car one of the first brands I decided against was Mercedes due to their subscription model for their electric car.
VW going for subscription is a surefire way to give Chinese car manufacturers an even bigger part of the market. So, so short sighted
load more comments
(1 replies)
If buying isn't owning then stealing a car isn't actually stealing
Well, it wouldn't be stealing from the person driving it. It would be stealing from the ruling class which is way more moral.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I would say that excludes them from my future purchases, but honestly, I'm hoping never to buy a car again. Public transit and bicycling are far cheaper, less polluting, and more sustainable (especially in population centers). Maybe I'll spend a little of the money I save on an occasional day rental if needed.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I hope companies eventually figure out people just aren't that stupid. Also, I really hope that people aren't that stupid.
On a positive note, this could be the push that America needs to get serious about mass transit.
people can choose to pay £649 for a lifetime subscription.
inb4 they introduce tiers.
"Historically many petrol and diesel vehicles have been offered with engines of the same size, but with the possibility of choosing one with more potency," they said.
Lol yeah, with ECU tuning from a third party, you assholes just had a board meeting and realized you could turn it into a subscription and then all came on the table and licked it up
Welcome to my shit list VW.
...shit companies I'm now boycotting.
What fools.
Do this and within 6 weeks there will be a YT video of a guy worth a crazy accent jailbreaking the car's hidden hp. Probably with a $2 thing you can buy online.
Nah you'll need a $300 VCDS (or rent a legit one somewhere like eBay)...or at least a $20 AliExpress clone and a burner laptop/windows VM to plug it into.
More likely, your friendly neighborhood VW enthusiast, or your introverted-but-adderalled-VW-driving-nerd-slash-aliexpress-enthusiest (ahem) will do it for $50 bucks and half a blunt.
🖕 VW
Sold my Golf R a while back. Wasn’t planning on buying another VW, but this is the nail in that coffin.
Y'all know you can buy VAGCOM software and interface and bypass everything VW throttles in a VW right?
It's amazing for VWs you actually own too
I'm wondering if this in part has to do with hitting average efficiency targets. By nerfing this car for most users, who won't really care or notice the difference in urban driving, they carve out more tollerance for lower efficiency in their SUVs/ICE cars while still hitting the average efficiency spec that gives them some government incentives and marketing opportunities. $700/car for a lifetime subscription is not a huge economic motivator in the scheme of things.
I was thinking the issue maybe nuanced like this as well.
It's also possible that a higher performance significantly increases wear and tear and to keep the warranty activated Volkswagen trades a bit more cash in return for unlocking some of the limitations.
That being said I didn't read the article so don't really know. And I really hate the idea of paying subscriptions for things we already own, especially because it feels like we don't own anything anymore.
So: time for a reassertion of right of first sale for cars, along with right to repair.
As much as we should hate Tesla, in 2019, they increased the Model 3’s power FOR FREE. I was at 5.2 seconds 0-60, and that was a free update to 4.9s 0-60. I didn’t even have the AWD or performance model. They figured out how to make the motors better and just gave it to everyone. Why isn’t VW doing the same? Fucking greed.
They didn't figure out how to make the motors better. They just moved the safety margin
VW are worse. They are handicapping features of the car unless you pay the extortion.
The company that lied to its customers about fuel immissions and did it for years is going to screw us again with this. Fawk VW and its Nazi engineering!
While I don't care for VW, I think it is a bit much to call them Nazi. That world has been watered down way to much already and should be used when it makes sense. VW can be a shitty company without being Nazi.
it's somewhat overdramatic to call VW of today a Nazi company, but not completely baseless.
They originated as the people's car - it's what Volkswagen literally means. The original beetle was the result of the Nazi government's requirement for a German-built car that was accessible to the people i.e. white, German people.
It was founded by the German Labor Front, a literal Nazi organization, in 1937. Now, it's been a long time since WWII, and I'm sure their corporate culture has changed significantly, but calling them a Nazi company is accurate. More accurate to say they're a company with Nazi roots, to be sure.
Being historically tied to Nazis doesn't mean much in 2025
By that logic Germany is fully Nazis and should be avoided at all costs
Hitler rode in a VW. How Is that Nazi enough for you?
Hitler has been dead for a long time
A brand that repeatedly ensures that I will never buy from them.
I already hate how much tech is in my 2020 model. I'm going to drive the thing into the ground.
view more: next ›