Mercedes and Tesla now offer DLCs for their expensive cars – gamers hate this trick

Not only video games offer you paid DLCs these days. Car manufacturers are also increasingly relying on this model and are offering you expensive, downloadable additional content for your car. In this article you can find out which functions are involved and why this is quite controversial.

Buying a car is an expensive affair in and of itself. Often you also have to decide directly whether you want to pay a surcharge for certain features. For example, if you want leather seats in your vehicle, they can easily cost you several hundred euros.

For several years, however, some car manufacturers have been experimenting with another lucrative idea that is already known from video games: offering expensive, downloadable additional content.

Automakers hide these features behind a paywall

In the past, if you opted for additional features that were not available as standard, this was usually a tangible investment: after buying larger tires, your car is now equipped with them.

What content is it about? The situation is different with DLC content for cars. Most of the purchased functions are already included in your car by default, but are only activated after purchase:

• BMW, for example, has been offering a subscription for 17 euros a month for a long time, with which you can activate the seat heating in your car (via bmw).
• In Tesla cars, on the other hand, you have to for the autopilot between 99 and 199 euros per month to count. In addition, the batteries of the electric cars are limited ex works. Unlocking the full battery capacity also hides behind a paywall.
• And Porsche, Volkswagen, Toyota and General Motors already have similar payment models for additional features are being tried or are considering doing so in the future.
• Other subscription models are more understandable: some manufacturers charge money for the navigation system in the car; the manufacturers also provide you with new, up-to-date maps, blister stations and other information.

This week, however, what is probably the most curious attempt to date in terms of car DLCs made the headlines:

Mercedes has announced a new subscription model for some of their electric cars that will allow them to accelerate faster.

After completing the subscription, it should therefore be possible for the manufacturer’s EQ models to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h around 0.8 to 1 second faster.

A function that is already installed in the vehicle is activated again.

However, the most piquant thing is: for the simple software update, customers have to pay 1200 US dollars plus taxes annually (source: Mercedes). Converted, this corresponds to about 1167 euros.

How is the community reacting? The first reactions to this announcement are mostly negative. In the r/cars subreddit, for example, some users comment as follows:

Some users choose even clearer words to vent their anger:

In general, subscription models do not seem to go down well with cars:

A user recognizes parallels to video games and streaming providers:

What cars have such DLC models?

So far, unlocking additional features has mainly been possible for cars in higher price segments. The car manufacturers probably assume that richer people shouldn’t care if they have to pay a few euros more a month. After all, they were already willing to spend 100,000 euros on a new luxury sled.

The online magazine Kotaku considers this to be problematic. They explain why as follows:

However, this brings with it the risk that the manufacturers could find a lucrative business model in the idea. And then it won’t be too long before we such subscription models could also be seen in a Toyota Corolla, for example … oh, too late.

Via kotaku

What do you say about such DLC models for cars? Are you okay with automakers charging extra money for features that are already there? Would you take out a subscription for additional features on your car?

Write it to us in the comments!

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