LiDAR in SPA2

[dling]

Originally Posted by Snoodini

I'm an engineer, and look at where I live.

nice!

[squirrelz]

Originally Posted by Snoodini

They're definitely going to have OTA updates for all software in the car including the possibility to deploy new functionality (where the hardware supports it of course).

How do I know this? I'm an engineer, and look at where I live.

You might be working on that, but never underestimate the power of the finance team going "hey, we can charge for that" or "if we only do the updates as part of dealer servicing, we can keep more money in our ecosystem"

[Lexman8]

It might seem cruel, but any car maker that wants to survive and stay relevant should probably be looking to cut dealers out of the loop as far as possible, much as Tesla has done.

After all, how many of us look forward to visiting a dealer?

[Snoodini]

Originally Posted by squirrelz

You might be working on that, but never underestimate the power of the finance team going "hey, we can charge for that" or "if we only do the updates as part of dealer servicing, we can keep more money in our ecosystem"

Just to be clear, I am not working on it myself, but some of my friends at Volvo are.

Originally Posted by Lexman8

It might seem cruel, but any car maker that wants to survive and stay relevant should probably be looking to cut dealers out of the loop as far as possible, much as Tesla has done.

After all, how many of us look forward to visiting a dealer?

This. Tesla has changed the expectations of the customer, we expect OTA updates for all of our gadgets these days, and a modern car is just a big gadget on wheels. Established car brands have no choice but to follow suit. There are inherent benefits to the manufacturer too, the possibility to sell new features, where a customer otherwise would not have been purchasing a a whole new car, and the possibility to sell a car with an unfinished but promised feature, but to deliver that feature when it's ready (for example, when a lot of development time has been lost due to a global pandemic but a model year introduction date doesn't change)

[Lexman8]

Originally Posted by Snoodini

There are inherent benefits to the manufacturer too, the possibility to sell new features, where a customer otherwise would not have been purchasing a a whole new car,

On the Tesla Model 3 (and Model Y, I think) you can buy heated rear seats (all 3 of them as the middle set is heated too) as an OTA upgrade via the Tesla app. Obviously it's just enabling the feature as the actual heating elements are installed on all rear seats as standard.