It’s time once again to talk about possibly the most hated thing in the entire automotive industry: subscription-based features. While some are useful, there’s something irksome about paying five or even six figures for a new car, only for automakers to ask if you want to pay a separate monthly fee to use certain connected services. However, it seems like drivers are starting to push back.
As a recent S&P Global Mobility study states (bold ours):
Subscription-based services (navigation, Wi-Fi, etc.) are increasingly being met with resistance from price-sensitive consumers who may not see the value in paying recurring fees for features they do not frequently use. Users are frustrated when hardware (e.g., cameras, sensors) is present but features are paywalled. Consumers are also pushing back against “feature fragmentation” where basic functions are split into multiple paid tiers.
As with anything in a major industry, people study in-car subscription services, and some of those people work for S&P Global Mobility. The data firm takes a closer look at how consumers are viewing and using connected services every year to quantify desirability, price sensitivity, and other factors useful for product planning. From S&P:
S&P Global Mobility conducts an annual survey to understand automotive industry trends in consumer sentiment toward connected car services. By asking vehicle owners of certain model years a series of questions to gauge activation decisions, subscription lengths and costs, feature desirability and willingness to pay, we develop the “Feature Desirability & Willingness to Pay” indices, along with activation rates.
Through statistical analysis and machine learning, analysts extract key factors and weights (coefficients) that explain an application’s feature desirability score and how much consumers are willing to pay.
According to this latest 2025 edition of the study, consumer sentiment toward paid connected services — which were meant to be gold mines for automakers — took a significant turn over the past year, signifying that more drivers don’t want to be juiced after they roll off the lot.
Connected services are not necessarily a primary consideration when purchasing new vehicles, so technology-oriented customers may be more proactive and intentionally seek out these services directly from the dealer or buy online. However, the number of respondents who would pay for connected services has significantly decreased, from 86% in 2024 to 68% in 2025.
That sort of drop in one year is precipitous, but also unsurprising. Not only has online backlash to paid subscription features been swift, paid connected services are easy subscriptions for many belt-tightening consumers to cut as most telematics packages consist largely of non-essential features like in-car Wi-Fi and concierge services. Granted, some telematic services can be useful, like stolen vehicle tracking and some advanced driver assistance features that require an active internet connection, but having those features frequently bundled with less essential operations feels like a questionable deal. Plus, consumers are starting to see less enjoyment from these subscription services, as per the study.
Once consumers experience connected car services, they are generally satisfied and likely to recommend them to others. That said, consumers have shown declining satisfaction levels in nearly all connected car services categories over the past two to three years.
Could part of the decline in satisfaction be due to the 3G sunset of 2022 cutting off services to many connected cars, or recent instances like Honda and Acura sunsetting connected features on some models as new as the 2021 model year? S&P Global doesn’t say, but it wouldn’t be surprising if these experiences left a bad taste in drivers’ mouths. Unsurprisingly, data privacy concerns may also play a role in reducing consumer demand, as drivers have a right to be concerned about what automakers do with their data.
Data privacy has been the biggest industry concern as automakers seek recurring revenue and monetization opportunities. Consumers are wary of how their driving data (location, habits, etc.) is being collected, stored, and used, especially given the potential for misuse or unauthorized access. Lack of transparency in data policies has been proven to reduce consumer trust, especially among privacy-conscious users.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on how much it sucks to manage subscriptions. If they aren’t on auto-renew, the service could drop out. If they are on auto-renew, that’s another bite taken out of your credit card. Want to cancel? That’s tedious, and in some cases, unnecessarily difficult. With everything from music to movies to fitness to shared spaces seemingly being subscription-based now, people are tired. A subscription for car features is the last thing many of us need on our plates.
Despite this decline in desirability for connected services, automakers won’t stop trying to make money from drivers beyond the initial purchase so long as they’re seeing a take rate that’s worth the expense of supporting these features. So, what sort of take rates are we actually looking at for paid connected services?
According to the study, 35 percent of American respondents with connected cars report paying for connected services, although the sample size of 1,000 American respondents is quite small. Still, the United States leads the study when it comes to the share of respondents with active paid subscription services, with the figure falling to 33 percent in India, 32 percent in mainland China, 30 percent in Korea, 29 percent in both Brazil and the United Kingdom, and 25 percent in Germany. Japan and France are coolest to paid telematics, with just 18 percent of Japanese respondents and 19 percent of French respondents having active paid subscription services.
What happens if those take rates fall further? It’s tough to make any predictions beyond declining revenue for automakers. With nearly all modern cars being over-the-air updatable and feature internet connections capable of remedying certain software-related recalls and adding new features, some level of connected services support will always exist. However, it’s possible some of the paid subscription features end up falling off the face of the earth, should they become unprofitable to offer.
Top graphic credit: Subaru
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Any sort of subscription (or even a single-payment unlock) for a feature that physically exists in/on my vehicle is a significant “no” from me. Not a car, but the fact that Zero motorcycles required paid ‘upgrades’ that were just software unlocks for the things that were already physically on the motorcycle was enough for me to write the brand off entirely, especially as they can’t fall back on decades of goodwill.
I blame Netflix. They made the subscription model mainstream.
Pulled-out-of-context words:
Don’t give car companies any ideas!
Charging for heated seats is BS. However if GPS costs the company money a fee isn’t unrealistic. A subscription to continuously monthly upgrade the software is no different than Microsoft or Google or security from malware. I think not having computer crap on cars is best. But if you want all this Fancy upgraded features you need to be willing to pay just like you do for other software and computer upgrades.
You will own nothing and like it.
I was paying $8 a month for Onstar to remote start my car, very helpful on the winter. The check engine light came on and remote start stopped working. No parts availability (EGR for Chevy Volt). I cancel right away lol
I did pay for the premium connectivity in my Tesla. It’s nice to have stuff I’m already paying for available on a larger screen or to listen to. Having the car’s electrical system powering the cell radio helps with reception in the areas I go to that still don’t have it on my phone.
Yet another reason I bought the ’22 Colorado – last model year of that generation, first one being 2015. So while I do have a touchscreen that has climate controls and other things buried in there I don’t think I’ve even gone into the climate screen as I have buttons and knobs for everything. It even has an actual, physical key, with the remote start button on the fob.
But I can still pay for the web app if I want to be lazy and start it from my bed in the winter. Or if I somehow manage to lock my keys in the truck, but I would never do something like that..
I think it makes sense to be able to monitor my EV’s battery state from my phone. It’s also nice to be able to turn on the AC 10 minutes before I get off my train in the afternoon after the car has been baking in the central valley summertime heat.
Those are included with my lease though. I don’t pay for any extras in my ICE vehicles.
I haven’t got an EV, I think it would be fair to expect any EV or PHEV, i.e. any car that plugs in for power, to include remote monitoring for life for free. In an ICE vehicle you can monitor while you’re filling, and you can monitor your gas gauge while you’re driving, and the gas doesn’t go anywhere while you’re not driving.
If I had an EV in my driveway that I regularly charged overnight on 120V, I’d want to be able to know how much it had built up for an evening errand, for free if the hardware is in the vehicle. Hell, give me an option to just connect to my home wifi or to my phone’s wifi or bluetooth, and not use your connected services.
The car shows power and range on the dash like ICE. You want to check it from Italy you pay for it.
I just bought my 1st car with power seat adjustment
I did that once, the thing that adjusted the seat broke. (so did everything else electrical). I am often amused that my very old cars just work.
Wait, an N-value of 1000 is “quite small”? Since when? A 1,000 sample size is more than enough to get a P of .05 or even .01 if there is a strong statistical significance and good study design – or should I go back to grad school and tell my stats professor everything we learned was wrong; because we are going to need to re-do… well, pretty much every medical and mental health study ever.
Maybe that 1000 respondents is across all those countries – there were at least five – making the per country results far less solid?
That is depending on the size of the total study group. If you test 1000 from a group of 10,000 great but a group of several million the mean, mode, and average is far less accurate
Having Remote Start on the fob, vs. in some app that I have to pay for?? that might determine who gets my $$ when I buy my next vehicle. I HATE subscriptions, and I haven’t done it. don’t intend to start.
Or, you can be like Toyota and have Remote Start on the fob, but still require a subscription: https://www.kbb.com/car-news/toyotas-key-fob-remote-start-will-now-require-a-subscription-fee/?msockid=0253252ab6c16d9910243086b7ba6c71
I’ve tried searching various Toyota forums to see if it’s true, and it seems to be a mixed bag with some saying you don’t actually need a subscription while others claim you do.
I think it depends on the model. Our ’21 RAV4 can do remote start, but they hid the feature behind the paywall and we refuse to pay the subscription fee so we don’t get to use the feature.
The earlier generation would supposedly do it by pressing a combination of keys on the fob even if you didn’t have a dedicated remote start button.
I’m told quite a few of the Toyotas worked that way, and nicer Toyota sales people would fill you in on the secret before you drove away after purchase. No such luck with the new ones, though, unless you give in to the extortion fee.
That is insane. If that’s the case, I’m not going to buy a Toyota. Just as, related but separate issue, I won’t buy a ¿Volvo? if it requires being logged into a google account.
I don’t need it. Just had a problem with my fob went to the Toyota dealership $5;for a new battery and now everything works.
Some (like Subaru, ironically pictured at the beginning) do either one; get a basic fob for a one-time charge, or pay monthly for the cell-based one.
Keep in mind the cell-based version has a far superior range, plus allows for climate control adjustment, lock/unlock, locator/immobilizer/recovery, etc. IMO, it makes sense to charge users for any cell-based service, otherwise the automaker’s footing the monthly bill for niceties not everyone needs/wants.
I agree with you on the cellular based services. That connectivity has an ongoing cost. It needs to be paid for.
That said, I really don’t see the point of the cellular connectivity in the first place. My phone can handle navigation, and do hot spot if I need that sort of thing.
The whole concept of a software defined vehicle is abhorrent to me. It’s a mechanical device, not a computer.
The over-the-air updates don’t make sense to me. I don’t understand why the auto companies spend the money on the connectivity for those clients (the majority, as it turns out) that don’t pay for the subscription service. Seems like a stupid on going expense the manufacturers would be better off not paying.
I like to picture a 1998-era BMW breaking into my car in the middle of the night to replace the CD player with a tape player and the nice speakers for the base model.
I feel like the data behind the subscriptions are sort of like the people in first class on an airliner. Almost nobody is paying that out of pocket — it’s mostly either free upgrades or paid by a company, but the idea is that if you expose enough people to the idea, eventually you’ll find the suckers willing to pay dearly from their own pockets for it.
When flying, I’m always careful to avoid using terms like “Coach” or “Economy” with my kids especially. I call it “Normal Class” and I refer to Business as “Rich Class” and First as “Company Class” 🙂
Raising two Gen Zers, I’ve never seen classism as front & center in my life as it is for young people today. It’s almost all social media. Even my well-adjusted daughter watches videos like “If I beat my dad in this scavenger hunt on Catalina Island, I win a new Tesla!”
Pardon my Arabic, but Dafuq?
I’m a big ape. I am perfectly happy to pay for the premium seats on an airplane. I am too old, too fat, and have too much money to fly coach over an ocean. And with a bit of flexibility, business class isn’t THAT much more money.
I’m such a weirdo, I usually even skip the free trial. It’s there for a reason, to suck me in, and sometimes it’s better to just ignore it. This is 10x more true with other people in your family. I know the second I start paying for Amazon Music or Spotify, it’s going to be an entitlement to the people who don’t earn money in the family 😉
Yes, I do pay for Sirius/XM because I like the seamless convenience of not having to pair the car to a phone, manage a separate data plan, etc.
I never used the trials on my vehicle. In the three or six months they were there, I never used the phone-based remote start. Never used sirius/xm because I am paying for Apple Music.
With the disclosures of auto manufacturers selling info to insurers without consent, I’ve been wondering if it’s feasible to disconnect whatever antenna their connected services uses, and just plug it in a few times a year to see if there are any OTA updates for the vehicle.
I’ve had four cars that could have had “connected services” from Day 1. I too was sufficiently uninterested to even bother with the free trial. I have a perfectly good cellphone – that is all the connectivity I need in my life and more. Way more. I could not care less about Carplay either.
The only subscription for a car I pay for is XM Radio for my Mercedes, and even then it’s the el-cheapo talk-only plan that is like $30/year. Worth the money driving between FL and ME twice a year.
Amen you get any special you get locked in.
Yep, I don’t even want it for free. The XM trial on my new-used car came and went and I didn’t even try it. Not because I can’t resist, but because I do not care to pay for music I already own.
Bonus for being old, they’re not making any new 80s music. When I own all I want of it, that’s it.
Not being able to afford a car built since like 2016 is pretty great. I get to drive cars that were in so many ways better, and not break the bank to own them. U have no car payments and no subscription fees. … just a shitload of maintenance.
*insert shocked Pikachu*
I am not supposed it is such BS the things they are selling nowadays that are locked between some software update when hre hardware is already there and you already paid for it. Like oh you want remote start? Sorry you need to now pay us a monthly fee because it uses our app when hell my dad’s old 2013 Chevy Sonic came with remote start standard and that was a near base model econ box. Or BMW heated seats are you serious?
Wanted to add a note I am really surprised the Polestar 2 I got didn’t have any BS subscription stuff on it (at least not yet)
If this proves to be a long-term trend, it’s going to put the automakers in a tough spot. Shareholders expect infinite growth, but after the massive COVID price spikes consumers are starting to push back on high up front costs too, so the automakers have been hoping to get on that recurring subscription gravy train. The problem is that so many of these subscriptions only benefit the automaker. They’re purely a cash grab, and it sounds like people are realizing that. Nobody wants to pay GM a monthly fee for a second cell service when they’re already carrying one around in their pocket (as one egregious example).
It’s quite possible that the car market is saturated (especially as the middle class becomes increasingly poor for *waves hands* reasons) and there’s no more blood to be squeezed from that stone, but publicly traded companies can’t really accept that even if it is reality.
Fuck those companies then. I am so tired of the endless growth bullshit. People are only going to be able to afford used cars for a while.
They’re not making cars (or vehicles since no one seems to like cars) for the middle class at this point. Screw those guys, they’re just poor. The money to be made is in the upper classes where cars are refreshed every 2-3 years and all the high margin junk is happily paid for. You move fewer units but make significantly more margin on each one. More for less is a fine model.
The only thing I’m willing to pay a (small) fee for is cell connected features for things like remote start/door lock/unlock.
In the Canadian winter, I’m a HUGE fan of starting my vehicle before I leave the building, and by the time I reach the car, it’s already starting to make heat. By the time I clear the snow off, I can immediately hop into a warm vehicle with the heated seats rocking.
The only other feature I can possibly see being useful for me as a connected service, is how Volvo was looking at using GPS plotted routes for Class 8 trucks, being aware of where the hills are.
This allows them to let the trucks roll a bit faster on down grades, especially if it knows another hill is following shortly. As well as pre-selecting gearing to be in the power band when the hill begins.
I wouldn’t even pay for the remote start as a subscription. I’m ok with a one-time fee, but that’s it. I get there are infrastructure costs, they just need to price it right up front.
If there’s a constant cell network connection to enable the feature, I’m ok with paying a bit for that.
That being said, it was no-cost when I had my F150.
I don’t see a tremendous need for a remote start that functions globally. We had a Mazda CX-9 with a dealer-added “official” Mazda remote start module. It worked from about half a mile away if there was line of sight, could do about a quarter mile if there were things in the way. The remote start fob was TINY also, so I’m guessing it didn’t use up a lot of juice sending out a signal. Maybe the car had a generous antenna?
Regardless, you obviously don’t pay ongoing costs for a transmitter/receiver combo and I don’t see a need to start up when you’re that far from your car. I’m sure there are SOME instances where it might be useful, so charge a fee for those, leave the transmitter option in place for those that don’t need the extended option.
I don’t see any reason why remote start needs to be via cell phone. I can unlock the damned car from across the yard. Not that I would use remote start on my own cars anyway. Bad for the engine, bad for the environment, and I am just not that soft.
Do they not still have aftermarket remote starters you pay for once?
https://www.compustar.com/systems/remote-start
Tough to integrate into the security systems of modern cars.
I just leased a Mini EV… and knowing BMW, I was very clear with them about subscriptions: I’m not paying. I think the woman in the financial office thought I was being mean, but I was very blunt in my description of automotive subs and she got the message.
Buyers have the power here. If an automaker proposes a sub, say no. If it’s on a feature that should be included, get that changed or walk away. If enough people speak with their wallets, it won’t happen.
Problem is that the industry knows most people don’t pay attention to their monthly payment or how much their car costs, so they’re going to try to slide it in.
Didn’t BMW drop the whole pay to play for heated seats and steering wheel thing?
They did in the US. Still a thing in other markets. Sheep.
I probably have far less subscriptions than the average person (I tend to avoid them if I can) yet I feel like something hits my account damn near every day (a lot of that is the subscription that is my degree). It is exhausting, just an endless array of microtransactions. The new world order of basically making it extremely expensive to buy things a la carte to force subscriptions doesn’t help. Hell, a car was here costs 20 freaking dollars, yet a subscription for unlimited washes is 30$/month.
I’ll add that subscriptions to use features in your car feels especially icky if you’ve just purchased a vehicle for the sorts of prices we’re seeing today. When the average new car buyer lays out 45k for whatever, the premise of having to sign up for an additional reoccurring payment to activate the feature that’s listed in a 3400$ option package already paid for… yeah that’s sort of rough.
I was an early adopter of a lot of tech-based conveniences. Amazon Prime (including TONS of Subcribe & Save stuff, Uber/Lyft, Shipt. I’m busy and often feel overwhelmed, and I am willing to pay to outsource some of the load.
But in the past few years the script has flipped. You now need an app, an account, a subscription for EVERYTHING. Every website has a pop up that asks for your email and phone number, and another that offers a chat session with their shitty bot. I can’t stand it and I cancelled/deleted most of it. It’s become easier and less stressful to go back to brick and mortar life.
Oh and the car wash near me is $20/wash and $22/month. Fuck them.
I’m very much over the world of online shopping and really wish there were more brick and mortar options. The number of things I’ve bought online that ended up being complete garbage, that could’ve been prevented by seeing said garbage in person first, let’s just say that the savings from shopping with Amazon and other is highly overrated.
That’s sort of a tangent, but I think is part of the frustration of being a modern consumer, along with all these subscriptions*.
*For the record I’m happy with my subscription to The Autopian, which is the only sort of thing I want to be paying for as a subscription.
Something something walkable cities.
I am OK with subscriptions that save me money. I have the $15/mo car wash sub and use the hell out of it. And I cost Amazon so much money with Prime it’s *hilarious*. That one is a no-brainer, even at the inflated price (and I split it with my mother anyway). But it has to be for something I actually use ALL THE TIME.
Car washes going to the gym mentality of oh pay for it monthly and hope they never use it is one of the worst things I’ve seen happen.
I remember doing some work for a chain of gyms we had as a client, back when I worked at an ad agency. Something like 30% of people with gym memberships don’t use them much or at all, and gyms absolutely count on those people for revenue.
Meh, the car wash sub for my Mercedes is great. I run through it more than once a week. Cars that sit outside get crappy fast in FL between the bugs, birds, and pollen, and it’s too damned hot to hand wash two cars. Bad enough I have to wash my convertible by hand. Completely effortless to swing through the car wash, it’s right between my house and the grocery store. Well worth the $15/mo, given a basic wash costs $10. Twice a month and I am saving money.
Gym membership, yeah, no. That’s work.
But both are businesses where the marginal cost of actually providing the service is very, very low once you make the investment to build it.
So my leased Kia (which I love, great car) wants me to pay $20 a month for connected services like remote start and remote climate. I don’t, but if it was $20 a YEAR, maybe. The thing is the car still uses an active sim for over the air updates and presumably to collect my driving data to sell to LEXUS so they can sell to my insurance company. I detest this.
You mean Lexis Nexus right? I don’t think Lexus cares what you do in your Kia.
It would be fascinating to know what the breakdown of this is.
How many of these people are paying for Onstar and/or Supercruise (or whatever other brands call them) vs anything else? Those two are probably the most justified in charging a monthly fee.
I was wondering how many were something like Sirius/XM. In addition, I question how many people who are “subscribed” actually are just on a complimentary 1-3 year plan from when they bought their vehicle and they will just let it expire when the manufacturer wants to start charging for it.
The complimentary subscription was my thought as well, and it depends how the survey question was worded. Also whether you interpret buying the car as paying for that “complimentary” service as well; they’re making money off of you either way, so you can say you paid for it even if included.
Good luck trying to cancel XM.
They aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be on that front, thankfully.
They now have it set up with AI so you have to chat with a bot to cancel.
I never even used it when they gave me a free trial and they kept hounding me to subscribe. I figured if they were that insistent when they didn’t have access to my money, I can’t imagine how difficult it will be to get rid of them if they did. I also generally believe that if anyone pushes hard for you to buy their crap, it’s not worth having.
Totally agree. I want to see what % of people are paying to access their car’s hardware. Hopefully it’s an extremely low %.