this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
415 points (97.3% liked)
Technology
76986 readers
2886 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Two sets of seats you mean. The car is the same. These days they don't even have to blank out the buttons because it's a touch screen anyway.
I already had heated + ventilated seats with the optional multi-contour (air based) cushions, but without the memory package, so they weren't fully electric. Then there were the different materials available. Each of these things was an option, and there were more that I didn't have that I probably didn't know. Somehow they made a profit off the car. I also had the four zone climate control as opposed to the two zone, which was also an option over the manual air conditioning. There were a ton more options present and many missing (seriously, who tf optioned the sunroof, but not adaptive cruise???)
This was a 2003 car. No subscription, you just paid for the options you wanted. In fact the sunroof necessitated different body shells according to the parts catalog. How is THAT still an option? That makes for a lot more complexity than any other item being an option.
In 2025 I would expect heated seats to be standard in any car more expensive than the very base model Dacia. Super simple tech, very easy to make, and pretty much a necessity in some areas of the world, particularly where I live.
Two sets of cars, not seats. The seats would be pre installed. Dealers do not be assemble to taste (except for maybe small items like radio).
Chances are that the savings in doing it the current way are not passed on to the consumer but mathematically, technically they could be. Same like self-serve checkouts.
With software it is common to pay extra to unlock premium features. You don't pay and then download those features. This is the same concept.
Uhh... You do realise that you can choose options when you order the car, right? There are enough options on some cars that if you wanted to stock every combo, you'd need billions of cars.
Some of those options are easy to retrofit, others require assembling to order.
There is a reason why odd colors cost more. If they could change the color with software but the base color was white, it would be fair to only charge those who wanted to employ the tech for a fancy color and let the others have it at the old price (even though both customers have the enabling tech on board).
None of these get retrofitted on new cars. They're literally built to order unless you buy a demo vehicle or an in-stock vehicle and those usually don't have a lot of variety anyway, they're meant for fleets more than anything.