Featured Meet the new Mercedes–Benz CLA BEV: The world’s first SAE Level 4 ready vehicle

The subscription fee actually might be a good thing, if it leads Mercedes to actually do this:

I'm still not sold on software defined vehicles. I'd say manufacturers are going to give them support for some 10 years, at the very most. At that point, the car will lose its "smart" or software defined capabilities and become basically a normal car.

 

Nice looking car! We had a Mercedes rental, years ago, when we were deployed to Italy years ago and while the seats weren't comfortable, that suspension was world-class...could hardly feel bumps at all....was very impressed.

Concerning the OTA updates, I'm skeptical knowing what hackers like to do. If a vehicle can be connected for software update, that means it's open for everything else, too. But, I guess, Tesla ha already been doing this, for years, so hopefully they have the cyber-protection stuff pretty robust.

MSRP on the CLA class vehicles isn't nearly as high as I had expected...just don't ever EVER own a Mercedes that's not covered by a warranty....big bucks, no whammies to fix them.

 

It's just like any smartphone or computer. The manufacturer has to keep on top of security flaws and patch them whenever a vulnerability is discovered.

The thing is, normally, after a certain number of years, you lose support and the security patches that came with it. And with that, the apps that previously worked eventually stop supporting the platform too. The same is very likely to happen to software defined vehicles. Eventually you're running "Windows XP" or "iOS 2.3" or "Android KitKat" version of your software defined vehicle, and you can no longer run that self-driving app you once could. Maintaining a data connection may be outright suicide at that point.

At any rate, nothing is free. There are a few ways of preventing this from happening to cars, or at least delaying the inevitable:

1. Car manufacturers will have to include the service to keep their cars up-to-date for longer in their price.
2. We'll have to pay a subscription that will cover the software updates, and maybe even be able to pay for hardware updates when those become necessary.
3. Or cars will simply become a subscription entirely. Lease only, and trade in for a new lease every 3 to 5 years. And the off-lease cars will be sold as non-software defined versions, or scrapped completely.

But the most likely thing will happen is you get your software defined vehicle for 5 or 6 years, then support is pulled, connection to the service is cut, and you have a "dumb" vehicle that you'll need to trade in if you want to keep having your "smart" features.

 

what is it, like 40 grande?

 

Starting at $48,500.