> Driving around in winter time

> Sudden heavy snow

> Press "Snow Chain" button

> "You don't have enough credits on your Hyundai wallet to use this feature"

> Awwwwww SHHHH....

I can't wait for the lawsuits over who pays to repair a feature that failed caused a car to be un-safe/un-drivable and was never subscribed to.

This is actually a big question about Apple’s emergency satellite communication. “Family of five freezes to death in blizzard because of Apple Wallet glitch” is not a headline they want in 2 years.

My guess is they’ll have some sort of postpaid system without verification gatekeeping, or they’ll just fold the cost into 4-year iPhone ownership and eat the loss for those that upgrade slower.

I suspect in these first few years they’re monitoring how it’s being used, and then will use that data to decide. If the usage is so low that the cost is negligible, they might just keep it free. Or it could spawn a regulation that this kind of service must always be free like 911 service on cellular networks.

Please do verification donut to continue.

To prove you are not Full Self-Drive

How is this any different than using snow tires, which is also a recurring cost and requires you to do something (ie. change your tires) before you can use it?

"You paid for stuff before, how is the slow encroaching market takeover by artificially crippled products for blood-sucking rent seeking any different?"

It’s kinda neat how you can win any argument by just putting your conclusions into the questions ain’t it? ;)

>by just putting your conclusions into the question

I answered the question humorously. If it was a silly question, that's not my fault. :)

No "Begging the Question" here. Nice try.

You literally didn’t answer the question though. You just rephrased the question and replaced all the content with your own prior conclusions.

That’s exactly begging the question.

>your own prior conclusions

Oh please. Again it's my answer to the question.

"[The difference is that this is] slow encroaching market takeover by artificially crippled products for blood-sucking rent seeking."

Hope this helps.

"artificially crippled products for blood-sucking rent seeking"

that's the point that's up for discussion, but that's just being asserted with no supporting arguments.

If you're trying to claim it's not "artificial" or "rent seeking," feel free to make that argument.

Seemed self-explanatory enough to me.

Much better. It’s a lot more obvious how insubstantial and emotional the “argument” is. Just bad vibes word salad.

> insubstantial and emotional

I see you didn't take Econ 101.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

Tell me, what specifically about this press release unveiling a new tire meets the definition of rent-seeking?

Lest you "forget," the context of the current thread is this post[0].

Since this is what you're reduced to, I see real discussion is finished now. Thank you for contributing.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38611689

Snow tires are something you drive around with every day, in the winter months, to improve traction, whereas snow chains are something you put on when there is a layer of compacted snow & ice on the road. You definitely don't drive with snow chains when the road is clear or has a scattered icy patches; that would wreck the road. Also, you can't drive very fast with snow chains on, maybe 50 km/h max.

I can change tires myself if I want to, and when I'm paying for tires to be changed for me I'm paying for the labor involved not the feature of having different tires.

>and when I'm paying for tires to be changed for me I'm paying for the labor involved not the feature of having different tires.

Okay but practically speaking you're not changing your tires for fun. You're changing it specifically to improve winter driving performance. For all practical purposes changing your tires is the same as activating the feature on these smart tires, even if the former involves the tires being removed/added.

That's really just fundamentally not how I mentally handle spending money.

I get that they're logically equivalent, but it goes against my world view to pay per activation on something like this. I have great disdain for the subscriptionication of everything.

How are snow chains a recurring cost? You buy them once and wrap them around your tires when you need them.

Time is money. Having to "wrap them around your tires when you need them" is a cost, even if you could theoretically do it for free. Moreover, if there was "Sudden heavy snow" as in OP's hypothetical, you'd still be screwed.

If you're serious, there is a difference between ransoming a functionality that is already provided vs delivering something new. I know about the economic arguments, but both in perception and reality, it's not the same thing to say "pay us to turn this on" as it is to pay to buy something new. No amount of mental gymnastics will change that.

>If you're serious, there is a difference between ransoming a functionality that is already provided vs delivering something new.

Do you feel the same about software/SaaS that gate features to different license tiers? After all, the functionality is already in the code.

Yes if those features don't require using extra space, bandwidth, hardware.

In this case it's not really clear that they're adding it to all cars. In all likelihood if the subscription scheme exists (which there's also no clear evidence that it is), you'd have to opt in to the expensive tires first.

And if e.g. those extra costs are 15 cents then the only reasonable extra charge is 15 cents?

It’s not free to do pretty much anything, even sending a single HTTP request, so curious how you calibrate.

Easiest calibration: if the feature is already present to the client, requires ONLY pushing a secret button or sending a special one time request, but doesn't require any ongoing http requests or unpaid maintenance on provider side, then it should be free. Like cabin heating or snow chain deployers.

So if you have a mass-produced product and you want some variable features available for customers’ different preferences and price points, you ought to have different manufacturing processes even if you can actually create that variation in software? That seems very wasteful IMO.

If it's cheaper to include hardware in all models than to make different hardware versions, that sounds like you shouldn't make users pay more for actually using the hardware that is already there.

Yeah... A few issues:

1. Non-standard tire - More expensive, won't be stocked, difficult to replace.

2. Reduced tire tread - Those grooves will receive more wear, overall the tires has maybe 1-5% reduced tread and contact surface.

3. Bumps/knocks - These pieces of metal are likely to be damaged and/or worn before they ever get used.

To me it would make far more sense to literally just bolt a cage to the alloy encase of snow, with some sensor to detect presence (reduce speed for safety) and knocking to indicate the user no longer drives on a snowy surface.

Another option could be to have some form of extension to increase the surface area of the tire.

I have a friend that has a Mercedes S580 (nice car).

They don't have spare tires. Instead, they have some kind of tire that continues to operate in a degraded mode, until they get to a dealer, who swaps out the flat for a new tire.

He blew a tire, in rural Upstate New York.

In today's lesson, we learn that upstate dealers don't stock S580 tires, and he's forced to leave his car that costs as much as some people's houses, at a podunk dealership, while a buddy gives him a ride.

Then, a week later, the dealer insists that he drive 400 miles, to pick up the car.

I believe that he did some screaming to Mercedes corporate, and got them to drive it down to Long Island.

For a flat tire.

These will be "run flat" tires. They're to get you off the road to a safe location where a rollback (flat bed tow truck) can pick you up and take you to a tire shop.

There's nothing special about the wheels, so you can mount an appropriately sized "regular" tire and continue on your way. Worth the $250 to get on your way, I think.

I'd guess any non-dealer tire shop would have just sold your friend the tire and sent him on his way.

For a second I thought this might be a decent use of memory metal, somehow using its flexibility and durability[0] to engineer a better snow chain. Disappointing.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn-6bGORy0U

Integrating a wire and solenoid inside a spinning wheel also is a bit of a reliability gamble.

I drive on studded winter tires for 4-5 months of the year.

I'm a little sceptical. Snow is less of a problem than ice, in my opinion.

Studs provide excellent lateral and longitudinal grip on icy surfaces, and wear well. This design doesn't look convincing for lateral grip. I am also worried about wear.

Black ice surprises you, so you need to have winter tires active.

All true, but one addition. Studded tires can suck in rain. Where I am it can be -40C one day, and 5C plus rain the next.

It would be neat to somehow get both behaviours maxed.

My experience is that they are still pretty reasonable in rain. Not as good as tires designed for monsoons. But being aware of conditions they are sufficient.

The tires named after someone coughing and hacking, seem particularly bad in the rain. Agree though that with foreknowledge, it's not a problem.

Nice stuff, but I rather buy the tire from a tire manufacturer than pay 2x or 3x the price when buying from an auto manufacturer.

A lot of new innovations require initial buy in from the very wealthy, to drive development of newer versions more suitable for the average consumer.

I doubt the tire compound or the pattern is sufficient to give good experience.

Next I wonder how reliable this is over even months. Specially in freezing conditions and in areas where salt is used. Small ingress of water in freeze/thaw cycle could probably freeze whole thing when it starts to snow thus making it inoperable...

Sounds weirdly cool (especially if it's part of the tire, thus breaking the general usability of off-the-shelf tires). Unfortunately I couldn't view the movie due to some cookie-shaped bug. :/

You can see the video here https://youtu.be/kIxJobVCRTI

This movie is clear like Microsoft help file. It seems that the geometry of the rim changes. How this increases traction on snow is not clear.

You also got stuck in the infinite cookie loop? I've seen some aggressive cookie pop-ups before, but never one that bad.

This will mesh well with Hyundai's exclusive "metal shavings in your engine" technology

As someone currently adding 1qt every 1000 miles to their 2017 Tucson, I chuckled. Between their oil consumption issues, the spontaneous combustion issues, and the cost cutting immobilizer saga, I won’t buy anything from Hyundai/Kia again.

Sell it. Sell it now.

My 2015 Sorento developed the same issue, and the engine suddenly seized about 20k miles later. No warning lights, nothing - I was driving down the road and lost power. The engine fully seized and wouldn't even turn over. Ended up being a $8k repair all told, and I was extremely lucky to even find a crate engine for it. Three mechanics shops couldn't source one and I ended up having to find one myself.

Yeah, I’ve read all the stories. Unfortunately my wife loves the car, and while it is paid off, it isn’t worth much on the secondary market, so we plan to just drive it until it dies.

An anecdote to counter your anecdote - I've owned 4 Hyundais and 3 Kias over the last 23 years and have yet to have a major issue with any of them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My first new car, a 2000 Elantra was an affordable and reliable car that I sold to a teen for a decent amount. Probably the best financial deal on a car I'll ever get.

To be fair... I've been driving my Kia for ages now... it's got 130k miles and it is still going strong... Got nothing but love for that car. But yeah, it is a 2005 car, maybe things have changed dramatically...

Couple of years ago got rid of my 2008 Tucson with 150K on it for a 2015 Audi, currently putting oil in it every 600 miles...

Will this prevent 14-year-olds from stealing their cars with nothing but a USB cable, and then killing innocent bystanders?

No? Then when is that coming?

(And yes, I know it's only their old cars, but those cars are still on the road, killing people)

Snow chains are efficiency and road killers when there's no snow - and really useful when there is - so this could be good... if it really works.

So, bespoke wheels and tires? Sounds expensive.