The emergence of Tesla forced every premium automaker into a reevaluation of not just their products, but also their raison d’être. What does a brand like Lincoln mean in the 21st century? The company’s President is retiring after 38 years with Ford, and in a valedictory interview, made one extremely astute observation about the state of a luxury consumer. She also said something about “credible wellness.” I’m not sure I 100% understand that.
It’s been a while since The Morning Dump has featured a face-off between GM and Ford. My youth was dominated by the concept of Chevy v. Ford, Camaro v. Mustang, F-150 v. Silverado. With age and experience, I’m a little less concerned with picking one team over another. Both are capable of making great cars, and I’d rather enjoy all of them than pick sides.
Let’s pick sides for a minute, though, because Ford’s luxury brand is making a bigger statement about customer service being central to its business, while GM is trying to insist that anything you do on a public road in one of their cars is their business in response to a lawsuit over customer data. I don’t love that. While we’re on the topic of torts, Tesla settled another lawsuit related to a crash, which is unusual.
Toyota and Daimler may be competitive in certain markets, but the automakers seem to think they’ll have a better chance against China and U.S tariffs if they team up.
Let’s dump.
Lincoln President: Premium Customers ‘Don’t Want Subscriptions’
Lincoln has been a sleeper pick for one of the most improved brands over the last decade. Lincoln buyers are super sticky, the new cars are packed full of features, and sales haven’t been this good since True Blood was still pumping out new episodes on HBO.
A lot of credit for that success can go to longtime Ford exec Dianne Craig, who, after 38 years with the company, is peacing out at the end of April. Not content to merely go out on top, Craig gave a long interview to Automotive News, and there are two insights from Craig that I think we should talk about. Let’s start with something I 100% agree with, which is that to attract more premium buyers, you need a premium dealer experience:
“It’s all part of the package to make people feel special,” Craig said. “That’s what premium customers want. It’s an emotional purchase; it isn’t rational.”
One strategy the brand won’t use, Craig said, is charging new buyers subscription fees to use built-in features. Although Ford is counting on recurring revenue from such services to pad profit margins, Craig said that approach isn’t right for Lincoln.
“Whether it be BlueCruise, connectivity, security — they will be part of the warranty period,” she said. “Our focus is really in having that in the base vehicle price, at least for the warranty duration. Everything we’ve learned about premium customers is they don’t want subscriptions.”
If I buy a first-class ticket on a plane, I’m going to be upset if I’m then upcharged $5 for an extra hot face towel. That’s not how luxury works. I don’t even love paying extra for stuff in the basest of base-model Bronco Sports, and I’m not sure most buyers want that, either. It’s particularly insane for luxury cars to try to tack on expensive options you pay for monthly, although Tesla does sometimes get away with it for self-driving features (we’ll see how long that lasts). BMW tried this trick with its $18-per-month heated seats, and people got upset with them, so the Bavarian brand had to reverse its decision.
Fair play to Lincoln, here, for not doing that, or at least not doing that during the warranty period. After a few years, it might make sense to have certain features that require updates to be supported by a fee. Maybe. [Ed Note: Not a fan of monthly fees on a used car. -DT]
Here’s the other bit I’m a little less sold on, which is the move away from the guiding concept of “Quiet Flight” to another phrase:
While the “quiet flight” theme endures, Lincoln’s outgoing president, Dianne Craig, said the philosophy moving forward will hinge on another two-word phrase: credible wellness.
“We’ve got a really clear, compelling vision of where we want to take the brand,” Craig told Automotive News at a media event here. “We want to become the automotive brand that’s known for wellness.”
Huh.
“The reality is, especially our customers — the premium customers — they’ve arrived, they can afford really nice vehicles,” Craig said. “But what you can’t put a price tag on is your health and where you place your time and your precious moments.”
The new Lincoln Navigator does look super nice and has features like a “Rejuvinate mode” that’ll mix scents, massaging seats, music, and “calming visuals” to chill out passengers while parked outside a dance practice that never ends, or waiting for your mother-in-law at the airport.
She did say “credible” wellness, which means the company has to deliver the goods. I, for one, am willing to borrow the Navigator for a long trip to see if this is credible.
[Ed Note: The wellness thing I get. I see people dropping thousands on bone broth and spirulina smoothies at my local Erewohn grocery store; there’s money there. But “credible” seems unconfident to me. -DT].
GM Says Driving On A Public Road ‘Cannot Form The Basis For Any Privacy-Based Claim’
General Motors and other automakers got in trouble last year when it was revealed that they were selling your driving data to companies like LexisNexis and Verisk, who then sold that data to insurance companies. The companies all backed off, but not before a bunch of lawsuits were filed.
GM, OnStar, LexisNexis, and Verisk are all trying to get a federal court to dismiss the claims, and the arguments seem to be centered on two main arguments:
- People consented to this.
- What you do in public on public roads can’t be considered private.
Ignoring the first one for now, this second one might be a compelling legal argument, but it feels wrong. Here’s what GM said in its brief:
Ignoring the benefits of OnStar services in general and Smart Driver in particular, Plaintiffs claim GM used OnStar and Smart Driver to convert GM vehicles into “corporate surveillance machines” that invaded customer privacy. These allegations fail to state viable claims because, among other reasons, GM’s collection of driving data was disclosed and consented to, and because driving a vehicle—which necessarily involves conduct that takes place on public roads—cannot form the basis for any privacy-based claim.
Again, even if this is true from a legal perspective, as a consumer, I hate it.
Tesla Settles Another Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Tesla was on a bit of a roll for a while, having won a few wrongful death lawsuits related to the company’s assisted driving features. Lately, though, Tesla has been settling. First, there was the lawsuit from the Apple engineer whose Model X swerved off a highway, which Tesla settled on the eve of the trial.
This week, Tesla settled another crash.
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla has agreed to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate of a man who was killed in 2021 after his Tesla crashed and caught fire near Dayton, Ohio.
Tesla and lawyers for the estate disclosed the settlement in a filing on Monday in federal court in San Francisco but did not reveal its terms.
Tesla denied any wrongdoing. Is this part of a pattern? All of a sudden, Tesla and its CEO seem a lot less sympathetic to a larger group of potential jurors, though there’s been no indication that this is the reason behind the move.
Toyota’s Hino And Daimler/Mitsubishi’s Fuso Look To Merge
The world is growing increasingly uncertain with tariffs, Chinese competition, and things of that nature.
Toyota’s Hino Trucks unit and the Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, which is actually owned by Daimler, look like they’re going to merge in order to better face this uncertainty. At least that’s the plan, according to a report in Nikkei Asia:
The four companies are expected to finalize the merger agreement as early as May. An antitrust review by the Japan Fair Trade Commission is close to completion.
After the transaction, a newly created holding company would own all of both Hino Motors and Mitsubishi Fuso.
Toyota now owns 50.1% of Hino, and Daimler Truck owns 89.3% of Mitsubishi Fuso. While Toyota and Daimler Truck are expected to have equal stakes in the new holding company, Toyota’s share of the voting rights would be under 20%.
The deal was supposed to go forward last year, but the Hino emissions cheating scandal slowed things down for a while.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I grew up in the time of grunge, even if grunge never quite felt right to me. I didn’t have quite the self-loathing necessary. Perhaps that’s why the clever Britpop of Blur and Pulp was more appealing as I grew up and slowly became aware of those bands thanks to shows like “120 Minutes” on MTV. One band I totally missed was Suede, even though the group was a key part of the success of the genre. Enjoy “Animal Nitrate” from the Brit Awards.
The Big Question
Would you pay a subscription for any car service? What would it be for?
Top Photo: Lincoln
In regards to those upset with GM, keep in mind FedEx has cameras in 99 percent of their entire fleet and contractors fleets .These are the new AI cameras that track location etc.They also capture every license plate they can see .They are also recording anytime they pull up your driveway to deliver so don’t put anything in view.
They also have a deal with Flock safety who is in the surveillance business and share info.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/surveillance-network-fedex-retailers-said-to-be-sharing-ai-camera-feeds-with-cops/ar-BB1pbUWA
Cameras on the outside of the car and in the cargo area don’t bother me – it’s their property, it moves around, and there’s a lot of potential litigation that can be avoided with video evidence.
As for cameras in the cab, on the driver, then it’s a matter of whether you’re willing to subject yourself to such working conditions.
I’d be very uncomfortable with it, and would rather load/unload the trucks than deal with it. Something about my boss being able to run a report on whether or not I scratched my nose on a particular day just doesn’t sit well with me.
I have no issue with a camera that records around the vehicle,my issue is that it’s a AI camera that’s constantly recording and reporting back data on plates etc that is being sold without anyone’s knowledge.
it’ll only be a short amount of time before it’s doing face recognition if it’s not already.
UPS driver union has kept the cameras out so far of their trucks.
Anything I would have ever been willing to pay a subscription for is already on my phone. Navigation, music, emergency services, they’re all in my pocket. And I don’t consider over-the-air updates to be a service, they benefit the manufacturer by allowing them to release an unfinished product and “work out the kinks” after I’ve already bought it. Like a bad live-service videogame. I already refuse to buy software on launch for this very reason, the notion of taking out a loan on a device that’s in “open beta” is downright insulting.
Man, my daily drivers don’t even have fuel injection. Subscriptions to car things seems like a far off dystopian future to me.
I’d consider the value proposition of a tires and wipers subscription.
The subscription has to be for some sort of content that doesn’t exist at the time of purchase. XM radio, that makes sense. For those that want OnStar (which btw apparently is already making money of subscribers by selling their data) sure… I guess. But hardly anything else does.
The premise that any luxury brand would charge extra for literally anything after the purchase makes zero sense to me. You’re basically paying up front to not be hassled by that sort of shit, I would think. BMW trying to lock shit behind subscriptions was appalling then, and appalling now.
“Credible Wellness” sounds like the title to a self-help book that is somehow even less useful than the other self-help books. Like if you jammed it under the leg of a wobbly table (the most helpful thing a self-help book will ever do) it would somehow make the table wobble even more.
Honest question to any lawyers reading:
If GM is saying that everyone opted in as a defense, is there any precedent for requiring an option to opt out while maintaining the core function of what you’re buying?
Could these people have opted out and still had a car with the features they paid for? And if not does this mean in any way that the opting in agreement is null if there was no way to opt out?
Regarding the Big Question:
There has to be some reason that makes sense for the ongoing payment. And it can’t be duplicative of what I already have in my pocket with my phone, just adding in–car capability or something. Is the manufacturer doing anything to provide a service or incurring ongoing costs? Heated seats don’t fit because there was no additional service or benefit being provided.
Maybe I could see ongoing fees for data access of some sort or a subscription but the problem with all of these is I already have access through my phone. And if you block that (GM getting rid of CarPlay) I will go elsewhere.
I cannot say I would never do it. I do have a hard time envisioning what the manufacturer could do that would add value I would be willing to pay for though.
I pay for the premium connectivity in my Tesla. And SiriusXM in the Toyota. Being able to have a lot of data not tethered to the phone is nice. Plus local radio isn’t as good as SXM in my opinion.
The audio quality for SXM is abysmal on the music channels I listened to.
I understand SXM for listening to live sports where artifacts from highly compressed audio doesn’t matter.
My hearing is so bad I’m just lucky to hear the radio…
In a noisy car it’s the same as a FM radio to my ears. The programming is the special sauce for me. Having hosts who are consistently knowledgeable about the music makes it worthwhile. I enjoy learning about stuff so it’s nice to hear some back story.
No subscriptions for me. I don’t want network-enabled tech in a car that might itself become hardware-outdated and bricked (like 3G-based devices). Android Auto keeps everything I need up to date; that’s plenty.
As for the GM privacy lawsuit: even if we grant them that (which we absolutely shouldn’t), then we need it guaranteed they’re not collecting any data once we’re on private property. Someone’s driveway? Amusement park parking lot? Mall parking lot? All private property, zero data can be collected there.
Let’s ask them if any data has been collected from service members parking their vehicles on-base, too. Or however close I would assume those are.
That would be an interesting challenge to this, I’m not sure they would have the GPS resolution to prove you are on public roads most of the time.
Precisely. The impetus should be on them to prove the data is from public roads only.
Maps is quick to point out that my apartment complex is “restricted use roads”. I’d be surprised if they can’t work it out, resolution-wise, except *maybe* in a really shallow driveway. Nonetheless, that should drive them to be more conservative in their collection.
Would you pay a subscription for any car service? What would it be for?
Nope.
Yeeeeeah, non-premium customers don’t want a bunch of subscription garbage, either. I don’t want any of them. Consider me subscription-fee’d out. There are too many of them, and I want to actually enjoy my earnings, not have it disappear once a month from my bank account. I am the kind of person who sets up reminders to cancel after the free trial on Amazon Prime if there’s something I absolutely can’t source anywhere else on short notice. I don’t even have a streaming subscription active at this point. Sorry, I need that money to play with my car in real life or heck, afford rent and groceries. Fancy cheeses don’t buy themselves.
Who can even afford this status quo of “everything’s a subscription now?” In this economy?! As the old site would say, no dice. Zero dice at all.
What I’m listening to.
Everything I think of a live performance in Britain, I think of Leo P absolutely wrecking the 2017 Proms when the theme was Jazz
https://youtu.be/BARAHLk-8dk
I have a carwash subscription – I use it at least twice a month since it’s an unlimited use case. When pollen is ridiculous – I have run it thru more than once a week, because I do not like meeting with clients in a dirty car.
I have subscribed to Sirius XM before – but I no longer do since I also pay for Apple Music subscription.
When I bought my Mercedes-Benz I prepaid for a few years of maintenance. I consider that a subscription- and would consider paying for something like that again.
I believe that a subscription for Navigation services and online access is worthwhile – I have the choice not to use the car’s navigation and online services, but I also see the value in having on-screen navigation – So I might subscribe after the initial ownership period if I were able.
I also have a Ring Car Cam installed, for which I pay an annual fee for data uploads/access. If I had a Car Cam built into a new car – I could see that being a subscription service after a period of time for which I’d pay extra.
As far as other features such as heated seats, extra power, RW steering, etc – No way. It’s already built into the vehicle I purchased and does not require continuous updates or external inputs to operate- so no fucking way.
Hard no on the subscription service. Perhaps if Apple Carplay didn’t exist I might be willing to pay for updates to built-in navigation, but since it does it’s a moot point.
Ditto. And I have a “Lifetime Maps free” Garmin (bought used off eBay), so I don’t need their nav. The Garmin has a bigger screen and a much louder voice (important at my age) than my phone.
I bought a used Garmin with lifetime traffic and maps from eBay as well. For some reason, if you’re using Google Maps on your phone/Android Auto, you can’t listen to the radio. I haven’t gotten around to ripping years worth of CDs and LPs to a large thumb drive or portable multiple-terabyte SSD.
“It’s all part of the package to make people feel special,” Craig said. “That’s what premium customers want. It’s an emotional purchase; it isn’t rational.”
Holy fucking shit how is this news? Lexus figured this out THIRTY FIVE YEARS AGO.
Ease up . . . nobody at Ford could translate the Japanese. It was only when A.I. came along recently that Ford got word of this.
But shouldn’t it just say, “premium customers have the means to go elsewhere if we don’t cater to them because they pay cash or have good credit to get a good loan anywhere they choose.”
Because everyone wants that. And they’re all irrational purchases?
I guess it’s quite topical for your article yesterday.
It was her reference to the premium dealer experience. That shouldn’t really be a revelation. Of course everyone should get a decent experience, but I’m not necessarily expecting the same level of ass kissing from Ford as I would get from Lincoln. Or Lexus.
My Mazda has SatNav, and as it is past the “free map updates” period, Mazda wants $85 for the latest maps. But it’s not a subscription per se. To me it’s the same as buying a new Rand McNally Road Atlas every few years. It’s also possible to buy a new “cloned” SD card of maps from a 3rd party for significantly less.
Use Google or Apple Maps for free? Sure, that’s fine… if you don’t mind MegaCorp knowing where you go.
No.
I don’t even want to pay extra as a lump sum for something that is already installed and just waiting for a switch to be turned to “on.”
For a while, Mercedes-Benz offered those in-cabin perfume refills for the in-car dispensers through a subscription service. I think you can buy them from the dealer, might be third party ones. Basically it’s an automated air-freshener, just “sew fawn-cee”
Friend’s kid, when they returned to school after pandemic, had to write a report about what the family gave up during the pandemic, given a lot of folks tightened their wallets. They also had to present it to the entire class.
Kid. You. Not. One kid got up in front of the class and one of the things her family gave up is her mom canceled their subscription service to get regular in-car perfume refills for the Mercedes-Benz Air Balance system in their GLE.
Somewhere there was this woman probably around 40 years old, where her “struggle” — big enough to make a point of it to her daughter — was cutting back on the car periodically atomizing Mercedes-Benz-branded smell water.
I can’t even…
Please elaborate on the class, and teachers’ reaction, you know, as teachers are paid phat money….
> Would you pay a subscription for any car service?
No. I’ve a 2025 and now a 2014 car, and what I like is they’re no nonsense, “everything you need and nothing you don’t.” That and they’re both NA monsters.
I’m done spending on cars outside of maintenance, consumables, fuel and insurance.
Here lies Steve. Should’ve renewed that airbag subscription.
My car has scents. I’m the source and those aromas aren’t calming. Depending on lunch, they can be terror inducing ….
Yet, this same issue is one of the “justifications” for keeping inexpensive Chinese EVs that economically average people can actually afford out of the U.S. GM is also subsidized in an assortment of ways, and DARPA plus various 3-letter agencies have their hands all over the domestic spying being done to Americans in their own vehicles.
I refuse to buy anything with subscriptions. Not only will I not pay for them, I won’t buy a car that has them as options. I fully understand that this may in the future limit me to always buying increasingly old vehicles as subs become more common, but seeing how I currently have an NA and a Yugo, I think I’ll be alright.
Why would companies settle for subscriptions when microtransactions are right there. Heated seats? That will be $0.15 per use. Adaptive cruise? $0.10 for every mile it’s active, you get the idea. Best part it won’t even notify you, it will be seamless in the background.
10 cent a mile for adaptive cruise?!?! I’ll take my $80,000 purchase elsewhere.
BMW found out the hard way.
I’ll tell you what, if they give me the car for free and only charge me micro transactions for the stuff I actually use at any given time, I’d be all for it. I don’t think they’d earn back the manufacturing cost of the car, though.
Thinking about it, this is basically what Tesla is proposing with their Robotaxi, but they (or some other fleet owner) would retain the vehicle and just whore it out to as many johns as possible. (Ugly but intentional metaphor – you can extrapolate on costs related to vehicle upkeep based on the reputation johns have for treating their, um, service providers.)
The public-road privacy issue is not what people think it is. If GM uses your vehicle’s systems to generate driving data, is that any different from assigning a GM van full of nerds to follow you around and record your driving data manually?
If your fancy car is parked on a public street, can you object to someone who photographs it? Of course not.
It is different because there is a practical limit on the number of vans full of nerds that GM could employ.
There’s a fundamental difference between being able to do something to anyone, and being able to do it to everyone at the same time always. This is, unfortunately, not a distinction currently recognized by our privacy law.
GM tries to have it both ways by arguing the privacy standards for criminal and civil actions, which is a mistake. The criminal definition, IMHO, is more consumer friendly than GM seems to think it is.
Off-public-road use would be not subject to police surveillance, IMHO. For example, a person who owns tens or hundreds of acres would not reasonably expect their activities to be monitored by police. In public space, police cannot perform surveillance indefinitely on a house without use of a warrant, and I would argue this would apply to continuous surveillance on a vehicle as well. Carpenter v. United States, Kyllo v. United States and Katz v. United States would apply to criminal matters for continuous vehicle surveillance, IMHO.
Civil privacy standards are not settled, and seem to rely on forced (my opinion) acceptance of consent clauses in EULAs.
It would be great if US legislative leaders followed examples set by governments in, jeepers, the rest of the world on consumer privacy law.
“Off-public-road use would be not subject to police surveillance, IMHO.”
Tell that to the LPRs set up in the parking lot at my local Lowe’s.
ON PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Landowner can place surveillance equipment on their property.
Cops need a warrant if they set up surveillance on private property. No warrant and the evidence is inadmissible in court as is any evidence derived from the illegally obtained evidence.
These are Flock Safety, and feed into the same database.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter if evidence is admissible if it leads to evidence that IS admissible. In other words, the cops don’t care how they find the bad guy with the kidnap victim in the trunk; the kidnap victim in the trunk is all the evidence they need.
Illegally obtained evidence cannot lead to admissible evidence. There are narrow, good-faith exclusions to this rule such as collecting evidence under a warrant later found to be invalid or the discovery of the evidence is considered to be inevitable. Nardone v. United States and Arizona v. Evans.
Sure, but LPRs aren’t used this way. They use them to find the perp for whom they already have evidence against.
No prosecutor is going to use LPR data as evidence. It’s just a tool to find bad guys who are in the wind.
I’m not particularly against that.
Here’s why it’s different: in your scenario the GM van can see what the vehicle is doing, and perhaps a little bit of what I’m doing from the shoulders up. What GM is arguing it can do is track my control inputs, what I’m listening to, my phone conversations, and what I’m saying to any passengers.
The police can sit outside my house and watch me, but they can’t put microphones inside my house without a warrant. I realize there’s a difference between civil and criminal, but I still there are parallels.