At least Amazon had the foresight to use 3G. Our Nissan Leaf, which was built well after the earliest Kindles, came with GPRS in 2011 and it's been several years since AT&T turned those frequencies off. No free upgrades, or coupons, either: $250 for a new cell radio, please. We just had them remove the radio that was there, as Nissan's crap system never worked all that well anyway.
Regardless, neither Amazon nor Nissan can help that another company turned off those frequencies. Amazon has demonstrated more foresight and better customer service, however.
This still seems better than BMW's model - cars were shipping with 3G modems all the way through 2014, and up through 2015, when the whole fleet went 4G. But, since most everything is subscription-based, BMW just stopped renewing subscription contracts for 3G-only cars in 2017. More confusingly, some models are eligible for a new radio (which I assume is a lot of money), and some aren't, even though it seems to vary more by model than year of manufacture.
Unfortunately, I feel this way with most new cars, regardless of the manufacturer. I'm not sure if it's me who's being unreasonable, or them, but I don't like it.
It really depends what you’re looking for. Tech-forward cars a kinda a mess right now since they’re spending all their money on tech while the interior and ride obviously suffer. Then you have cars with nice rides and interior that barely support CarPlay.
Polestar, for example, has really hard nylon-like seats in their cars but are cramming a bunch of Google tech in it. Say what you will about Google, but it’s time to innovate beyond the infotainment system, and they actually seem to be doing that. Similarly, Teslas have had consistent quality issues and are ridiculously vendor-locked. The Model S drives nice but I haven’t heard great things about the Model 3, as least compared to other cars at its price point.
I’m actually pretty happy with Kia right now, their Niro EV is rather nice and they have a solid warranty on everything. The tech isn’t fascinating and Uvo (their connectivity service) is entirely unimpressive, but their cars seem to strike a good balance between the car and the tech without costing obscene amounts. The EV6 actually looks pretty exciting on both fronts too.
> Then you have cars with nice rides and interior that barely support CarPlay.
Ehhhhhhhhh I don't know about you guys, but I just slap in a new radio head unit myself and retrofit CarPlay via the aftermarket. I can hack CarPlay into a decent car, but I can't hack a decent car from one that prioritized CarPlay and interior RGB gamer lights over reliability and a decent ride.
This was my approach on most of the cars I've had over the years, but I'm finding it is either harder or less desirable as the headhunt starts to control more of the car than before, namely the A/C. My 2017 Honda Civic shows temp and settings on the display, despite physical controls, and I'm not sure how that translates to a new head unit anymore. Fortunately, I'm comfortable in my CarPlay cocoon. Have you had good experiences with head units that control more of the car? I have the itch.
I usually prefer knobs and crank windows to digital stuff. Easier to fix when it breaks and you get a better tactile sensation (like a mech keyboard but for your car).
I haven't personally been impressed with the aftermarket headunits I've seen, I'd love to fit my car with CarPlay but I can't find anything that looks remotely OEM which is somewhat a priority to me. Definitely don't want it to have RGB gamer lights.
By tech-forward I was more referencing things like mobile keys, connectivity, digital dash, HUD, etc.
To be fair, I pay 70 dollars for a kindle, and 70.000 for a BMW, so I think it's just BMW not realizing it's not 1960 and people expect better customer service.
That's interesting and rather unfriendly of Nissan; after all it has been well known that 2G or 3g or both would be scrapped for quite some time. Here in Norway Tesla replaced the 3G radio with an LTE module at no charge because 3G is being discontinued in Norway. I think owners who had upgraded to LTE at their own expense earlier were also offered some compensation.
Another car example is GM's OnStar system, it first shipped in the fall of 1996. GM didn't give much compensation to these early car owners when the analog cell signal was turned off at the end of 2007.
Tesla is about to give me a new 4g board for my 2013 car.
Regardless, neither Amazon nor Nissan can help that another company turned off those frequencies. Amazon has demonstrated more foresight and better customer service, however.