Zhang Tao
Want more wheel steering, auto-heated seats, remote start of the vehicle... these are the features that come with the car that you can't use without spending extra money.
Recently, the paid subscription feature launched by a number of car companies has caused heated discussions.
Netizens complained: Will the accelerator pedal and steering wheel have to be paid for in the future?
Even questioned that this is indiscriminate charges.
("Beijing Youth Daily" on August 7)
A car company’s paid subscription means that the vehicle is pre-installed with certain hardware and software at the factory, and the user can only activate related functions after paying for it.
Compared with the one-time gains from vehicle sales in the past, paid subscriptions can now bring continuous and stable income and become a new profit growth point for car companies.
At the same time, paid subscriptions also provide consumers with more choices, and can decide whether to subscribe to a service according to their needs.
Take seat heating as an example. In the past, many mid-to-high-end models were equipped with this function uniformly, and consumers had to pay for it when they bought a car whether they needed it or not.
Today, consumers can take what they want and pay what they want.
Car owners in the northern region can choose to subscribe only in winter, and only need to spend two or three months, which is very cost-effective; car owners in the southern region can choose not to subscribe and save the money completely.
However, as a new thing, car companies also exposed some problems in the promotion of paid subscriptions.
On the one hand, some car company salespersons have not fulfilled their duty of truthful disclosure.
A car owner said frankly, "When selling the car, the sales did not inform about the pre-embedded hardware, nor did they mention any possibility of paying for unlocking."
In real life, many car owners only know that extra charges are required to use the functions of the vehicle configuration after receiving the reminder text message.
On the other hand, the scope of paid subscriptions is arbitrary and varied.
Not long ago, some brands were successively scolded on the hot search because of paid subscription services such as rear wheel steering and intelligent adjustment of headlight brightness, which led to the question of "cutting leeks".
Some car owners are worried that in the future, car manufacturers will become more and more excessive and cover more and more basic configurations with paid subscriptions.
The paid subscription of car companies urgently needs to be regulated and regulated, and the "steering wheel" should be well controlled.
First, protect consumers' right to know.
The "Consumer Rights Protection Law" clearly stipulates that consumers have the right to know the real situation of the goods they buy, use or the services they receive.
When operators provide consumers with information about the quality, performance, use, and validity period of commodities or services, they shall be truthful and comprehensive, and shall not make false or misleading publicity.
When car companies launch paid subscription functions, they must clearly inform consumers of the subscription scope and charging standards, and write relevant content into the car purchase contract to fully satisfy consumers' right to know and right to choose.
Otherwise, it is suspected of constituting consumer fraud, and the relevant departments should punish according to law and give punitive compensation to consumers.
Second, clarify the boundaries of paid subscriptions.
"Sorry, your brakes have been exhausted, please renew as soon as possible if necessary" - this joke is not only black humor, but also expresses the real concern of car owners about the unlimited generalization of paid subscriptions.
If there is no effective restraint, in the future, the owner of the car will probably only buy a "semi-finished product". If you want to use it normally, you will have to pay for upgrades and patches.
The positioning of paid subscriptions should be value-added services and differentiated services, not basic services.
When selling vehicles, basic safety driving needs must be met, and secondary charging traps cannot be artificially created.
In this regard, relevant departments urgently need to formulate and issue relevant regulations to define the scope of paid subscriptions, regulate the business behavior of car companies, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.