The local news article says 38,000 Ford customers signed up for $200 annual subscriptions for OTA updates. That is $7,600,000 in annual revenue. Only $64,992,400,000 more needed to get to the $60 billion Farley claims we will generate. At $200 per year, that means we need another 324,962,000 customers to sign up, which is 98% of America’s entire population. Does anyone else have a problem with these revenue estimates?
3 replies (most recent on top)
I can't wait to pay for this stuff.
My life would be so much better if my garage opened without pushing a button. Keep up the life changing work.
California dream in’ cause I’m not paying for a car subscription and I work for the company.
PS (or BS) no one else is looking at being a “data company.” We make trucks and SUV’s and cars….sometimes.
As more and more automakers embrace the idea of charging subscriptions for certain services, opinions among consumers remain fairly fixed on that particular topic. A recent study found that the vast majority of consumers aren’t willing to pay an annual or monthly subscription fee for most features on their next new vehicle, and instead expect those features and services to be included in the vehicle’s sales price, though around one quarter of those surveyed indicated that they would be willing to pay for certain features. However, while some automakers seem content to charge for things like heated seats and remote start, that won’t necessarily be the case with Ford, according to CEO Jim Farley.
“By the way, we can make a lot of people’s lives better. IOT connection, precondition your house, have the garage open without pushing a button and all those magical things that should happen in your car that don’t happen today are going to make people’s lives better,” Farley said while speaking at the recent 2022 Alliance Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference. “But I don’t think most of that is chargeable. I think what we’re seeing is very specific things are chargeable and you better have a very integrated, directed software, customer-facing software plus physical experience that will differentiate you in a long-lasting way or else it will be a commodity.”
These comments come a few months after Jim Farley criticized BMW’s decision to charge owners a heated seat subscription fee, instead noting that Ford was more looking at offering customized software solutions a la carte, rather than simply charging customers for things like heated seats or even remote start, as other automakers have considered.
Regardless, Ford does plan to rake in a “massive” amount of revenue from subscription-based services in the near future, according to Farley, much of which will come from its Ford Pro commercial business and driver-assist features like BlueCruise.
We’ll have more on Ford’s connected vehicle services soon, so be sure
Chris' cousin: Good at playing behind the wheel of a race car. Bad at math.