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Comment by gizmo | Hacker News Reader

If the manufacturer doesn't want to go through the trouble of creating a less powerful engine because it's not economically advantageous then the consumer should just get the better engine by default.

It's ridiculous and insulting to buy a new car (a big purchase for many) to be presented with options where the manufacturer went through considerable effort to _make the car worse_. Manufacturers should be in fierce competition to offer the best cars at the lowest price point.

Chinese competitors will absolutely crush Volkswagen and Volkswagen will have nobody to blame but themselves.

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They are getting the better engine. It’s right there in the car.

The thing that is confusing people is it was introduced backwards, I’d imagine intentionally. As stated, it reads as if the engine is being crippled. If you fired up the engine, it would not have the max performance without tweaking the timings, but it would still work. So paying more for the higher model is paying for the software tweaks.

It’s not much different from buying a couple of sticks of RAM and then overclocking them to get extra performance. The RAM works as advertised without any tweaks.

This is more like the manufacturer selling a four set car sold as a two-seater with razor blades in the back seat so you can’t sit there. Then those blades get disabled if you purchase a monthly “sedan subscription”.

> So paying more for the higher model is paying for the software tweaks.

No way. If they were just making the lower model it would not have the same hardware. This was designed as a higher model and then limited, so you're paying for limiter removal.

But even if that was true, it would still be a very obnoxious sales practice. Those tweaks did not take very much effort and would be useful to almost all of their customers. Software tweaks that cost a miniscule percentage of the hardware cost should come with the hardware.

You pay a subscription to overclock your RAM?

No, the subscription concept is total bullshit. The previous versions just sold a higher end model with the engine in a higher performance version.

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