Thoughts on Connected Navigation Pricing

[Mach1E]

There is absolutely something psychological about how people think about these things. Many people wouldn’t bat an eye at a $500 higher MSRP at the time of purchase, but would sooner see hell freeze over than pay $80 a year for three years of navigation starting at year 4 of ownership before selling the car in year 6.

For sure.

I have a long standing theory about this. It has to do with small, medium and large numbers.

Small numbers? People don’t pay attention or care. Large numbers? Kinda the same. But medium numbers? Everyone pays almost too much attention to.

A few examples. I ask people-

How much interest do you get on your bank account? They don’t know if it’s 0.01%, 0.1% or 1%. They can be off by a factor of 100x

How much interest do you pay on your credit cards? They don’t know if it’s 8% or 24%. Could be off by a factor of 3x

How much do you pay on your mortgage? 3.375%. They are accurate to the 1000th of a percent!



For big price things- cars and houses. They don’t fight hard on thousands of dollars. Or houses negotiate $10,000 at a time.

But if their favorite sandwich goes up by $2, the same people absolutely notice! Might even order something different for lunch because of that $2.

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[Mach1E]

Unless you paid extra up-front and bought the "LMT" version of the Garmin device. Of course, while you have Lifetime Maps and Traffic, the batteries on those things don't hold up well and eventually the things won't even work when they're plugged into the lighter socket. ?‍?

Whether you pay up front or later, you still pay for map updates.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Whether you pay up front or later, you still pay for map updates.

Right, and I was agreeing with your earlier point: "It’s pay now or pay later or pay monthly." The manufacturers build it in somehow. They just make more off of the subscriptions over time than they do if you pay up front. ??

 

[JSW]

Whenever our experience differs significantly from our expectation, it causes discomfort (cost notwithstanding).

I expected to have my navigation maps go stale at the 3 year mark (I’ve lived with “dated” maps in the past). Instead, my navigation became inoperable inasmuch as I cannot input a destination. This causes me some discomfort/irritation.

I‘ll try using my iPhone/carplay and see if I like it. I’ll probably miss the interaction between charging and navigation. We shall see.

 

[phil]

Dang, I’m at the 3 year mark and I didn’t want to pay the $80.
What happens is your navigation becomes inoperable. You can still see the live map, but you cannot enter any locations - it is just a moving map.

It sounds like you are speaking from experience. So, when they say they're terminating "Connected Navigation", what they really mean is that they are turning off ALL navigation.

It won't matter much to me, but it does seem needlessly unfriendly of Ford to do that.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Whenever our experience differs significantly from our expectation, it causes discomfort (cost notwithstanding).

I expected to have my navigation maps go stale at the 3 year mark (I’ve lived with “dated” maps in the past). Instead, my navigation became inoperable inasmuch as I cannot input a destination. This causes me some discomfort/irritation.

I‘ll try using my iPhone/carplay and see if I like it. I’ll probably miss the interaction between charging and navigation. We shall see.

Yeah, I also prefer to use the built-in navigation. Not sure it's worth $80/year to me simply because I hate my cell phone, though. Both systems have taken me to some odd places. ??

 

[Mach1E]

Whenever our experience differs significantly from our expectation, it causes discomfort (cost notwithstanding).

I expected to have my navigation maps go stale at the 3 year mark (I’ve lived with “dated” maps in the past). Instead, my navigation became inoperable inasmuch as I cannot input a destination. This causes me some discomfort/irritation.

I‘ll try using my iPhone/carplay and see if I like it. I’ll probably miss the interaction between charging and navigation. We shall see.

Wait, you can’t even put in a destination if you don’t renew the nav? That’s definitely different. Even in prior Fords I have owned that wasn’t the case. The maps just went stale.

I’ll probably just use my FordPass points in October for the NAV.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Wait, you can’t even put in a destination if you don’t renew the nav? That’s definitely different. Even in prior Fords I have owned that wasn’t the case. The maps just went stale.

I’ll probably just use my FordPass points in October for the NAV.

I already blew my FordPass points, so... Not sure if I'm going to put up with the phone map programs or pony up for the native in-car nav. Both have their weirdnesses for me. ?‍?

 

[zcisive]

For sure.

I have a long standing theory about this. It has to do with small, medium and large numbers.

Small numbers? People don’t pay attention or care. Large numbers? Kinda the same. But medium numbers? Everyone pays almost too much attention to.

A few examples. I ask people-

How much interest do you get on your bank account? They don’t know if it’s 0.01%, 0.1% or 1%. They can be off by a factor of 100x

How much interest do you pay on your credit cards? They don’t know if it’s 8% or 24%. Could be off by a factor of 3x

How much do you pay on your mortgage? 3.375%. They are accurate to the 1000th of a percent!



For big price things- cars and houses. They don’t fight hard on thousands of dollars. Or houses negotiate $10,000 at a time.

But if their favorite sandwich goes up by $2, the same people absolutely notice! Might even order something different for lunch because of that $2.

It comes down to perceived value. People don't want to feel like they are getting ripped off. That $2 increase on a $14 sandwich hurts because they are buying that sandwich regularly, and it was expensive to start.

Its a function of value, and frequency.

 

[azerik]

Sadly I have to re-up this one as well as the Apple Maps on my 15pro are as handy as a drunk buddy in the back seat. (Just got 17.3 but I don't think it'll be any better)

 

[Mach1E]

It comes down to perceived value. People don't want to feel like they are getting ripped off. That $2 increase on a $14 sandwich hurts because they are buying that sandwich regularly, and it was expensive to start.

Its a function of value, and frequency.

There’s a ton of psychology when it comes to money, perceived value is for sure a part of it.

So is recency bias. Is $14 a ripoff? They think so only because they recently paid $12.

But they could negotiate just a tiny more on their next house and pay for a lifetime of sandwiches.

It is interesting how people act when it comes to money. We like to think we are logical, but there is so much more involved.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Now that we have passed the BC trial expiration, it will be interesting to see what happens with “Connected Navigation”. That starts expiring for many of us “soon”. With so many other options, it will be curious to see Ford’s pricing structure for this.

I'm there now. I was away on a trip when my BC expired.

This item at the end of a recent update had me worried:

Does Blue Cruise require connected navigation?

Apparently not. I tested it today.

However, navigation to chargers does require connected navigation:

That means no connected navigation means no preconditioning when driving to DCFC stations.

 

[azerik]

Exactly what I thought would happen. Thankfully I really don't have to precondition so I might just stay off the connected Nav for a bit. Maybe the random double ding will go away with it.

I thought I read CarPlay is supposed to allow preconditioning. (And yes my iphone maps are still HORRIBLY SHIT)

 

[GreaseMonkey]

I’d be willing to pay the $80/ year if they uninstall the damn thing. For the life of me I can’t figure out how to stop it from randomly coming on and making some bizarre prediction: “your expected delay time due to traffic is 7 minutes”. How the hell do you know where I’m going? And who asked you?

 

[Pibbman]

It looks like this being disabled means it no longer adds chargers to your trips and the charger functionality isn’t available to Apple Maps either?

I put in a trip on both in car nav and Apple Maps CarPlay and it doesn’t show stops for charging anymore.

I guess the responsibility is now on you to make sure you have enough charge and whatnot to get to your next point.

this is a dick move by Ford.

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