If they charge $4000 for car play (which from a software standpoint is free to ferrari), $6000 for a car cover is steal. Charging money for carplay is like selling a house to someone and asking extra to use the toilet or the main entry door. Its actually even worse than that. The actual software implementation of apple carplay, its integration with the screen, phone connectivity are not something car companies have to build. Furthermore, Apple does not charge auto manufacturers anything. The whole thing is a cash cow abused by Ferrari, I’d argue perhaps borderline illegal if done by US company in US soil. Its like you take someone else’s intellectual property, add absolutely nothing to it, and market it for a substantial profit and pocket the entire change. Imagine you want to buy a microwave. The company producing the microwave buys the tiny LCD screen from a supplier. The screen is programmed to do many things including showing the time. The appliance company charges you $40 extra if you want a “clock” showing there. They dont go and build a clock in a microwave. They just enable something that has been researched, developed, tested, etc by the supplier. Its pretty hilarious. I would understand if Ferrari gave you a larger screen once you get apple car play which itself required beefier power cables, resolution, integration with other modules in the car, etc. It would still be outrageous to charge $4,000 for it but hey we’d say “its ferrari”. But this what they do with carplay is pretty crazy. Its literally free money that they print by taking advantage of Apple’s intellectual property and not giving them any of this profit back. So point being, if a company can do this with apple car play, they can charge $6,000 for car cover. In fact, be happy they don’t charge $16,000 for it.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, CarPlay is now included. I could be wrong since I'm the rare customer that doesn't care about it, but I think my dealer told me it was included, no cost, in my '22 F8. (It was an optional extra that I declined when I spec'ed the car). Probably beside the point since I'm sure all Ferrari options are almost pure margin. But then, why wouldn't they be, if us dummies are willing to pay for them?
It really is ridiculous for sure. But, as we Ferrari owners do, we accept and just pay that tiny fraction of a percentage of the MSRP of the car. I guess, until you become an actual owner of the brand, it really is hard to comprehend and accept. I am only saying this in jest, as it seems you only come in here bashing the brand every chance you get, but your deep down desire to own one of the best branded vehicle in history is always evident. Keep shopping!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I’m not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure you could be sued if you resell someone else’s intellectual property without their consent or an explicit agreement. It’d be like buying Windows operating system from Microsoft, repackaging the software in it and install it on your XYZ brand laptop. Then you charge your customers who buy XYZ brand laptop $30 for the calculator, $20 for Notepad and this is on top of the $200 or whatever it is Windows costs and then pocket the extra $30/$20 without kicking anything back to Microsoft. I think if you did do this, Microsoft could sue you for breach of license/resale agreement. Apple Carplay is a privilege that Apple USA provides everyone for free of charge. I dont actually know of any other car brand that charges money for it. I know car brands charge for wifi connectivity or wireless charging but those at least require different/better hardware. Anyways, yes Ferrari knows people will pay whatever the amount.
Its not very easy to find a Ferrari that a) meets my spec requirements and b) doesnt have any major stories. Not trying to bash anything, I know this is how it comes across but not my intent. I have been in the hunt for quite sometime. Got very close to pulling the trigger multiple times. I dont want to get into it here because it will very quickly turn into “maybe Ferrari isnt for you because these are typical Ferrari owner problems etc” argument. I really want to experience this V12 and perhaps it wont work out and I’ll regret it. But given how hard it is to find the car I like, I prefer to wait for the right one. I think all the good spec cars without problems that have had only 1-2 owners are not going anywhere. If I had one of those cars, perhaps I also would never sell my car. I am either seeing 5 owner cars or spec is really not great or two dozen pages of service records or accidents. At this point, I have even completely eliminated my budget for this car (which was $400k). I check all major sites at least once a day. It will happen one day! I will post the picture here and I think you can stop posting about me trying to bash anything when that happens
I believe that's correct. But I'd bet the (Apple) farm that Ferrari had consent. Don't forget that Ferrari has an Apple executive on its board. Though even if they didn't, I'd be flabbergasted if Ferrari was charging for CarPlay without Apple's blessing.
Ok I didnt know this. I think we all get Ferrari charges a hefty markup for all its options. My point was, this is an egregious markup. It looks really poor from my point. $6,000 for a car cover, at least you get a car cover built by a supplier. This apple car play? You do what, push a few buttons during assembly to turn on a few flags in the operating system of the car to enable it?
Hey, it's better than Nissan, they charge $20k for CarPlay. Of course, Nissan throws in a free car. (I know I'm paraphrasing someone. Can't remember who. Clarkson?)
I find the whole Apple CarPlay situation funny because Ferrari was the first vehicle brand to offer it, and they were still charging for it.
I didn't spec it because I don't have apple. But in my MY they increased price and then gave it for free. In any case does OP have pics of the 6k car cover?
Im not sure if Apple charges a licensing fee to car markers, but, I am certain there is a licensing agreement with which the car makers must adhere. I’m sure if you asked a car maker, they would say anything they charge to include the feature in their car is the cost of making sure all their systems work with CarPlay. Is it right or wrong? You decide. I always thought Ferrari should have just included it and raised the price of the car, and now they have. It’s just good business. When it was optional, my advice was always to spec it, as adding it after the fact is near impossible. (It is possible, but a lot of work and thus very expensive and many dealers dont want to be bothered) Back to car covers, generally best to avoid using these as they will just lead to scratches. Far better to deal with a bit of dust. You just saved $6k on that fancy cover, which still provides you a savings if you sprang for CarPlay [emoji6] Sent from my iPad using FerrariChat
Fairly certain it is a hefty licensing fee that gets spread across all cars produced … for mainstream manufacturers who produce hundreds of thousands of cars, the cost per car is quite small and included for “free” in the base price … when you consider that Ferrari produces so few cars, the cost is obviously much hire per car. Seriously doubt it’s $5k per car, but … Ferrari tax. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Yes that's correct. There is a license fee to be paid by the manufacturer. Whether it's a one off, or depends on how many vehicles will be equipped, I dont know!
