Volkswagen Wants You to Subscribe… to Your Own Car

Just when you thought Netflix had the most ridiculous subscriptions, Volkswagen said, “Hold my beer.”

The automaker is now charging a monthly fee to make its electric cars go faster. Yep, you buy the car, but if you want the full horsepower, that’ll be an extra $22 a month, please and thank you.

Take the Volkswagen ID.3, for example. It’s built with 228 horsepower, but unless you cough up the cash, you’re capped at 201. So basically, your car has all the muscle—it’s just locked behind a paywall like a sketchy streaming service.

Volkswagen insists this is about “options.” Like, if you “drive like a grandma,” you don’t need the extra speed. (Tell that to the people late for work because Tim Hortons ran out of Roll Up the Rim cups again.)

And this isn’t their first rodeo—BMW once tried charging U.K. drivers for heated seats. That plan went colder than a Winnipeg winter and was scrapped.

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For now, the speed subscription is only rolling out in the U.K., but who knows? If it works there, Canadians could be next. Which means one day you might be paying a monthly fee just to get your Jetta to outrun a moose on the highway.

Oh, and if you don’t like subscriptions, there’s a one-time “forever fast” option for $880. At least you can pass that along if you sell the car—because nothing says “great resale value” like, “Don’t worry, buddy, the speed is already unlocked.”