![\"Mercedes](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/240\/cpsprodpb\/8634\/production\/_127765343_gettyimages-1351846746.jpg.webp)
<\/picture><\/span>Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nMercedes-Benz is to offer an online subscription service in the US to make its electric cars speed up quicker.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For an annual cost of $1,200 (\u00a3991) excluding tax, the company will enable some of its vehicles to accelerate from 0-60mph a second faster.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It comes after rival manufacturer BMW offered a subscription feature earlier this year – for heated seats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mercedes has confirmed to BBC News it currently does not plan to introduce “Acceleration Increase” in the UK.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It will be available for purchase in the US on the Mercedes-EQ EQE 350 and EQS 450 vehicles, as well as their SUV counterparts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n According to the Mercedes US online store, the feature “electronically increases” the output of the car’s motor, as well as the torque.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n All told, it estimates this amounts to a 20-24% increase in output, allowing a Mercedes-EQ 350 SUV to accelerate from 0-60mph in about 5.2 seconds, as opposed to 6.2 seconds without the subscription.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Jack McKeown, Association of Scottish Motoring Writers president and motoring editor of the Courier newspaper, in Dundee, said Mercedes’s new feature was “unsurprising but dispiriting”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “When you pay a monthly subscription for a phone or for broadband, you’re paying for the company to supply and maintain a data network,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “Mercedes is asking you to pay for hardware it has already installed in the car – and which it presumably already made a profit margin on when you bought the car. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “Trying to leverage even more profit out of subscription services is a worrying trend and I hope there is a consumer backlash against it.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In July, BMW faced a backlash when it announced customers could pay \u00a325 per month to unlock heated seats and steering wheels in their cars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And in December 2021, Toyota announced it would charge some drivers $8 per month to remotely start their cars using a key fob.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 2019, Tesla introduced “Acceleration Boost”, which makes its Model 3 vehicles accelerate from 0-60mph half a second faster for a one-time fee of $2,000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Acceleration Increase subscription is listed as “coming soon” on the US Mercedes storefront, with no exact date given for its release.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Published at Thu, 24 Nov 2022 16:26:53 +0000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mercedes-Benz to introduce acceleration subscription fee Getty Images By Tom Gerken Technology team Mercedes-Benz is to offer an online subscription service in the US to make its electric cars speed up quicker. For an annual cost of $1,200 (\u00a3991) excluding tax, the company will enable some of its vehicles to accelerate from 0-60mph a second… Continue reading Mercedes-Benz to introduce acceleration subscription fee<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}‘Consumer backlash’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
‘Coming soon’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n