Ford Australia to put features behind a paywall from 2025

Ford will soon require owners of its new and near-new vehicles to start paying a subscription fee to access certain features.

From January 2, 2025, the connected built-in navigation service included in a majority of models sold by the brand since mid-2020 will switch to a subscription model.

Ford will still include a one-year trial of the connected built-in navigation service – which provides the ability to access live traffic, updated map and weather data – from the warranty start date on models equipped with the system, however after 12 months owners will have to start paying to access these features

With the new subscription model in place, Ford will charge customers $15 per month or an annual fee of $110 to access these features, however the vehicle’s satellite navigation will still function.

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Impacted vehicles will include a majority of models made by the brand in the past four years which are fitted with Ford’s SYNC4 system and have built-in satellite navigation.

Ford recommends owners using driver assist features such as traffic sign recognition, intelligent speed assist and adaptive cruise control to keep their map data up to date, however these features will still work.

With Apple CarPlay and Android Auto offering apps such as Waze, Google Maps and Apple Maps, an increasing number of motorists are turning to the smartphone mirroring services in place of traditional built-in satellite navigation systems.

The move towards charging for the connected built-in navigation services doesn’t include the so-called ‘Standard Services’ of FordPass.

This includes features such as remote start, remote locking and unlocking, vehicle locating, vehicle status checks, and checking battery levels – in the case of electric vehicles (EVs) – which can be used via the owner’s smartphone.

Ford isn’t the first carmaker to move certain vehicle features to a subscription model.

Tesla offers satellite navigation in its vehicles under what it calls Standard Connectivity, available for eight years for free. However, vehicles ordered on or before July 20, 2022 include lifetime access to this.

If you want features like live traffic visualisation, satellite maps, and video and music streaming in your Tesla, you need to pay $9.99 a month for Premium Connectivity. This was also changed a few years ago, with vehicles ordered on or before June 30, 2019 including free lifetime access to this.

Other brands like BMW have also introduced subscription-based features. For a while, this also included heated seats in certain BMW models, which drew controversy as the hardware for this feature was already installed in eligible vehicles.