horsepower

Volkswagen’s ID3 Pro and Pro S vehicles are some of their latest car models, and, while they look like a typical car the iconic vehicle manufacturer would deliver, there’s a secret under the hood.

For both of these models, the maximum horsepower is listed at 228bhp (brake horsepower). However, driving the vehicle normally, you can only push it to 201bhp. In order to get that extra power out of it, you’ll have to pay extra.

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At around $20 a month, $200 a year, or a lump sum payment of roughly $760 dollars, you can get that full horsepower.

And, while it’s difficult to imagine why the ID3 models are limiting themselves and forcing a paywall for users who want to put the pedal to the metal, Volkswagen explained their reasoning behind the change.

Volkswagen explains horsepower subscription service

The way that the sub works for their ID3 vehicles is incredibly bizarre. Rather than it being tied to any one driver, the sub is tied to the vehicle. So, for instance, if someone were to pay the full price of buying that power boost for life and they were to sell their ID3 secondhand, whoever got the car next wouldn’t have to pay for it.

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Volkswagen views the service as a way to offer people more power under the hood without having to sell them a new car.

“Offering more power to customers is nothing new – historically many petrol and diesel vehicles have been offered with engines of the same size, but with the possibility of choosing one with more potency. These traditionally are higher up in the product range, with more specification and a higher list price,” reads a statement sourced from Autoexpress UK.

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Volkswagen has released a vehicle that gates its full horsepower behind a paid subscription

Users have to pay a monthly fee of around $20 to drive the car at top speed pic.twitter.com/TMCh3748pb

— Dexerto (@Dexerto) August 17, 2025

“If customers wish to have an even sportier driving experience, they now have an option to do so, within the life of the vehicle, rather than committing from the outset with a higher initial purchase price. The car is presented on the configurator with [201bhp], with the option made very clear to customers.”

And, in all fairness to Volkswagen, it’s pretty rare that the average driver will have to push their car to the limit. However, there’s a great deal of backlash from potential buyers who would have to purchase the vehicle and then have to pay even more to unlock its full potential.

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However, Volkswagen’s business ventures aren’t all this contentious. They’ve started selling sausages and managed to sell more sausages than cars in 2024.

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Some of the execs at Volkswagen must like Gacha games⁠—so much so that, as reported by Auto Express, you now have to “subscribe” to get your car’s full horsepower output with one of its new models.

VW’s proposition is this: buy a new ID.3—the brand’s “entry level” (I remember when that used to mean <£20,000, not over £30k) electric hatchback—in some of the mid-level trims, and you get a somewhat piddling 201 horsepower. But if you’re feeling frisky, you can tack on a £16.50/mo subscription, or a one-time £649 fee, to break the paywall and unleash an extra 27hp. Sound familiar? Even to a novice gamer, this business model is probably old hat.

I’m no stranger to aftermarket car modifications “unlocking” more power. There’s more of a special DIY feeling there, like overclocking your RTX 5080 or modding Skyrim to make elderly people graphically coherent. But when features of your car are built in, and then the marque upcharges you to access them? That’s where you lose me.

Back in my day, you bought Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 for the Nintendo GameCube, and that was it. You got the full game. But over the last two decades, as triple-A publishers learned to master the art of consumer exploitation via DLC and subscription models, buying a game these days can feel like buying a work in progress. Trust me, I play Paradox grand strategy games.

Auto manufacturers, a notoriously conservative bunch, were much slower to adopt this particular technique of wringing their buyers dry. But subscription features did start slowly creeping in in the late 2010s, as cars became integral parts of the “internet of things,” or the increasing number of formerly analogue objects and appliances that now have internet connectivity for some reason.

BMW gained particular infamy for locking Apple CarPlay and heated seats (seriously, you can’t make this up) behind a paywall. Luckily, consumers reacted so poorly that the company reversed course on both. But as any survival game expert will tell you, the horde of zombies outside your shelter don’t go away just because they failed to break down your door the first time.

I play 98% of my PC games on Steam—including some pretty darn old releases. But recently I’ve been wondering, what happens if/when Valve goes under, or computer hardware advances to a point where my previous purchases are no longer compatible, or my library loses support in some other way? I bought my games on Steam, but do I really own them? When cars debut in early access, with paywall-locked features and live-service models, what happens when your trusty jalopy bricks while driving down the road? Oh wait; we already know.

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Volkswagen gates a new vehicle’s full horsepower behind monthly subscription

Volkswagen explains horsepower subscription service

Cars have had real-life DLC for a while, but now Volkswagen’s gone full pay to win, locking a car’s max horsepower behind a subscription