- GM just proved the internet wrong: 13 million active subscribers and $2.7 billion in realized revenue show that the loudest voices in the comments section aren't the ones making purchasing decisions.
- The renewal numbers are the real story here — what happened when 35,000 Super Cruise trial periods expired tells you everything about how automakers plan to monetize your driving habits for decades after you leave the dealership.
- CFO Paul Jacobson's casual admission that margins are "remarkably large" should alarm every new-car buyer, because GM is now building its entire future revenue model around the bet that you'll keep paying long after the car is paid off.
On every social media platform and forum you go to, you’ll see car enthusiasts ranting about subscriptions. The concept of buying a luxury SUV with heated seat hardware but having to pay each month to activate them just doesn’t sit right with most drivers. You will see everything from people saying they will just avoid any car with subscription features to people claiming electric vehicles are not for saving the environment — they exist to take advantage of drivers who buy into the “digital” era of driving.
I saw one driver saying we should boycott subscriptions. The way they talk about subscriptions, you’d think they already were. Just naturally. But General Motors recently claimed that its subscriptions are paying off. Big time. So some of you are subscribed!
General Motors reveals 13 million subscriptions
General Motors recently revealed that subscriptions are becoming an important part of the brand’s annual revenue, bringing in more each year as GM adds more technology to more vehicles — and then charges a monthly fee for each one. GM reportedly made $2.7 billion in realized revenue and $5.4 billion in deferred revenue from OnStar and Super Cruise subscriptions last year. This is a huge increase from 2020, giving GM hope that the trend is on the rise. In 2026, General Motors predicts $3.1 billion in realized revenue and $7.5 billion in deferred revenue. All from you suckers that claim to hate subscriptions.
“When you start to look at the ability to collect revenue and to continue to collect revenue years after the original wholesale, you can see where the revenue model actually starts to fundamentally transform,” CFO Paul Jacobson told investors earlier this month. Wow, mind-blowing stuff. Who would have thought you could make extra money by charging suckers a monthly fee for something the car already comes with? Especially when the margins are “remarkably large.” It’s almost like free money.
GM pretends to be generous by offering these subscriptions for a few years as part of the purchase price of a vehicle. But they are just banking on drivers getting used to the convenience of these features and forking over the monthly fee to keep them going. Senior Equity Analyst for Morningstar, David Whiston, even told Automotive News that it was the carmaker’s way of “pushing” the service onto customers rather than hoping they will volunteer to subscribe on their own. With 13 million people subscribed to GM’s services, it’s clearly working. And they’re even upgrading their OnStar subscriptions to add on extra features.
30% of the 35,000 drivers whose “free” Super Cruise subscription expired in 2025 decided to renew. Jacboson called this “exciting,” noting that you can see the “growth in renewal opportunity” from this scenario. But I keep wondering, who are the people doing this!? Whoever you are, you are making things worse for drivers who don’t want vehicles filled with paywalls. GM recently announced it will add Super Cruise subscriptions to even more of its vehicles.
Other automakers are subscription-happy as well, and it’s only gonna get worse
Many car enthusiasts fear that subscriptions are the future of driving. Soon, it may be rare to buy a new vehicle that offers the features you want without paying a subscription fee. When one person on Reddit said they refuse to buy a car with a subscription model, another replied: “Though it is still a ways off, there will eventually be a point where we won’t have that as a practical option anymore.”
General Motors is nowhere near alone in amping up subscriptions. Lucid has always been quite subscription-happy, and plans to make “software-as-a-service” a large part of its business model in the future. Its upcoming AI assistant will only be available as a monthly subscription, and its more advanced self-driving options are projected to hit $200 a month. So if you don’t pay hundreds a month, I guess Lucid’s future EVs aren’t offering anything too spectacular, especially if you are looking for advanced technology. That is all behind a paywall for Lucid.
Despite BMW receiving severe backlash over its heated seat subscriptions, the carmaker is still very much into software-as-a-service. It recently told The Drive: “BMW remains fully committed to the ConnectedDrive environment as an essential part of the global BMW Aftersales strategy.”
While paying for an internet-based service rather than heated seats is a bit more logical to some drivers, car enthusiasts have generally lashed out at the idea of a “connected” car, frustrated by surveillance, invasive safety and tech, and the audacity of how subscriptions work. Said one driver: “Your new car costs $50,000 because we installed $15,000 in hardware that won’t be activated until you pay an additional $10,000 over the car’s expected lifespan.”
The issue? People on the internet keep complaining. You can find endless Reddit threads dedicated to hating car subscriptions, from everyday Americans feeling they are already unable to afford a new car to rich people not wanting to be nickel-and-dimed. Yet there are apparently people out there that keep subscribing. General Motors didn’t pull these numbers out of thin air. There are 13 million of you paying for GM’s subscriptions.
Thirteen million of you. Now, GM is going to put this crap in more vehicles, and y’all are gonna eat it up. I think I’m gonna stick to my older cars. They don’t have a backup camera, but at least I’m not about to pay a subscription fee to use one.
