Looking for a new compact or full size SUV for taking long trips and want to consider models that have 5G hotspots so people can have decent connectivity. Also, what other features would 5G be used for in a vehicle?
My car offers a hotspot, the rates they are charging for data are… not competitive.
Cellular standards like 5G are likely to change more often than you replace the vehicle so wouldn’t it be better to depend on a dedicated 5G hotspot or 5G smartphone (with hotspot enabled) for internet?
I’ve done that for years, but the issue is that when I am not driving or in the car the hotspot leaves with me. I prefer to buy cars with the latest tech so that when it comes to sell them in three years they are not obsolete, its been working good for me so far. Isn’t 5G useful for other things than hotspots?
Yup, that happened to older GM vehicles that can no longer use Onstar.
I messed up paying $400 extra for Cellular connectivity on my Generac Generator. I could check the status and run diagnostics through my phone. It stopped working 5 years later when 3G became obsolete. The new generators use Wi-fi for remote access.
I had a factory radio/cassette in my car. Felt quite dumb when CD’s got popular.
I would advise against ordering any factory option communication tech in a car. It will become obsolete long before the car’s expected 25 year life expires.
Which is why I placed a 3 year timespan on my ownership and didn’t place this IMHO.
Most GMs have a hot spot as an option–our Cadillac Lyriq does. We don’t have kids so it will probably go unused.
You can get a hotspot that plugs in to the obd port like T-Mobile’s Syncup Drive. It only cost $10/month when I had one but I think that was pre-5G.
I just bought a new Lexus NX that has an option for a hotspot, but it’s 4G. I just checked and was surprised that it’s not 5G. It had a 30-day free trial and service was from AT&T. Honestly I have no use for such a feature so I never even tried it. My Verizon phone has a hotspot feature so I am having trouble imagining the use case where people use their car for this.
The OP said they didn’t want to use their phone as the hotspot because it wouldn’t be there when they weren’t, so something like a OBD port-based hotspot might be better. (And even if the current product is only 4G, it would be easy enough to upgrade later.)
Just an FYI, this is what I’m looking at now, a 2024 Lincoln Nautilus. It has 5G and many of the other advanced features I’m looking for, need similar vehicles for comparison.
I think BMW vehicles include 5G.
A 5G hotspot is something you pick up for 30$ if you vacation rentals WiFi sucks.
If you add it as a feature you’re specifically looking for in a car prepare to overpay by ~10x. It is like paying extra to get an AM receiver in a microwave oven.
How is this a factual answer to my question? Part of my reasoning is that when you get 5G you are also getting top of the line technolgy features that you do not have on base level vehilces. I’m not interested in budget level solutions.
This will be my final new vehicle purchase before I retire, so I’d like to have all of the available features that are possible today. I’d like to also have a heated windshield, but I’m not holding out for that one.