It's completely possible to build an EV that isn't connected. The idea that electric power means networked spying is an invented fiction. Due to the privacy-conscious background of one automaker, a vote by the board mandated that all their cars be able to function in a completely disconnected, non-reporting mode:
It was pioneered there. Not been able to buy a modern EV without it. Ostensibly for range anxiety early on, kept for the sweet revenue. The GM EV1 and Tesla roadster? were probably the last without it.
The most range-anxious person I ever saw was a tesla driver at a rest stop. A traffic accident had put us on a 150km detour though a different mountain valley, one without cellphone connectivity. He was at the first rest stop trying to figure out whether to push on or attempt to turn around and go home. He didn't have the range to go back, and couldn't figure out of there were any chargers 115km forwards at the next town. No cellphone coverage had turned him into a seething ball of indecision.
Cars have been running out of gas for 100 years, give or take. To refill an electric car you can usually just pull it with a tow rope for a few miles to recharge.
Doesn’t really seem like a seismic shift in paradigm to be honest. Certainly not to justify a different level of range anxiety than a gas car running a bit low.
I'm assuming regen is designed to be used for short periods when slowing down, I wonder how long it can be used continuously.
Also, what would be the requirements for the towing vehicle? 70 kW of extra load is no joke, and car engines are generally not designed to handle heavy loads for extended periods of time.
The EV can handle it for a long time. I've never towed a vehicle like this, but I've gone down very steep mountains with nothing but heavy regen for over 45 minutes.
Some vehicles could maybe handle towing an extra 70kw (~100hp). You could always use a lesser regen level more suitable to the towing vehicle too.
>> Doesn’t really seem like a seismic shift in paradigm to be honest.
It really does, at least for those not living in big cities. It isn't even really about the range. It is about the limited availability of charging infrastructure, and I don't mean charge points. I mean that any gas-powered car can be "recharged" at the roadside. Someone can give you some gas. That isn't a thing for electric cars.
If a town must evacuate, a thing that does happen, you will want the ICEs vehicles that can be refueled quickly and easily in less-than-ideal conditions. A few years ago Fort McMurray Canada had to evacuate ahead of a wildfire. 80,000 people on the road in maybe 30,000 vehicles. The nearest town was over a hundred miles away, the nearest safe place maybe a hundred more. There were trucks handing out gas/diesel along the evac route to keep people moving. Such an impromptu evacuation would not have been possible using EVs. Evac situations also tend to coincide with loss of grid power (fires/hurricanes/flooding) which only further complicates the problem. Lots of people in small towns keep extra gas at home, or at least know how to syphon gas quickly between vehicles. EVs cannot do such tings.
> Such an impromptu evacuation would not have been possible using EVs.
This is, in fact, precisely backward. A fully charged EV will stomp all over a fully gassed ICE in a stop and go evacuation situation.
EVs don't have to idle. So, unlike older combustion engines, they don't use energy unless moving, and they recover most of the same energy when braking. At very low speeds, EVs stomp all over combustion engines. You don't need to refuel people because the EV isn't running out of gas from idling in stopped traffic.
More modern combustion engines turn themselves off. But, even that has its limits as you can't recover the start stop energy like an EV can.
This seems an absurd take but the absurdity is all in one direction - you can go the other way and maybe find reason again somewhere in the middle:
>> It is about the limited availability of charging infrastructure
You begin most days at home, do you need more than the charging infra? You start each day with the ability to drive 2-4 hours. Are you planning to spend more time driving most days?
An EV sat at home has 80% range. You don’t leave them fully charged usually, for the sake of battery longevity but you absolutely want any excess solar in your remote property being added to your EV rather than sent back to the grid.
That may be more range than the gas car sat next to it on an idle Tuesday when an emergency hits. Who keeps a gas car fully topped up at all times?
With an ev in a remote location, you start every day with 80%. That gas car you meant to fill up when you were next in town? Good luck because:
>> Evac situations also tend to coincide with loss of grid power (fires/hurricanes/flooding)
This means the gas pumps are off. They use electricity, plus the staff are evacuating anyway.
Need to cross a now flooded road? You might have to hitch a ride across in an EV, your gas cars intake might be too low and end up with the engine hydro-locked.
Just for the fun of this and mainly because the context for the comment to which you are replying is: "It really does, at least for those not living in big cities." let's address some of your points:
> Are you planning to spend more time driving most days?
Where I live in a sparse rural area, if you take a vehicle out it is very likely to be for a minimum of four hours, distances are large and any vehicles are work horses, if they're not travelling they're putting in an 8 hour shift (minimum).
> Who keeps a gas car fully topped up at all times?
We do, and most of our neighbours do, in our case this goes to my father who was born in 1935 and still keeps things "ready to go", be it cars, tools, spare generators, etc.
The vehicles are filled and there are spare jerry cans, full, in the sheds.
Our neighbours are ready to fight fires on five minutes notice, they've got tenders topped with fuel and water and all times, etc.
> This means the gas pumps are off. They use electricity,
What the literal F? - Sure they have electric motors but they (the local ones here at least) have attachable hand cranks not to mention the servo has a "generator" that provides "electricity" when the main grid is down.
> Need to cross a now flooded road? ... your gas cars intake might be too low
Say what? I cannot recall the last time I saw a 4x4 without a snorkel.
Sure, but with a gas car the typical response is to hitch a ride to the nearest gas station (which along any highway won't be that far unlike EV chargers), buy a small gas can, fill it up, and hitch a ride back. Sometimes gas stations even have a gas can you can borrow for free so your only extra cost is the time. Once in a while a nice person will even have extra gas in their truck they will just give you for free.
A tow truck by contrast will cost you $100 to get you to a gas station. Tow trucks are great services if the problem is more than out of gas (and some of them will bring gas for less, but you still pay for the service), but there are not what most people use when out of gas.
It wasn't pioneered in EVs, it was coincidental timing. These features were always coming to all cars - but features start off in luxury vehicles, and EVs were priced in the luxury category. Go back and look at mid-to-late-2000s luxury vehicles and you'll find the features being developed there, even before the modern electric vehicles started showing up.
But there exists a large group of people, especially here on HN, that want to execute a series of transport/car revolutions all in short order. There is the connected car, the electrification of cars, the auto-drive car, and the "end to individual car ownership". Many players in the industry want to push all those things to happen at once. Tesla actively pushes 3/4 of them. So it is natural for people to draw parallels, to see one revolution as integral to another.
Name one. Name one notable person here on HN who wants to "end individual car ownership". Not to offer an alternative for people who don't need to own a car all day every day, but to end it.
I don’t know who notable people here are, and don’t really care. The fact is that the opinion that cars should be banned/removed/made second class citizens is an extremely common and popular sentiment on HN.
You are correct, and all carbuyers should be aware. I know I will work with the service department of any new vehicle I buy to determine how to disable communication, if not faraday/RIP out the modem of any car I buy.
That said, I think a lot of non tech savvy people associate the two. My dad dislikes EVs for many reasons Fox News tells him to, but one of them is "self driving cars are never going to be safe or practical". He doesn't get that EVs can exist separate from Tesla self driving shenanigans, or that ICE vehicles are trying to do the same thing.
See the Dacia Spring, not only it is an EV for about $20k, but if you look at the interior, you don't even realize it's electric. It is all knobs and dials, some models are equipped with a screen and GPS for navigation, but you won't get more than that in term of connectivity.
That sounds great, but I'm a bit sad that it seems to come only in SUV form factor. Do you happen to know if they have anything in less obnoxious sizes?
Spring owner here. It's a cool little car. The main disadvantage is that AC recharging is extremely slow (6.6 kW three phase) because they skimped on battery cooling. And opening/closing the doors feels more like a 1990 Fiat Panda. It obviously doesn't go fast on the highway but in the city it's great, the electric motor gives it surprising acceleration for a 33 kW engine.
It's 3.70 meters long, definitely not an SUV. It's not only the smallest EV (the Volkswagen e-UP is unobtainable at least in Italy) but one of the smallest cars in general.
They have the instruments cluster that looks like a Christmas tree.
Giant colorful "econometer" that screams like "some manager wanted to put an ad to remind you how efficient the car is" that has questionable usability, especially compared to its size. And right-hand side displays a red-colored last block even when the tank is not empty, messing up color coding. It would've made more sense to apply colors where they matter, like on the speedometer when you're going too fast, or when the car is in reverse.
Why can't most car vendors hire someone with a brain for a UI designer?
According to the regulation, the eCall is only activated as the emergency is triggered (as the airbags trigger). According to what you can expect, it is hard to know if that is the way the manufacturers implemented it.
In general most auto manufacturers are trying to shift their revenue model from periodic auto and parts sales to monthly subscription fees. This isn't linked to EVs. They're trying to force consumers into subscriptions for ICE vehicles as well. This is obviously a negative for consumers, but subscription revenue is seen by Wall Street as more stable and predictable thus it supports higher stock market valuations and better bond credit ratings.
A world based on planned obsolescence is aligned with minimum cost optimized components.
It is of no interest for a company to just sell you a thing for cheap, not extract some sort of rent from it and for you to not replace it constantly.
In theory a revenue model based on subscription fees is also more aligned with the preservation of the environment and providing the end-user long term quality components, as to extract said rent smoothly and for as long as possible.
That of course assuming those subscriptions cover actual vehicle maintenance (somewhat like Managed Services Provider do for, say, printers), why not? Transportation-as-a-Service seems a very reasonable X-as-a-Service model .
I worked for an automotive company for a while and I recall a meeting wherein were learned about compliance, fault, maintaining records, etc. One thing I learned is that you do not know how far lawyers will go to reach a verdict or a settlement. And if you're reading this right now, I will tell you do not know how far a lawyer and their clients will go to reach a settlement. And that's lawyers on both sides of any argument.
If you ever have an opportunity to attend a training/info seminar put on by legal, I promise you it is way more interesting than it sounds on the face of it.
That isn't the only real problem with trying to have privacy with your car. And, realistically, this isn't new. It was common a long time ago to know that so and so was at someone's house because you saw their car there. Or you saw their car really anywhere else.
And with how traceable cars are, the idea that it has to do the data sending for you is a bit outdated. If it was ever accurate.
This seems like a non-sequitur? Cars can't track your every movement. But that phone in your pocket is already doing that. Even if it isn't recorded by the phone, the cell towers that your phone is in constant communication with to actually work can do so. Add in the ridiculously lax methodology we took for bluetooth scanning and connection to work, and you leak more information than your car can do well before the car gets internet connected.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a bit concerned about internet connected cars, too. But privacy seems a weak angle there. I'm much more concerned with safety than I am privacy. I fully expect that with all of the license scanners that exist today, if the government wanted to track my movements, that ship sailed a long time ago. I'm not convinced that having the ability to connect to my car from remote is at all safe. Especially to the control facilities.
Cars already have a black box like logging system that tracks literally everything the car does continuously in very fine detail. The exact speed and engine load, brake/throttle/steering input, detected tire slip, elevation changes, body roll/pitch/yaw. With that data alone, it's pretty trivial to construct a very exact route, and it's not difficult to figure out where that route fits on a map. Manufacturers already use this data to deny warranty claims.
Vehicles having GPS, compass, cell service, bluetooth, and WiFi just makes that tracking trivial. All that's currently missing is the internet connectivity to upload the data in real time instead of the data being pulled at maintenance. Many manufactures also do have background data upload over cell service, even if they don't expose internet features to the vehicle owner.
Right, I didn't mean to make that sound completely hypothetical. I am assuming their are not regulations on the retention policy of these, though. And, that I think I could support. I'd be fine with disallowing those from being connected to a transmitter. (Though, even there, I can see carve outs for 911 style data assistance. Physical safety may actually be improved with sharing some of this data.)
And, again, I also know it is pretty trivial to recreate exact routes from relatively low powered phones and watches. Because I do that on the regular for cycling and such. I haven't seen a ton of articles worried about the privacy nightmare of smart watches, though? (Mayhap I've just missed them?)
The difference is cars aren't comparable to phones anymore. They're already way more capable than phones with always on cameras with sonar and radar mapping in multiple directions, always on mics for voice commands, and even continuous driver face scanning.
Those are also things that are also usually logged, those are things most people probably don't want to be continuously uploaded and recklessly exposed.
Phones have always on mics for voice commands, as well? The camera sensors are probably new, but likely not as new as you think they are. For a fun example, consider this site: https://web.seattle.gov/Travelers/
And your phone is much more directly linked to you. And can probably track you through buildings quite easily. Worse, probably makes you trackable to anyone that wants to, for example, watch for your phone's bluetooth id to pass by.
To be clear, the cameras around the car, I think, is mostly a good thing to consider in more depth. Though, again, I'm not too clear on what makes these unique for being on the car. If someone was to stick a camera next to their mailbox, I'd expect they would also be limited in what they are allowed to do with the images they capture.
Again, though, if you are at all worried about your privacy of data collection, watches and phones are far more of a concern than your car.
Just to explore the idea some more, how much of what can be learned about you from the car, cannot be learned about you from looking at cell tower logs about where your phone has been? Heck, for most of us, looking at where you have scanned your credit card is already more than enough to construct when and where you traveled throughout the day. The wifi history of your phone is probably good enough, as well.
With phones and fixed cameras, people have to make a deliberate choice to point them at something of interest. If your neighbor decided to mount a camera that always looked into your bedroom window or yard, you probably won't be very happy about it, but you also know they had to deliberately do it and likely know the area they're monitoring.
Now with phone cameras, it's more likely than not that it's not looking at anything interesting most of the time, since it'd be lying flat on a surface or in a pocket/bag.
Car cameras are specifically designed to be very good at detecting people, since their primary purpose tends to be pedestrian avoidance. They also tend to not be obfuscated and have great vantage points. That makes them very likely to see something interesting, with very strong signal for how interesting it is. And the intention of the vehicle owner doesn't have to be aligned with the manufacturer.
Let's say you're a complete luddite with no power, phone, car, or internet of any kind. If I were, say Tesla and you were in a major metro areas, I could probably still construct a pretty through understanding of you or your home just from various Teslas driving or parked in your area. We can even go full facial or body recognition and figure out where you are from your appearances on their vehicles. How distinguishable are you from video+sonar+radar identification? How feasible is it to hide from sight from every car?
It's like how Facebook or Google can create a profile and understanding of what you do, without you ever touching any of its services, because it's practically impossible to use the internet without touching a service that'll feed information to them, or stopping everyone who knows something about you from disclosing that information to them.
And, really, if you want to know what someone's house is like on the interior, you can probably just look it up at the local planning office. Often for free. And this isn't even getting into the people that have vacuums that map out the place on a somewhat regular basis...
Look, I get it that this is yet another vector for information. I just can't bring myself to think it is a meaningfully worse one than any others. If you view it as "cars are another item on the nightmare that is modern privacy", I fully agree. Thinking they are somehow more capable of surveillance than basically every other one that has proliferated in recent years feels off.
It is also Porsche, a company that prides itself on long-term support. Just look at the iconic Porsche tractor commercial. They want their car to work as well tomorrow as it does today. They know that communication standards change. Every "connected" car will, in a decade or two, be a disconnected/bricked car.
I've got a Nissan LEAF from 2012, and it had a handful of useful features that have disappeared with the loss of the cell network (the original radio was 2G - I didn't upgrade it because they wanted $200, and I think the 3G replacement is also slated to disappear in the near future) While I wish I could remotely warm up the car or set the charging shutoff, it's not a huge loss. Most of the features continue to work perfectly fine.
I really like how they're rolling out updated headunits for all their cars right now. Just about every Porsche from the 1960s to late-2000s can be updated to support a modern Porsche infotainment interface as well as CarPlay/Android Auto.
Porsche will sell you a new dashboard for your classic 911 that appears visually identical to the original, but is entirely modern in its construction.
Porsche's classic division is really setting the standards for supporting older cars. They realize over time it'll become an increasingly relevant portion of their business and just increase revenue. You can even send a car out to Germany and they'll fully restore it (at quite a price). The big thing though is they simply produce parts for their older cars.
Mercedes-Benz is also pretty up there for supporting their classic cars. Aston Martin also increasingly building out their support for their cars. Ferrari and Lamborghini starting to get more into the game, but for those brands it very much remains going to a big few shows in the EU to round up parts at times. Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Chevrolet also have some levels of support.
Really have to thank the 3d printing revolution for a lot of these classic parts support. They no longer have to keep a large supply of all sorts of old parts around in storage, they can just redesign them in a way that can be 3d printed and manufacture them on demand.
3d printing isn't as useful as people think, not for old cars. The parts that wear out are the parts that are put under some sort of load. You cannot 3d print a shock absorber. You cannot 3d print a connecting rod or bearing. Sure, you can print out a plastic widget for holding a mirror in place, but you cannot print out the actual mirror when it breaks.
Porsche is already thinking of 3d printing piston heads since their research is showing it's stronger than if they forged it.
I don't think there'll ever be a need to 3d print shock absorbers or bearings, since those tend to be commodity wear parts and there will probably always be compatible modern variants (or if you look at some parts guides, many current cars still use the exact same basic parts from several decades ago).
Engine blocks and major large internals like conrods or more commonly needed transmission internals are the parts I think will be most difficult to keep stocked.
I worked at the grand opening of the new classic restoration center next to the ATL airport and saw for myself how committed Porsche is to keeping their entire lineage of vehicles on the road. IIRC they said ~75% of all Porsche vehicles ever made are still registered.
gasoline powered cars are a privacy nightmare too and a terrible "its all going digital" nightmare. the problem here is obviously oppression by the majority
My parents have just bought a new car, and every time it starts there's a consent screen, rather like a cookie banner, with the option to accept or reject. What happens if you're driving and tap "reject" is unclear, and what is being agreed to is unclear, not what I would call informed and meaningful consent.
This is probably what’s going to make me sell my current car. Every time it starts you have to acknowledge that the owner of the vehicle can track it. 50% of the time there’s another popup behind it telling you to install updates. I often don’t even listen to the radio or use the infotainment, just keep it in a “standby” mode where it shows an analog clock, but you can’t even see that until you click through several popups. I stopped bothering to click and just drive with the popups.
Mazdas have a community project you can flash onto a USB drive and insert into your car and it can disable a lot of that nonsense. I used it years ago to load android auto onto my Mazda 3's infotainment system that didn't support it. Also removed all the startup pop ups, and the touch screen limitations.
Mine says something to the effect of "Our terrible touchscreen controls we installed in this car are dangerous to use while driving this car, please agree this is your fault somehow."
For whatever reason the dialog disappears on its own without touching "I agree" once you start driving though.
I recall deciding to buy this car because the new model year was coming out soon and the touchscreen controls were even worse.
Yeah, my Mazda CX-5 does this. It would sure be nice if I could agree to it once and never have to see it again. The second day I owned that car, I stopped accepting that notice and just ignore it, so I'm not at all sure what value it has to anyone. It has the feeling of something where a lawyer or compliance officer—someone who cares about covering the bases, not at all about driver experience, lol—stepped in at the last minute and said they needed to do this or they'd get sued.
The best thing you can do for privacy in your vehicle is to not connect it to the internet and pull the fuse to the GPS. Good luck with license plate scanners though, there's no telling who they sell that info to (or will, in the future).
It continuously transmits a unique ID. You've probably seen large panel antennas mounted on highways, these are frequently there to read this ID and use it for volume/transit time stats.
And yet.. they still leave you with the ability to completely remove it from the vehicle in under 5 minutes and then drive on the roads anyways.
The idea that I have to allow myself to be compromised or ignore that compromise because there's some other _partially_ equivalent identifier is not justified.
Cellular (which is how the data is sent) is in the same module as the GPS. Cutting the fuse or just disconnecting the module (IE the shark fin on the roof) will indeed do the trick.
Are you sure vehicles that are planned to have features enabled will still work without that? There are modules which should be regarded as secondary and that will put the vehicle in a sort of "degraded state" when inhibited.
May depend on vehicle but I detached it on my car to install my ham radio antenna where the shark fin used to be. It's a perfect spot for it. The car didn't care it was gone. Of course, I can't use the cars GPS or XM Radio, but I never did anyway cuz I use CarPlay.
I know in the mobile phone world, the GPS hardware is sometimes on the exact same chip as the cellular hardware, so you can't really disable them independently. In that case, they could theoretically talk to each other without software involvement, which is a little scary.
GPS sensor results could still feed a cache of historical location data which will be uploaded when it next gets a connection, likely when brought in for service.
Can't we just disconnect the transmitter physically inside the car? Assume we don't care if we void a warranty. This is my plan for when it is no longer practical to buy old/bricked cars.
But all those useless gadgets and sensors cost money. So the actual cost of the product is much higher than what you're billed for; part of the cost is subsidized by raping your privacy.
One hope is that the cheap EV cars from China won't have this bloatware.
The Nissan terms of service are particularly egregious:
> The very worst offender is Nissan. The Japanese car manufacturer admits in their privacy policy to collecting a wide range of information, including sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic data — but doesn’t specify how.
What I don't get is at what point are you asked to agree to this stuff. Before you make a deposit? Before the sale is "closed"? What happens if you buy a used car from a private seller, when are you presented with the privacy policy/agreement?
I'm giving up my car. My primary mode of transportation is bicycle and secondary is public trans. I'm cycling about 400 miles a month. This is the way.
If I was single and living in a city, would likely do the same. The realities of rural America don't allow this though. Not only do you need a vehicle, depending on how rural you are, there is a good chance you need a truck as well.
Dress for the ride, change at work, and allow enough time so you're not trying to break any speed records on the way. No worse than taking public transport and walking a few blocks.
I would if I could. Living in the midwest with no public transportation and work being a 20 minute drive away makes it impossible. I'd love for them to rip out every road in the country and replace them with trains somehow.
Make sure you vote. Don't fall for the things politicians say either - vote against them if they say the right thing but don't follow through. (in the US most who say they are for transit are really only for union labor - the more of that the better)
They originally offered concierge service and needed to know your location in order to do so. I visited the call center once and they had people calling in to ask where the nearest gas station was, where the cracker barrel was, etc. This was well before Google maps and turn by turn directions...
So it was sort of a cancer, but it was more of a symbiotic relationship
>So it was sort of a cancer, but it was more of a symbiotic relationship
That was the paid service. If you didn't pay, you were still tracked and your motor could still be shut down. So if you paid, you got tracking++. If you didn't pay, you just got tracking.
I for one hate modern cars. No key in mine, music system cannot be turned off (only give the illusion of being off), so many sensors (is there a real problem or is it the sensor again), etc.
These features, and others, are features I never wanted. I really do want a simple mechanical car. It is possible to get this as an antique...
I'm sure there would be some demand for such a car, but if the customer is king, as we are told, went do we not get any cards like this at all?
I'm not clear on what the article is arguing for/against with regards to just cars. Yes, we need solid legislation to make these things both secure and to attempt to control their use. But, this is not necessarily unique to cars?
Specifically, phones can almost certainly record all of the stuff we are talking about here, too. Security cameras around shopping places probably record and keep it on file for a time. Your ISP can probably tell more about you than you'd care to know about. Your credit cards can see your purchase histories.
Car software seems to be lacking all of the explicit and implicit permissions systems that phones have. Can't disable location services, can't put the car in "airplane mode", and the on/off state of the electronics is unclear because there's always ample power available from the large car battery. Sure these levers could be a fig leaf that does nothing on phones, but some (e.g. airplane mode) are there for regulatory/safety reasons so you can be fairly confident they do what they claim.
The other issue is that a remote exploit of a moving car is potentially much more dangerous than remote exploit of a phone. Worst case with a phone is a massive breach of personal data. Worst case with a car is death.
Airplane mode is an odd one to me. It only means that the cell receiver is turned off now, right? Wifi and bluetooth are more than welcome to stay on. So, what exactly is it claiming? (Indeed, it is not uncommon to not remember to turn on airplane mode, such that I honestly don't know what it does.)
But my point was more for "privacy" reasons. I confess many of the cars with cameras on them probably are worth a bit more looking at specifically. I'd be fine with a "not really allowed to record" things from the outside cameras. Dashcams would need a carve out, I suppose? (And really, any sensor reading that can go to a "blackbox" device is probably ok? That said, physical access is probably best required for those.)
I fully agree on the concerns of exploits. Remote control of a car is where my main worry of these would be. Exploits of your phone are probably already pretty scary with passkeys and other similar things growing in use.
What RF transmissions, though? I literally just got off a plane where I had in flight wifi. And I was using my bluetooth headphones. Have been doing this for a while, now. So, unless that is somehow magically working without RF transmissions, than the fact that my phone had airplane mode on feels less comprehensive than you are implying.
Not sure about Android, but in iOS you can be in Airplane mode and then explicitly turn Wifi/Bluetooth back on. But I believe the default behavior is for Airplane mode to disable all of them.
Edit: It is unfortunate that the iOS Control Center toggles for WiFi/Bluetooth no longer turn the radios off but just prevent "association". AFAIK you can still turn these radios off in "Settings", but it's pretty misleading UI.
My understanding is that it is more that the old behavior was for it to turn off things. However, the world moved pretty quickly so that majority cases were such that that just doesn't make sense as the default anymore.
Not that there aren't some problems here, of course. My point was more amusement that I doubt I could tell you exactly what "airplane mode" actually does, now.
On topic for this article, my question is what makes cars more of a privacy nightmare than the phones and basically every other connection that we have? Note that I'm not trying to say there is no nightmare, per se. I just don't know that I buy the car being a prime mover on that.
Now, I will gladly bold and underline the security/safety concerns in cars getting connected. That, I 100% agree with.
First, RF emissions from phones really don't affect airplane equipment. They haven't for a long time, if they ever have.
Airplane mode is one of those things that sticks around because people think it's important and they expect it. It doesn't really help airplanes, it's more of a general "disable radios" mode now.
Typically airplane mode does turn off all radios in your device, but modern devices allow you to turn WiFi or Bluetooth back on while keeping the cell radio turned off.
I think the reasoning here is that while in a plane, your phone will try really hard to find a cell tower to connect to. The output power of the radio will get turned up to max, which ends up being a lot more RF power being sent out than your WiFi or Bluetooth radio puts out. Hypothetically this can interfere with safety-critical electronics in the plane, but in reality those systems are incredibly robust and very well shielded.
Right, this is why I called it out as an odd one. It being used as a valid "control" on your phone to somehow be a privacy win is awkward, as most people don't know what it actually turns off, anymore. Not to mention, with it turned on, your phone is not exactly a phone anymore. :D
Yes, all of those things also are bad and need to me addressed; that doesn't make cars less of a problem. But of the things you've listed, I would tend to say that only phones are as invasive as cars, and there are reasonable mitigations for that. Frankly, if there were a LineageOS for cars I'd be much happier.
(Edit) Actually, come to think of it the lack of reasonable solutions is a lot of the difference. I can use cash or a vpn, but I still have to drive to get places.
To be clear, my criticism is why do folks think the car, itself, is the "privacy nightmare?" If I was to label anything as a privacy nightmare in the world today, it would almost certainly be the entirety of finance, not my car. Even if my car does start recording all of this.
Information about people is something i think deserves a lot of legislation. And I'd expect it to be very cross cutting. I see very little advantage of special casing cars/phones/whatever.
I honestly can't tell if we're agreeing or disagreeing at this point. I agree that all of those things are problems and I would welcome some reasonable legislation to protect people's privacy regardless of the particular vector. But none of that makes cars not a privacy nightmare, regardless of it not being unique to them.
Yeah, I suspect it sounded like I was asserting that cars are not sources of privacy concerns. My post was not really trying to assert that. I'm only saying that cars are not even close to the worst place that privacy is lost. Your ISP and the general financial institutions know far more about you than the car can help reveal. (Heck, your purchase history alone is probably more than enough to get a good idea of where and how you have traveled throughout the day.)
To that end, I can fully get behind efforts to protect how information about people is used and stored. I don't know why "in cars" is particularly important to that discussion. Outside of the fact that cars need to be added to the same list of sources that other items are on.
So, yeah, outside of my not seeing cars as a nightmare, we probably fully agree. I don't know what makes the car a nightmare moreso than most anything else out there.
I think Mazda is unique among brands where they are not really pushing high tech stuff but instead focusing on the 'joy of driving' by keeping things limited and traditional. I know they have some sort of 'wheel' to navigate their UX and they block certain features such as touch input while driving (at least until this new model year I think). People complain that they are too old fashioned but maybe thats a good thing.
Also if someone has evidence that they do in fact collect data then I am happy to update my comment.
I love Mazdas. My next car will be whatever compact electric they release that isn't a compliance car.
That being said, I have no clue what their plan is with tracking. They have knobs for everything because someone sufficiently high up in the organization hates touch screens as much as I do. They aren't particularly technology averse.
Their focus on tradition appears to be partially based on their lack of resources. They are a small company and cannot afford to invest in all the latest gizmos. So they try to focus on really getting basics right. (At least thats what I have read).
Unfortunately this has also led to slow advancement in their EV efforts. I would love nothing more than an all electric Mazda 3: The first car I owned and will always have fond memories for. Instead I am forced to consider Tesla and play russian roulette with their mediocre build quality and whatever nonsense Elon comes up with (touchscreen gear shifter, stupid steering wheel etc.).
I'm in the market for a new car (preferably an EV) so i've been reading up on their EV efforts. It seems like their current plan is to lower their entire fleet average to meet government requirements in the short term while partnering up with Toyota to cross develop an EV powertrain. This resulted in them dropping their pickup truck, improving avg fuel economy across the lineup with better engines and then slowly introducing hybrids and then finally convert everything to EV. That MX-30 EV was super cool and I wish they had put more effort into it but it seems like that model ended up not working. Looking forward to seeing how the new version with the small rotary range extender works!
Mazda is in a rather unique position where they're under the care of one of the biggest and richest automakers (Toyota), while still being "independent" and "small" enough from a regulatory point of view to have a much more relaxed timeline for EV adoption. The Mazda-Toyota relationship could be described as a partnership, but it's probably more accurate to describe it as vassalship with Toyota being the largest and most influential shareholder of Mazda.
Their plan seems to be to let the bigger wealthier players figure it out first, because the bigger players have to because of regulatory pressure, and in the meantime they're encouraged by Toyota to work on their passion projects.
Mazda is philosophically opposed to turning the car into a computer with wheels, but don't misunderstand that for not being high tech. Mazda has some of the most sophisticated and capable vehicle management software with the beefy hardware needed to run it under the hood in the industry.
They collect significantly more environmental/operational data than other manufactures because they need it for their engine and stability systems to run well. With their move upmarket, they tend to be better equipped and come standard with a lot more remote connectivity features as well; they practically know where every vehicle is and what it's doing in near real time, even if you don't pay for the subscription for them to tell you.
As with any car, you can see it with an OBD-II tool. You can even drive the car with OBD-II (like with comma.ai) if you understand what signals to read and send.
Both of my cars are more than 20 years old and don't have any of the internet connected things mentioned in the article. I keep thinking about getting a new car(s), but articles like this really give me pause.
Same here and been happy with them. Not only the aforementioned issues in addition to the sheer cost of a newer car these days. Deals can be had, but are hard to find.
I think we are at the point where anything you buy that needs software is a privacy nightmare. Cars happen to be the most expensive item, so they're getting the biggest news. But TVs, appliances, exercise equipment, etc. are just as bad as cars. Someday soon I expect new toilets to have touch screens, and we will need an account to activate toilet flush.
I've delayed a number of purchase decisions for my new home because I don't have the time to research which devices won't have a software failure or phone home. At this point, I have to assume anything with a plug might have software-defined components that I don't want.
What does the flush toilet do? There is a lot of medical information that can be obtained from my toilet that I'd love for my doctor to have. (my doctor - nobody else!)
It's possible to build an EV or even smart ICE that has a bunch of modern features and doesn't phone home constantly.
But I think we've now crossed a threshold where most of society agrees with continuous monitoring of some things for safety reasons. Cars are probably the most technologically advanced, potentially dangerous, and socially disruptive thing most people buy.
If cars were invented today the regulations would be far more onerous and intrusive than the regulatory system we got from before computers existed. Safety regulators in the US are already evaluating next-gen regulations to require a car to disable if alcoholic breath is detected, regardless of driver overrides.
For better or worse, we're on a one-way ratchet with this stuff.
I don’t see how this is any different than any other internet connected device that companies are seemingly so eager to get into our possession to mine and monetize data that we produce by using them. The device i’m using to type this up included.
To me this seems more like just one piece of a more meta issue that is arguably turning in to a multi-headed monster for the average citizen to contend with going forward. I’ve also seen no evidence of effective, concrete, and widespread clarity, reform, or help coming from anywhere. I hope I’m horribly wrong.
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[ 0.15 ms ] story [ 62.5 ms ] threadhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/porsche-rolls-out-board-approve...
And they all do, even their EV. I voted with my wallet.
The most range-anxious person I ever saw was a tesla driver at a rest stop. A traffic accident had put us on a 150km detour though a different mountain valley, one without cellphone connectivity. He was at the first rest stop trying to figure out whether to push on or attempt to turn around and go home. He didn't have the range to go back, and couldn't figure out of there were any chargers 115km forwards at the next town. No cellphone coverage had turned him into a seething ball of indecision.
Doesn’t really seem like a seismic shift in paradigm to be honest. Certainly not to justify a different level of range anxiety than a gas car running a bit low.
With a 60 kw battery that is about 2% of the battery per minute. Or 1.2kw/minute and I get 3.7 mi/km, so about 4.3 miles of range a minute.
I'm assuming regen is designed to be used for short periods when slowing down, I wonder how long it can be used continuously.
Also, what would be the requirements for the towing vehicle? 70 kW of extra load is no joke, and car engines are generally not designed to handle heavy loads for extended periods of time.
Some vehicles could maybe handle towing an extra 70kw (~100hp). You could always use a lesser regen level more suitable to the towing vehicle too.
It really does, at least for those not living in big cities. It isn't even really about the range. It is about the limited availability of charging infrastructure, and I don't mean charge points. I mean that any gas-powered car can be "recharged" at the roadside. Someone can give you some gas. That isn't a thing for electric cars.
If a town must evacuate, a thing that does happen, you will want the ICEs vehicles that can be refueled quickly and easily in less-than-ideal conditions. A few years ago Fort McMurray Canada had to evacuate ahead of a wildfire. 80,000 people on the road in maybe 30,000 vehicles. The nearest town was over a hundred miles away, the nearest safe place maybe a hundred more. There were trucks handing out gas/diesel along the evac route to keep people moving. Such an impromptu evacuation would not have been possible using EVs. Evac situations also tend to coincide with loss of grid power (fires/hurricanes/flooding) which only further complicates the problem. Lots of people in small towns keep extra gas at home, or at least know how to syphon gas quickly between vehicles. EVs cannot do such tings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Fort_McMurray_wildfire.
This is, in fact, precisely backward. A fully charged EV will stomp all over a fully gassed ICE in a stop and go evacuation situation.
EVs don't have to idle. So, unlike older combustion engines, they don't use energy unless moving, and they recover most of the same energy when braking. At very low speeds, EVs stomp all over combustion engines. You don't need to refuel people because the EV isn't running out of gas from idling in stopped traffic.
More modern combustion engines turn themselves off. But, even that has its limits as you can't recover the start stop energy like an EV can.
>> It is about the limited availability of charging infrastructure
You begin most days at home, do you need more than the charging infra? You start each day with the ability to drive 2-4 hours. Are you planning to spend more time driving most days?
An EV sat at home has 80% range. You don’t leave them fully charged usually, for the sake of battery longevity but you absolutely want any excess solar in your remote property being added to your EV rather than sent back to the grid.
That may be more range than the gas car sat next to it on an idle Tuesday when an emergency hits. Who keeps a gas car fully topped up at all times?
With an ev in a remote location, you start every day with 80%. That gas car you meant to fill up when you were next in town? Good luck because:
>> Evac situations also tend to coincide with loss of grid power (fires/hurricanes/flooding)
This means the gas pumps are off. They use electricity, plus the staff are evacuating anyway.
Need to cross a now flooded road? You might have to hitch a ride across in an EV, your gas cars intake might be too low and end up with the engine hydro-locked.
> Are you planning to spend more time driving most days?
Where I live in a sparse rural area, if you take a vehicle out it is very likely to be for a minimum of four hours, distances are large and any vehicles are work horses, if they're not travelling they're putting in an 8 hour shift (minimum).
> Who keeps a gas car fully topped up at all times?
We do, and most of our neighbours do, in our case this goes to my father who was born in 1935 and still keeps things "ready to go", be it cars, tools, spare generators, etc.
The vehicles are filled and there are spare jerry cans, full, in the sheds.
Our neighbours are ready to fight fires on five minutes notice, they've got tenders topped with fuel and water and all times, etc.
> This means the gas pumps are off. They use electricity,
What the literal F? - Sure they have electric motors but they (the local ones here at least) have attachable hand cranks not to mention the servo has a "generator" that provides "electricity" when the main grid is down.
> Need to cross a now flooded road? ... your gas cars intake might be too low
Say what? I cannot recall the last time I saw a 4x4 without a snorkel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC5ld79joIA
I'm guessing you're city born and bred?
A tow truck by contrast will cost you $100 to get you to a gas station. Tow trucks are great services if the problem is more than out of gas (and some of them will bring gas for less, but you still pay for the service), but there are not what most people use when out of gas.
Name one. Name one notable person here on HN who wants to "end individual car ownership". Not to offer an alternative for people who don't need to own a car all day every day, but to end it.
That said, I think a lot of non tech savvy people associate the two. My dad dislikes EVs for many reasons Fox News tells him to, but one of them is "self driving cars are never going to be safe or practical". He doesn't get that EVs can exist separate from Tesla self driving shenanigans, or that ICE vehicles are trying to do the same thing.
Crash test: https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/dacia/spring/44197
It's 3.70 meters long, definitely not an SUV. It's not only the smallest EV (the Volkswagen e-UP is unobtainable at least in Italy) but one of the smallest cars in general.
https://www.largus.fr/actualite-automobile/dacia-spring-pres...
Giant colorful "econometer" that screams like "some manager wanted to put an ad to remind you how efficient the car is" that has questionable usability, especially compared to its size. And right-hand side displays a red-colored last block even when the tank is not empty, messing up color coding. It would've made more sense to apply colors where they matter, like on the speedometer when you're going too fast, or when the car is in reverse.
Why can't most car vendors hire someone with a brain for a UI designer?
* https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/new-cars-in-europe-could-s...
It is of no interest for a company to just sell you a thing for cheap, not extract some sort of rent from it and for you to not replace it constantly.
In theory a revenue model based on subscription fees is also more aligned with the preservation of the environment and providing the end-user long term quality components, as to extract said rent smoothly and for as long as possible.
That of course assuming those subscriptions cover actual vehicle maintenance (somewhat like Managed Services Provider do for, say, printers), why not? Transportation-as-a-Service seems a very reasonable X-as-a-Service model .
If you ever have an opportunity to attend a training/info seminar put on by legal, I promise you it is way more interesting than it sounds on the face of it.
It always depends on how much money is at stake. Usually a lot, when it is about setting a precedent.
And with how traceable cars are, the idea that it has to do the data sending for you is a bit outdated. If it was ever accurate.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a bit concerned about internet connected cars, too. But privacy seems a weak angle there. I'm much more concerned with safety than I am privacy. I fully expect that with all of the license scanners that exist today, if the government wanted to track my movements, that ship sailed a long time ago. I'm not convinced that having the ability to connect to my car from remote is at all safe. Especially to the control facilities.
Vehicles having GPS, compass, cell service, bluetooth, and WiFi just makes that tracking trivial. All that's currently missing is the internet connectivity to upload the data in real time instead of the data being pulled at maintenance. Many manufactures also do have background data upload over cell service, even if they don't expose internet features to the vehicle owner.
And, again, I also know it is pretty trivial to recreate exact routes from relatively low powered phones and watches. Because I do that on the regular for cycling and such. I haven't seen a ton of articles worried about the privacy nightmare of smart watches, though? (Mayhap I've just missed them?)
Those are also things that are also usually logged, those are things most people probably don't want to be continuously uploaded and recklessly exposed.
And your phone is much more directly linked to you. And can probably track you through buildings quite easily. Worse, probably makes you trackable to anyone that wants to, for example, watch for your phone's bluetooth id to pass by.
To be clear, the cameras around the car, I think, is mostly a good thing to consider in more depth. Though, again, I'm not too clear on what makes these unique for being on the car. If someone was to stick a camera next to their mailbox, I'd expect they would also be limited in what they are allowed to do with the images they capture.
Again, though, if you are at all worried about your privacy of data collection, watches and phones are far more of a concern than your car.
Just to explore the idea some more, how much of what can be learned about you from the car, cannot be learned about you from looking at cell tower logs about where your phone has been? Heck, for most of us, looking at where you have scanned your credit card is already more than enough to construct when and where you traveled throughout the day. The wifi history of your phone is probably good enough, as well.
With phones and fixed cameras, people have to make a deliberate choice to point them at something of interest. If your neighbor decided to mount a camera that always looked into your bedroom window or yard, you probably won't be very happy about it, but you also know they had to deliberately do it and likely know the area they're monitoring.
Now with phone cameras, it's more likely than not that it's not looking at anything interesting most of the time, since it'd be lying flat on a surface or in a pocket/bag.
Car cameras are specifically designed to be very good at detecting people, since their primary purpose tends to be pedestrian avoidance. They also tend to not be obfuscated and have great vantage points. That makes them very likely to see something interesting, with very strong signal for how interesting it is. And the intention of the vehicle owner doesn't have to be aligned with the manufacturer.
Let's say you're a complete luddite with no power, phone, car, or internet of any kind. If I were, say Tesla and you were in a major metro areas, I could probably still construct a pretty through understanding of you or your home just from various Teslas driving or parked in your area. We can even go full facial or body recognition and figure out where you are from your appearances on their vehicles. How distinguishable are you from video+sonar+radar identification? How feasible is it to hide from sight from every car?
It's like how Facebook or Google can create a profile and understanding of what you do, without you ever touching any of its services, because it's practically impossible to use the internet without touching a service that'll feed information to them, or stopping everyone who knows something about you from disclosing that information to them.
And, really, if you want to know what someone's house is like on the interior, you can probably just look it up at the local planning office. Often for free. And this isn't even getting into the people that have vacuums that map out the place on a somewhat regular basis...
Look, I get it that this is yet another vector for information. I just can't bring myself to think it is a meaningfully worse one than any others. If you view it as "cars are another item on the nightmare that is modern privacy", I fully agree. Thinking they are somehow more capable of surveillance than basically every other one that has proliferated in recent years feels off.
Porsche's classic division is really setting the standards for supporting older cars. They realize over time it'll become an increasingly relevant portion of their business and just increase revenue. You can even send a car out to Germany and they'll fully restore it (at quite a price). The big thing though is they simply produce parts for their older cars.
Mercedes-Benz is also pretty up there for supporting their classic cars. Aston Martin also increasingly building out their support for their cars. Ferrari and Lamborghini starting to get more into the game, but for those brands it very much remains going to a big few shows in the EU to round up parts at times. Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Chevrolet also have some levels of support.
I don't think there'll ever be a need to 3d print shock absorbers or bearings, since those tend to be commodity wear parts and there will probably always be compatible modern variants (or if you look at some parts guides, many current cars still use the exact same basic parts from several decades ago).
Engine blocks and major large internals like conrods or more commonly needed transmission internals are the parts I think will be most difficult to keep stocked.
No good enough, unless the hardware is not installed.
For whatever reason the dialog disappears on its own without touching "I agree" once you start driving though.
I recall deciding to buy this car because the new model year was coming out soon and the touchscreen controls were even worse.
This is exactly what Mr. Garrison’s “It” sorely needed.
What you would need to disable would be Bluetooth, cellular (e.g. OnStar), and potentially TPMS.
Curious about this. What else does this do besides measure the pressure of your tires? Or could the system transmit some other info?
The idea that I have to allow myself to be compromised or ignore that compromise because there's some other _partially_ equivalent identifier is not justified.
Do those work on the move? (Outside of automatic tolls.) At least for parked applications you can use a license plate flipper.
I know what happens when you buy into closed, adversarial technology for convenience.
Fool me in virtually every corporate interaction over a period spanning decades, shame on me...
I feel like $25k+ is paying for something. Stop it you jerks.
2015+ "You are the product, doesn't matter if you pay for it or not"
One hope is that the cheap EV cars from China won't have this bloatware.
Not paying means you are the product, but paying does not mean you are not the product.
It the same way, cheap stuff is crap, but it doesn't mean that expensive stuff is not crap.
Annoying, I know.
* Privacy Nightmare on Wheels’: Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644
* Internet-connected cars fail privacy and security tests conducted by Mozilla: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37404413
> The very worst offender is Nissan. The Japanese car manufacturer admits in their privacy policy to collecting a wide range of information, including sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic data — but doesn’t specify how.
What I don't get is at what point are you asked to agree to this stuff. Before you make a deposit? Before the sale is "closed"? What happens if you buy a used car from a private seller, when are you presented with the privacy policy/agreement?
Make sure you leave your cell phone at home if you are concerned about tracking though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar
So it was sort of a cancer, but it was more of a symbiotic relationship
That was the paid service. If you didn't pay, you were still tracked and your motor could still be shut down. So if you paid, you got tracking++. If you didn't pay, you just got tracking.
These features, and others, are features I never wanted. I really do want a simple mechanical car. It is possible to get this as an antique...
I'm sure there would be some demand for such a car, but if the customer is king, as we are told, went do we not get any cards like this at all?
Specifically, phones can almost certainly record all of the stuff we are talking about here, too. Security cameras around shopping places probably record and keep it on file for a time. Your ISP can probably tell more about you than you'd care to know about. Your credit cards can see your purchase histories.
What is it that makes cars particularly worse?
The other issue is that a remote exploit of a moving car is potentially much more dangerous than remote exploit of a phone. Worst case with a phone is a massive breach of personal data. Worst case with a car is death.
But my point was more for "privacy" reasons. I confess many of the cars with cameras on them probably are worth a bit more looking at specifically. I'd be fine with a "not really allowed to record" things from the outside cameras. Dashcams would need a carve out, I suppose? (And really, any sensor reading that can go to a "blackbox" device is probably ok? That said, physical access is probably best required for those.)
I fully agree on the concerns of exploits. Remote control of a car is where my main worry of these would be. Exploits of your phone are probably already pretty scary with passkeys and other similar things growing in use.
Edit: It is unfortunate that the iOS Control Center toggles for WiFi/Bluetooth no longer turn the radios off but just prevent "association". AFAIK you can still turn these radios off in "Settings", but it's pretty misleading UI.
Not that there aren't some problems here, of course. My point was more amusement that I doubt I could tell you exactly what "airplane mode" actually does, now.
On topic for this article, my question is what makes cars more of a privacy nightmare than the phones and basically every other connection that we have? Note that I'm not trying to say there is no nightmare, per se. I just don't know that I buy the car being a prime mover on that.
Now, I will gladly bold and underline the security/safety concerns in cars getting connected. That, I 100% agree with.
Airplane mode is one of those things that sticks around because people think it's important and they expect it. It doesn't really help airplanes, it's more of a general "disable radios" mode now.
Typically airplane mode does turn off all radios in your device, but modern devices allow you to turn WiFi or Bluetooth back on while keeping the cell radio turned off.
I think the reasoning here is that while in a plane, your phone will try really hard to find a cell tower to connect to. The output power of the radio will get turned up to max, which ends up being a lot more RF power being sent out than your WiFi or Bluetooth radio puts out. Hypothetically this can interfere with safety-critical electronics in the plane, but in reality those systems are incredibly robust and very well shielded.
(Edit) Actually, come to think of it the lack of reasonable solutions is a lot of the difference. I can use cash or a vpn, but I still have to drive to get places.
Information about people is something i think deserves a lot of legislation. And I'd expect it to be very cross cutting. I see very little advantage of special casing cars/phones/whatever.
To that end, I can fully get behind efforts to protect how information about people is used and stored. I don't know why "in cars" is particularly important to that discussion. Outside of the fact that cars need to be added to the same list of sources that other items are on.
So, yeah, outside of my not seeing cars as a nightmare, we probably fully agree. I don't know what makes the car a nightmare moreso than most anything else out there.
Also if someone has evidence that they do in fact collect data then I am happy to update my comment.
That being said, I have no clue what their plan is with tracking. They have knobs for everything because someone sufficiently high up in the organization hates touch screens as much as I do. They aren't particularly technology averse.
Unfortunately this has also led to slow advancement in their EV efforts. I would love nothing more than an all electric Mazda 3: The first car I owned and will always have fond memories for. Instead I am forced to consider Tesla and play russian roulette with their mediocre build quality and whatever nonsense Elon comes up with (touchscreen gear shifter, stupid steering wheel etc.).
I'm in the market for a new car (preferably an EV) so i've been reading up on their EV efforts. It seems like their current plan is to lower their entire fleet average to meet government requirements in the short term while partnering up with Toyota to cross develop an EV powertrain. This resulted in them dropping their pickup truck, improving avg fuel economy across the lineup with better engines and then slowly introducing hybrids and then finally convert everything to EV. That MX-30 EV was super cool and I wish they had put more effort into it but it seems like that model ended up not working. Looking forward to seeing how the new version with the small rotary range extender works!
Their plan seems to be to let the bigger wealthier players figure it out first, because the bigger players have to because of regulatory pressure, and in the meantime they're encouraged by Toyota to work on their passion projects.
They collect significantly more environmental/operational data than other manufactures because they need it for their engine and stability systems to run well. With their move upmarket, they tend to be better equipped and come standard with a lot more remote connectivity features as well; they practically know where every vehicle is and what it's doing in near real time, even if you don't pay for the subscription for them to tell you.
But I think we've now crossed a threshold where most of society agrees with continuous monitoring of some things for safety reasons. Cars are probably the most technologically advanced, potentially dangerous, and socially disruptive thing most people buy.
If cars were invented today the regulations would be far more onerous and intrusive than the regulatory system we got from before computers existed. Safety regulators in the US are already evaluating next-gen regulations to require a car to disable if alcoholic breath is detected, regardless of driver overrides.
For better or worse, we're on a one-way ratchet with this stuff.
To me this seems more like just one piece of a more meta issue that is arguably turning in to a multi-headed monster for the average citizen to contend with going forward. I’ve also seen no evidence of effective, concrete, and widespread clarity, reform, or help coming from anywhere. I hope I’m horribly wrong.