[HN Gopher] Who owns Tesla's data?
___________________________________________________________________
Who owns Tesla's data?
Author : rbanffy
Score : 95 points
Date : 2022-08-08 12:53 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| bernf wrote:
| Meanwhile, ISPs and mobile data providers sell your cell phone
| data to 3rd parties all the time to make money. More people keep
| phones on them than they do cars. Remember when NYT bought data
| in DC region and could track down secret security guards just by
| doing simple polygon selections around the WH?
|
| DC for example also pays TENS of millions of dollars to Raytheon
| for the speed cameras they install only for them to be utterly
| useless.
| donedealomg wrote:
| see the documentry 2000 Mules
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| 'documentary'
| tonmoy wrote:
| Just because mobile companies are bad doesn't mean we would be
| ok with Tesla being less worse. Both are issues and should be
| tackled simultaneously
| CharlesW wrote:
| You make a great point -- it seems inevitable that the next
| logical step is for Tesla to sell your driving data.
| BoredPuffin wrote:
| Owns by the highest bidder, be it measured by monetary value or
| political power.
|
| IEEE should have done this piece way earlier, not after BMWs
| heating seat already grabbed people's attention.
|
| >If they want to opt out of data collection completely, they can
| ask Tesla to disable the vehicle's connectivity altogether.
| However, this would mean losing features such as remote services,
| Internet radio, voice commands, and Web browser functionality,
| and even safety-related over-the-air updates.
|
| Fairly cheap price to pay if they really allow a full opt-out
| though
| metadat wrote:
| Why can't updates be installed via a USB stick or over Wi-Fi at
| home?
| judge2020 wrote:
| Updates are rolled out over time by HQ, and there is no way
| to force an update for your car if you're stuck on a specific
| version but you keep hearing about a newer version that
| people are using (both of my Model 3's are on 2022.20.7,
| while there is a 2022.20.8 bugfix update as well as 2022.24.1
| which adds features[0]).
|
| Rolling out updates in this way provides a major advantage In
| terms of QA testing: they can start a new software update out
| on employee cars, then move to maybe a few thousand owners to
| get initial thoughts on the update and make sure an update
| works on multiple model years of cars with different hardware
| and module configurations (since they're constantly changing
| out parts to increase assembly efficiency and work through
| supply shortages). This is especially important given the
| update system in the car isn't limited to just the
| infotainment, pretty much every software system in the car
| can be updated during an OTA update, including the battery
| management system, ABS, safety systems[1], etc.
|
| 0: https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/155538006422887628
| 9?...
|
| 1: https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/tesla-data-cameras-
| improved...
| mindslight wrote:
| > _Rolling out updates in this way provides a major
| advantage In terms of QA testing: they can start a new
| software update out on employee cars, then move to maybe a
| few thousand owners to get initial thoughts on the update_
|
| Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I believe in doing the QA
| _before_ you ship the code. Especially for safety critical
| code. "Move fast and break things" was cute when it was
| just for some upstart entertainment company, but is
| straight up professional malpractice for any product that
| is expected to be reliable.
|
| Lack of centralizing connectivity was actually a beneficial
| constraint for most contexts. If a car model's software is
| found to have a safety critical bug that needs fixing, the
| recall process of making cars go back to the dealer should
| be regarded as a small price compared to the gravity of the
| mistake.
| standyro wrote:
| The Tesla Model 3/y infotainment system that's often
| updated by over the air updates isn't "safety critical"
| code. You can drive the car without the infotainment
| system and screen even on. There is a completely separate
| system that goes through a much more rigorous process.
|
| And Tesla has incredible reliability for how complex the
| software is (in my opinion). They actually fix bugs. I
| had weird issues with Bluetooth and the radio on my Honda
| that were never fixed the entire time I've owned the car.
|
| I've seen newer Mustang Mach-Es and Volkswagen iD cars
| that have really severe issues in their UI.
| mindslight wrote:
| The comment I responded to was talking about safety
| critical systems:
|
| > _This is especially important given the update system
| in the car isn 't limited to just the infotainment,
| pretty much every software system in the car can be
| updated during an OTA update, including the battery
| management system, ABS, safety systems_
|
| Also, I'd say that even the entertainment system is still
| safety relevant. Arbitrarily changing the UI on something
| that is meant to be used while driving is a terrible
| idea. At the very least, whether and when those changes
| are applied should be under control of the owner and able
| to be rolled back. Surprises like needing to figure out
| how to turn on the defrost kill a driver's OODA loop.
| kaczordon wrote:
| You can update it over WiFi, not sure why people are saying
| you can't.
| croon wrote:
| > and even safety-related over-the-air updates.
|
| I update the GPS data in my decade old VW once a year using an
| SD-card. Not having always-on internet is certainly no reason
| you can't get updates.
| goguy wrote:
| There is no good reason they can't provide updates without
| scooping up all your data.
|
| As a minimum they could keep vin/installed software version
| number and date times. It would be an acceptable compromise.
| 0xedd wrote:
| I can think of a few million, if not billion, off the top
| of my head.
| deelowe wrote:
| There are many good reasons. Must have to do with profit
| and rent seeking.
| vardump wrote:
| I think any car company is toast, if it sells users' private
| data. Including Tesla. I really doubt any data is being sold.
|
| Most companies do actually collect data for a very simple
| reason: they want to genuinely improve their products and
| services. (Although some companies, like Google, Samsung and
| Facebook collect it also to help other companies sell more crap
| to you.)
|
| Please provide details if you have _any_ evidence that Tesla
| (or any other automotive company) is selling users ' data.
| neon_electro wrote:
| What about policy(ies) relating to providing data to law
| enforcement, and whether a warrant is required?
|
| I know this is moving the goalposts from selling data - but I
| don't think folks concerned with data privacy are strictly
| and exclusively concerned about the _sale_ of such data.
| vardump wrote:
| Yeah, that is a huge problem in authoritarian jurisdictions
| OR if data is provided without warrant.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Warrants are easy to come by even in supposed democracies
| like the US or Germany. Alternatively, the US government
| has _repeatedly_ shown it does not give a fuck about laws
| and simply compels providers to accept whatever they are
| doing (Room 614A), or outright hacks the company in
| question (e.g. Google got their datacenter fiber
| connections spliced).
| hammock wrote:
| >I think any car company is toast, if it sells users' private
| data. Including Tesla. I really doubt any data is being sold.
|
| Any car company whose parent owner has multi-billion dollar
| contracts with the US government is toast if it _doesn 't_
| sell its data, at least to the NSA.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_of_NSA_surveilla.
| ..
| merely-unlikely wrote:
| Some state DMVs regularly sell citizens' data [1]. Not an
| automotive company but related.
|
| [1] https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a32035408/dmv-
| selling-...
| upbeat_general wrote:
| My Toyota app apparently provides insurance quotes based on
| my driving behavior (until I saw it in the data privacy
| section and disabled it).
|
| Was turned automatically on with the connected app (that I do
| find useful so I have it enabled).
|
| I have to imagine that the data isn't provided free of charge
| to insurers and includes my info, car info, and driving
| behavior.
| bumby wrote:
| For a brief time, Ford tried to rebrand as a quasi-
| electronics company in some circles. Ford has been on the
| record saying they would be in a position to create "customer
| experiences" and "ownership offers based on connected vehicle
| data." It's all a bit cryptic but you can look up the Team
| Upshift project.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Even if it's not sold, the car's behavior may expose some
| user data to external services - navigation systems enriching
| maps with local data (restaurants, gas stations, charger
| occupancy, parking spaces, hotels) may connect to services
| that allow an external entity to identify a car or the person
| driving it. I don't know Tesla's software enough to make any
| further observations, but the possibility exists.
| vivegi wrote:
| Trend Micro: Honda to Start Selling Smart Car Data (Oct 2021)
| https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/21/j/honda-to-
| star...
|
| I think the rubicon is crossed with connected car data.
| andsoitis wrote:
| For Teslas built since mid-2017, "every time you drive, it
| records the whole track of where you drive, the GPS coordinates
| and certain other metrics for every mile driven"
| ajross wrote:
| That's a quote from greentheonly, FWIW. And it's absolutely
| true, you can pull up your Tesla app (or one of a plethora of
| community-authored tools) and see where your car is at all
| times (it even works for Turo rentals as long as you have an
| existing app and account). It's actually a really great
| feature, and one of the things that make Teslas _Teslas_ and
| not just another car.
|
| The question is whether or not the history is stored, and how.
| And if your read farther down, it's clear there is what
| certainly looks like a good faith attempt to anonymize this
| data before storage. It seems that green then went into some
| detail about how a malicious insider might be able reverse
| engineer that scheme given enough access, but all that survived
| into the article is some impact quotes, so it's hard to tell
| what the vulnerability is.
|
| But no, Tesla isn't storing our driving history. At least not
| deliberately, and certainly with no intent to use it or provide
| it.
|
| (It's worth pointing out the level of double standard here:
| Tesla's location history storage is actually much more limited
| in practice than what you get on iOS or Android, yet... no
| front page articles on HN about those?)
| jjulius wrote:
| >(It's worth pointing out the level of double standard here:
| Tesla's location history storage is actually much more
| limited in practice than what you get on iOS or Android,
| yet... no front page articles on HN about those?)
|
| What double-standard? Those very iOS/Android storage
| practices _have_ been frontpage fodder innumerable times (and
| will continue to be), and they 're routinely brought up in
| the comments of tangentially-related threads, such as this
| one with your comment. That they're not on the front page at
| the exact same time as this piece doesn't mean that there's a
| double-standard.
| troah323 wrote:
| > But no, Tesla isn't storing our driving history. At least
| not deliberately, and certainly with no intent to use it or
| provide it.
|
| Strong James Clapper vibes.
|
| Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on
| millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
|
| Clapper: "No, sir."
|
| Wyden: "It does not?"
|
| Clapper: "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could
| inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."
| judge2020 wrote:
| > and not just another car.
|
| Worth noting that other manufacturers have clued in to how a
| good mobile app can be a selling point of a car or a package
| on that car - FordPass does location tracking[0], Chevy has
| tracking and life360-esque notifications where your family
| can know when it enters or leaves an area[1], and of course
| Rivian and Lucid have it or plan for it[2,3].
|
| 0: https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/fordpass/getting-
| starte...
|
| 1: https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/news.det
| ai...
|
| 2: a review from 'chas k' says 'It shows location of your
| truck' https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rivian/id1570215232
|
| 3: https://www.lucidmotors.com/air/connectivity#:~:text=And%2
| 0w....
| therouwboat wrote:
| I dont like the idea that somebody could see what places I
| visited with rent car or that my husband could track my
| routes. Constant tracking is just bad idea.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| Considering they need massive amounts of data to train their
| FSD, why should I believe they aren't collecting it on
| purpose or using it?
| jaywalk wrote:
| > Tesla's location history storage is actually much more
| limited in practice than what you get on iOS or Android,
| yet... no front page articles on HN about those?
|
| On iOS at least, your location history never leaves your
| phone. And you can also turn it off without losing access to
| anything unrelated.
| judge2020 wrote:
| * Only if you go to Privacy and Security -> Location
| Services -> Systems Services (at the bottom) -> turn off
| iPhone Analytics, Routing & Traffic, and Improve Maps.
| Apple's anonymization algorithm for these significant
| location services is probably better than Tesla's, but it
| can probably still be correlated to which house or
| neighborhood you start sending location from.
|
| And that's just the built-in location data exfiltration. As
| soon as someone installs a top app that requests 'always'
| location access it's gone, eg. Life360 (100M+ downloads on
| Android, you can expect similar numbers on iOS), Google
| Maps, Snapchat.
|
| Of course, this should all be in the purview that people
| tend to have an individualized risk tolerance for their
| location data. Some people are fine with contributing to
| traffic data by allowing Google Maps, Apple, and Tesla (if
| they have a Tesla)/their car manufacturer to track their
| location while moving, but would react harshly if TikTok
| asked for persistent access to their location data. Some
| people are even fine with Snapchat and Google asking them
| if they can log and associate location history with their
| account [0,1], assuming they trust them not to sell or leak
| that location data.
|
| 0: https://screenrant.com/snapchat-plus-ghost-trails-
| feature-ex...
|
| 1: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6258979?hl=en
| aeternum wrote:
| This is only true for a very small percentage of users.
| Most apple users share location with family or one of many
| other apps that post location history to the cloud.
| simion314 wrote:
| >But no, Tesla isn't storing our driving history. At least
| not deliberately, and certainly with no intent to use it or
| provide it.
|
| Is this opt-in? Can you chose not to send telemtry to Tesla?>
|
| >It's worth pointing out the level of double standard here:
| Tesla's location history storage is actually much more
| limited in practice than what you get on iOS or Android,
| yet... no front page articles on HN about those?)
|
| There is no double standard, how many HNers will complain
| about Microsoft telemetry in Windows or VS Code, or the
| telemetry in Google Chrome? Probably Apple fans are fine with
| Apple knowing what apps they open and at what time and tons
| of other telemetry.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Out of the box, Tesla sends anonymized location data (the
| anonymization can't be perfect as the article points out)
| for traffic data reporting. Otherwise, pretty much every
| system in the car like the headlights, CAN bus, ABS, door
| and window microcontrollers, HVAC, battery management
| system, etc. are both updated during OTA updates, and send
| tons of telemetry to the main computer for processing and
| streaming to HQ, allowing Tesla to do extreme optimization
| and analysis on how well their parts are working and how
| efficient they are, with the ability to get cars in for
| service long before a problem turns into a catastrophic
| failure or makes the vehicle undriveable.
| simion314 wrote:
| When I had to implement similar stuff in a program I
| created the user was Always prompted and the user had an
| easy way to check the data that was sent and they could
| deny sending the report.
|
| I assume the car has enough computing power to self
| diagnose any component issue and you don't need to send
| your logs to the cloud for a super computer to see that
| your battery is broken. My guess is like all telemetry,
| it is done for the company benefit not the user.
| ElemenoPicuares wrote:
| "you could probably match everything to a single person if you
| wanted to."
|
| You could probably match it to a single _car owner_ but I 'll bet
| you'd have a hard time matching it to a single _person_ purely
| using data without some research, and people let other people
| borrow cars more frequently than mobile phones. Though you
| probably could fingerprint someone 's driving style based on
| starts/stop cadence, turn velocity, routes, destinations, etc.
| and some insurance companies may already do it. They use this
| data to modify their clients rates automatically, already. That's
| why I opted to not use my housing insurer, Lemonade, to insure my
| car. I don't need surveillance capitalism invading yet another
| part of my existence.
|
| In the case of red light cameras
| (https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/01/18093/), I think the
| legal consequences are so comparatively minor that nobody bats an
| eye when this gets flubbed. When it comes down to this being used
| as evidence in a major crime, that will probably be harder and
| surely defense attorneys will be all over it. From a commercial
| data privacy perspective, it's probably enough of an edge case
| that their customers wouldn't care much.
|
| I think civil cases may be the more interesting venue for this
| inconsistency. I don't know if it's still true, but in file
| sharing cases, folks often didn't question the idea that an IP
| address could be mapped to a specific person. I'd guess this
| wouldn't be that much different than having a series of witnesses
| spotting a license plate without getting a clear view of the
| driver?
|
| Strange times we live in.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Doesn't Tesla record video? If not inside at least outside?
| Enough to maybe show who got into the driver seat? At the least
| it records voice I think.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| Kinda doubt they autosync that data simply because the
| bandwidth and storage requirements would be crazy.
| judge2020 wrote:
| https://www.tesla.com/legal/privacy -> expand 'what we
| collect'
|
| For the outside of the car:
|
| > Safety Event camera recordings are automatically captured
| only if a serious safety event occurs such as a vehicle
| collision or airbag deployment. These short clips are up to
| 30 seconds and associated with your VIN in order to aid in
| providing emergency services, vehicle evaluation, and
| Roadside Assistance (and such recordings may include
| timestamp and location metadata).
|
| For the inside of the car:
|
| > Cabin Camera: Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, and 2021 or
| newer Model S and Model X vehicles are equipped with a Cabin
| Camera that is located above the rear-view mirror. For
| eligible vehicles, the cabin camera can determine driver
| inattentiveness and provide you with audible alerts, to
| remind you to keep your eyes on the road when Autopilot is
| engaged. To protect your privacy, camera images do not leave
| the vehicle itself and are not transmitted to anyone,
| including Tesla, unless you enable data sharing. Even in the
| event of a safety concern like a collision, only a log of the
| alerts displayed to the driver may be transmitted to Tesla,
| excluding camera data. If you choose to enable data sharing,
| in the occurrence of a serious safety risk or a safety event
| like a collision, it allows the vehicle to share short video
| clips with Tesla to help us further develop future safety
| features and software enhancements such as collision
| avoidance updates and more. To adjust your data sharing
| preferences, use your vehicle's touchscreen to tap Controls >
| Software > Data Sharing > Allow Cabin Camera Analytics. To
| protect your privacy, this data is not linked to your VIN,
| and used to continuously improve the intelligence of features
| that rely on Cabin Camera. You may change this setting at any
| time.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Why can't we have something like a 1980s small Toyota truck with
| a Tesla motor drivetrain and no onboard computers other than
| simple microcontrollers for the various systems (charging, etc.),
| no streaming wifi / GPS data collection, and no need for software
| updates because everything was properly designed to work with the
| hardware before the vehicle was sold?
|
| Such a setup would likely be cheaper to manufacture as well. The
| only way to get anything like that now is to pay a custom
| mechanic to put a Tesla motor into an old vehicle, which is kind
| of ridiculous.
| PeterisP wrote:
| It has become illegal to make and sell cars with the
| electronics feature set of 1980.
|
| E.g. every new car now will have to have reversing camera,
| event data recorder, drowsiness and distraction detection,
| lane-keeping assist and advanced emergency braking.
|
| I'm not sure if it's practical to do that with "no onboard
| computers other than simple microcontrollers" - of course there
| are some microcontrollers that rival the computers I grew up
| with, but the complexity of the involved software is inherent
| in the required functionality.
|
| And since you have to pack the car with all these sensors,
| cameras and compute power anyway for safety reasons, all the
| privacy-invasive features don't require much if any extra
| hardware cost.
| [deleted]
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _It has become illegal to make and sell cars with the
| electronics feature set of 1980._
|
| Where are you that this holds true? That it's _illegal_ to
| not include those things?
|
| I very recently bought a brand new car (within 2022) and
| while it does have a reverse camera, it does not have
| drowsiness/distraction detection, nor lane-assist, or any
| advanced braking tech (outside of ABS), etc.
| lazide wrote:
| Everywhere in the United States for backup cameras at
| least, since 2018 -
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/02/backup
| -...
| [deleted]
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| In the US, backup cameras became mandatory in May 2018.
|
| In the EU, drowsiness/distraction detection becomes
| mandatory this year.
| mlsu wrote:
| Interesting, I did not know about the Driver Drowsiness
| and Attention Warning (DDAW) thing. Some googling yields
| this link (PDF warning):
|
| https://circabc.europa.eu/sd/a/7f9912b5-e180-43ab-b9da-82
| ddf...
|
| _DDAW 'means a system that assesses the driver's
| alertness through vehicle systems analysis and warns the
| driver if needed'_
|
| So the primary purpose of the system is to alert the
| driver when they are drowsy.
|
| _Data not accessible, or available to 3rd party. Only
| held long enough for assessing drowsiness and during
| activation /deactivation cycle_
|
| They are mandating that data is only held for as long as
| it takes to activate the alarm (?). But I can see such
| data being a very very juicy target for insurers and
| police: wouldn't it be quite useful to pin the cause of
| an expensive accident on driver drowsiness? It's not
| likely we will have such protections in the US.
|
| I really don't like this. Why is it useful if your car
| beeps at you when you doze off? You're either going to
| recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the
| road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and
| decide to power through. If you're the type to pull over,
| you're not really going to be helped by a machine telling
| you you're tired; if not, you're probably going to drive
| anyway, because you have to be somewhere.
|
| I guess under the best possible case, your car makes it
| _annoying_ for you to drive drowsy, which might deter
| that behavior a bit. But in the worst case, every car
| accident will be financially catastrophic for all
| parties, because the insurance company will deny any
| claim -- arguing that you were impaired. You 'll have
| little recourse, because you were probably "very alert"
| instead of "extremely alert" according to this system.
|
| Ugh.
| tzs wrote:
| > I really don't like this. Why is it useful if your car
| beeps at you when you doze off? You're either going to
| recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the
| road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and
| decide to power through.
|
| I fell asleep once while driving without recognizing that
| I was falling asleep. I only know I fell asleep while
| driving because that is the only plausible explanation
| for waking up while driving.
| zeruch wrote:
| " It's not likely we will have such protections in the
| US."
|
| It is generally safe in the US to assume consumer
| protections don't exist until an incident forces an
| industry change, or a regulatory event materializes.
|
| The US generally does not care about consumers at all,
| except in terms of keeping or upping the rate of
| consumption.
| zeruch wrote:
| I like how this was down-voted, even when the evidence is
| staggeringly in its favor. We consistently wait for
| hazard to materialize before we implement post-event
| safeguards, instead of putting up health parameters and
| expect commercial entities to meet them consistently.
|
| We laugh at the regulatory frameworks of places like
| Europe and Japan, yet they consistently get fewer food
| recalls, or stories about pink-goo as a food source, let
| alone the disparity in what they will allow in their food
| supply.
|
| We nearly had a civil uprising about mandating seat
| belts. Elsewhere? Some griping and little else. Etc.
| svara wrote:
| > You're either going to recognize that you're falling
| asleep, and pull off the road to rest, or recognize that
| you're falling asleep and decide to power through
|
| You can totally start falling asleep without noticing,
| because the drowsiness messes with your critical
| thinking. The beeping will startle you and make you snap
| out of it for a bit.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _In the EU, drowsiness /distraction detection becomes
| mandatory this year._
|
| Fascinating, thanks. I was unaware. Do you know if there
| is any sort of standard that they follow? Or do
| manufacturers decide for themselves on what counts as
| drowsy/distracted behavior?
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| I am unaware of the specifics, but the law says " Since
| DDAW systems assess the physical state of the driver
| through indirect means, it is not possible to fully test
| those systems through a set of defined tests or with a
| programmable machine, which reproduces human behaviour.
|
| ..
|
| The vehicle manufacturer carries out validation tests
| with human participants, either in a simulated
| environment or in a test vehicle, and present to the
| approval authorities"
|
| So it sounds like they left it vague enough for
| manufactures to do their own thing.
| russellendicott wrote:
| I have an old Ranger and I'm gonna try and do exactly this.
| Still gonna cost like $15k for Li batteries though.
| robscallsign wrote:
| I suspect it's the same reason why Microsoft just doesn't sell
| a version of Windows without telemetry for a flat rate: there
| is just too much money on the table for tracking and selling
| your private data over the lifetime of the vehicle (or
| computer).
| orourkek wrote:
| "Smart" TVs seem to fall into the same category.
| Manufacturers realized they can make much more money and hit
| a (much) lower price point by packaging telemetry and
| using/selling the data. Nowadays "dumb" TVs either aren't
| available or come at a premium.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > I suspect it's the same reason why Microsoft just doesn't
| sell a version of Windows without telemetry for a flat rate:
| there is just too much money on the table for tracking and
| selling your private data over the lifetime of the vehicle
| (or computer).
|
| Do Windows Enterprise and Windows Server machines include
| telemetry? I would assume "no", in which case there you go.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| For any consumer electronics/software product, if you can
| make $X just selling the standalone product, you can
| generally make $X + $Y selling the same product _and_
| collecting data or presenting some advertising. I don 't see
| how this math changes without legislation. People don't have
| the expertise or time to evaluate the risk of each vendor's
| privacy policies and the negative consequences of this kind
| of data collection are rarely immediate enough to cause a
| negative consumer reaction.
| causality0 wrote:
| Right. The easier computers get to use, the lower the skill
| level of the average user. If Windows 95 had spied on the
| user like Windows 11 does an angry mob would've descended
| on Redmond with torches and pitchforks.
| ska wrote:
| > Why can't we have something like a 1980s small Toyota truck
| with
|
| "Software eats the world".
|
| Consider something like fueling (I know this isn't in your
| Tesla drive train, but it's apples to apples). Your 1980s
| Toyota truck had a carburettor, a physical linkage direct to
| the gas pedal, and pretty simple exhaust. Very simple air
| intake.
|
| The carbs were fiddly and expensive to build, but didn't really
| wear out or need much service (unless you let gas rot in them).
| They were also very inefficient across most of their range, as
| there is only so much you can do with a throttle body and
| venturi.
|
| Compare "same" light duty truck now. Fuel injection with a
| control system: "smart" ECU, a far more complex exhaust - and
| sensors all along the way. The burn is far more efficient and
| controlled, partially because the exhaust has to be so much
| cleaner.
|
| There is _a lot_ of software in there. For the most part the
| only way anyone (e.g. NASA) knows how to make software anywhere
| close to as bulletproof ans that mechanical carb and linkage is
| to absolutely pour effort into it from design through to final
| test. Assume a 5x-10x cost on the software development, and
| pass that on the consumers.
|
| If you assume the same lack of safety functionality as the
| 1980s truck, you can cut a chunk of that out, but I don't see
| that happening.
| kevmo wrote:
| This is why I folded and just got a well-maintained 1992 F-150.
| I don't need or want all the computers.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| If even a small fraction of the people saying they want this
| actually put their money where your mouth was there would be a
| decent conversion industry by now (there is, but it's so small
| it's basically nonexistent and it's all one off builds).
|
| Also, rose colored glasses are a thing. When was the last time
| you (the average dolt reading this, not you personally) rode in
| a vehicle from the 80s let alone slogged out a commute in one?
| The venn diagram of "people for whom it is fashionable to want
| an 80s Toyota pickup" and "people who would commute in any 80s
| vehicle" is two circles. Sure you can "fix" the driving
| experience by upgrading stuff but unless you produce them at
| scale the cost of doing each of these upgrades will be much
| greater per unit and the total price will quickly eclipse that
| of just buying new vehicles.
| stetrain wrote:
| A 1980s small toyota pickup would do very poorly in modern
| crash tests.
|
| We have added way more airbags and much stronger roof pillars
| and side reinforcement which dramatically improves safety in a
| crash but also steals interior space, making vehicles inch
| larger to keep the same interior room.
|
| Also if you want a battery electric vehicle with good range,
| you need a big battery. That's easier to fit into a larger
| vehicle (ie Tesla Model X) than a small vehicle, and the extra
| energy usage of the larger vehicle doesn't scale as fast as the
| larger battery capacity that can fit within.
|
| I think the US could use something like Japan's Kei-car
| classification. Vehicles that are meant to use around town <=
| 45mph without going on the highway or needing to handle a 75mph
| rollover crash. This could be incentivized by cities with
| parking costs for larger vehicles. But it's difficult to sell
| when you might still get T-boned at 45mph by a 6,000lb Chevy
| Tahoe.
|
| Edit: Another big reason for the tech and data connection on
| EVs is navigation. If you want to travel outside of your home
| charging radius, you're going to want to know what charging
| stations are along your route, what speeds they deliver, and
| what their current availability is.
|
| A lot of Tesla's secret sauce is the "Just type your
| destination into the nav screen" where the car figures out your
| energy usage and charging stops to get wherever you want to go.
| [deleted]
| birken wrote:
| So many replies to this without a single person mentioning that
| _cars are extremely dangerous and kill lots of people every
| year_. However, over the past 40 years cars have gotten much
| safer and kill far fewer people. A lot of these safety
| improvements are structural, but also a lot of them are due to
| the fancy onboard computers which are doing traction control
| and blind spot monitoring and deciding which airbags to deploy
| and emergency braking and on and on.
|
| When a person driving a automobile runs through a crosswalk and
| hits and kills an innocent child crossing the street with their
| bike, an accident that _could and should_ have been avoided by
| automatic emergency braking, a great cost has been inflicting
| on society as a whole so a person could save $500 on their car.
|
| The price of each individual car needs to be calibrated with
| the price to society of all the bad things cars do. And this
| isn't a hypothetical situation where cars might kills tens of
| thousands of drivers and thousands of pedestrians every year
| --- they already do. Mandating safer cars, even if this will
| increase manufacturing costs and bring up all these new data
| privacy issues, has a huge positive impact on the rest of the
| people that happen to share the world with those cars.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This is a pretty good point I hadn't considered, although I
| do wonder why there are so many poor drivers. Staring at
| their cell phone GPS or built-in media centers probably has a
| lot to do with the distraction component. That's also an
| argument for more completely automated transport means.
|
| Personally I'm all for banning cars from city centers and
| tearing down the suburbia commuter model, and just using cars
| and trucks for long-distance travel and/or hauling needs, but
| that's probably not very likely anytime soon.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Because nobody except a very few number of extreme technologist
| would buy it.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Will the Chicken Tax law also affect light duty EV trucks?
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _Such a setup would likely be cheaper to manufacture as
| well._
|
| It would only be cheaper to manufacture at scale; and that
| assumes that market wants a "1980s small Toyota truck with a
| Tesla motor". I imagine a car like that wouldn't sell very
| well; so it would either be incredibly expensive to either
| build in small batches or to make up for the unsold inventory
| jonhohle wrote:
| The Toyota Hi-Lux, which used to be their compact truck, is
| the second best selling truck in the world. Older versions
| are somewhat legendary for their indestructibility -
| https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/The_Indestructible_Hilux
| nemothekid wrote:
| The 2022 HiLux is not the 1980s Hilux. The 2020 Hilux has
| GPS, CarPlay and Toyota Connected Services.
| stetrain wrote:
| The 2022 Toyota Hilux does not bear much resemblance to the
| 1980s version. It is much larger, heavier, and has a
| touchscreen navigation system.
| moonchrome wrote:
| I think stuff like emergency breaking is going to be mandatory
| (or already is) on new cars in EU.
|
| But there's stuff like :
| https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en/new/e-up.html which basically
| has a phone holder where the dash would usually be. Maybe other
| budget manufacturers will bring out something like this.
| mulmen wrote:
| My 2010 BMW has a cell phone holder in the center armrest. It
| was designed for the phones of the time. So when the iPhone 5
| came out it became impossible to use because BMW never
| anticipated a phone being that large.
|
| The built-in infotainment system is still lightyears beyond
| anything on a cell phone. On a road trip if the car gets to
| 1/8 of a tank of gas it will offer to set a destination to
| the nearest gas station. This requires one button press to
| accept. If there's a navigation destination it will _insert_
| a stop to get gas.
| [deleted]
| rbanffy wrote:
| I would prefer to have the phone taking over the
| navigation/entertainment system the way Android Auto and
| Apple's CarPlay do. In this car, unfortunately, the
| entertainment system screen is tiny and most likely
| unsuitable for this.
|
| If you build a car with a non-standard slot for an
| entertainment system, the least you can do is to make it
| smarter.
| causality0 wrote:
| Yes, I don't know what kind of masochist prefers to
| navigate using an infotainment screen aimed at their back
| seat instead of a phone pointed directly at the driver.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Much bigger screen and single UI for all navigation and
| entertainment.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > Such a setup would likely be cheaper to manufacture as well.
|
| This is false only because costs tend to go down with scale -
| if you have an entire line making ten $10k BOM (bill of
| materials) cars in one shift it's going to be a loss-leader
| compared to a line making 300 cars a shift with a $12k BOM even
| if both cars sell at the same MSRP.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| The fact is, you'll never be able to recreate a truck from the
| 1980s because crash safety measures are much, much stricter
| than they used to be so the form factor of that era is not
| going to return.
|
| The dirty secret is that infotainment additions have an
| outsized impact on consumer demand (better, fancier
| infotainment is a huge plus) for the cost paid. Due to all the
| new things needed to comply with current regulations, you'll
| have little uptake on the super low end model with no
| infotainment or fancy features if the price difference to the
| fancy screen version is commiserate with the price paid by the
| manufacturer. Also, as already mentioned in other posts, it may
| be at cost-parity due to the higher demand of the fancier trim
| model.
| adt2bt wrote:
| > no need for software updates because everything was properly
| designed to work with the hardware before the vehicle was sold.
|
| I think there's your answer. That's hard to do, and software
| mistakes cost a lot of $$$ and time to fix. You have to go into
| a dealership/service area to get any updates.
|
| Also, the vast majority of Tesla's customers are attracted to
| the idea that their car will continuously update itself and get
| better over time.
| acoard wrote:
| > I think there's your answer. That's hard to do, and
| software mistakes cost a lot of $$$ and time to fix. You have
| to go into a dealership/service area to get any updates.
|
| Do current BEVs require frequent updates to maintain off-the-
| lot functionality and drive-worthiness? Like in practice, if
| I bought a BMW BEV and ripped out any internet connectivity /
| only drove around in a faraday cage, would it break after 3mo
| (or 3yr) unless I took it into the dealership for a software
| update?
|
| >Also, the vast majority of Tesla's customers are attracted
| to the idea that their car will continuously update itself
| and get better over time.
|
| Yes, I think this is a selling point too. However it need not
| be a requirement for all BEVs. If switching to this model is
| prohibitive then it shouldn't be a roadblock.
| standyro wrote:
| I didn't update my Tesla for about a year and half.
|
| It eventually complained with a custom message that I would
| completely lose cell access in the car (which powers
| navigation, etc) if I didn't run the v11 update.
|
| I reluctantly updated because I know, and by that point
| they had fixed most of the UX issues that I had complaints
| about. The UI team at Tesla at least seems to listen to
| feedback from customers, which is more to say for bugs in
| any infotainment system that I've ever had in any other car
| I've owned.
| judge2020 wrote:
| https://www.teslaownersonline.com/threads/software-
| build-v11...
|
| Once AT&T 3G shuts down, chances are it won't be able to
| connect to the network due to how it logs on. While the
| AT&T site[0] says "will decommission our 3G networks on
| February 22, 2022", but it's actually been pretty slow
| with 3G still lingering in many places and others getting
| it turned off around the time they're working on 5G
| deployments utilizing the now-free spectrum[1,2]. They
| probably could've fixed this by updating V10 with only
| the modem changes but they want people on V11 more.
|
| 0: https://iotdevices.att.com/att-iot/3GSunset.aspx
|
| 1: https://redd.it/vwb7uu
|
| 2: https://redd.it/w777ez
| stetrain wrote:
| Connected navigation is a pretty big feature for EVs, ie
| trip navigation that plans your charging stops based on up-
| to-date list of charger locations and their current
| availability.
|
| So you can get by without this using your phone nav etc.
| but you'll likely be missing some key info like how many
| chargers are in-use vs available, and triggering the car to
| precondition the battery for fast charging before arrival.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > Also, the vast majority of Tesla's customers are attracted
| to the idea that their car will continuously update itself
| and get better over time.
|
| For how long though? I have since long realized that for me
| autoupdates is a anti-feuture that just makes it possible for
| the cooperations to mess with me.
|
| We have the story of the Tesla owner that got his battery
| software limited due to a workshop messup two owners earlier.
| filoleg wrote:
| It depends.
|
| My car had no sentry mode aka security cam feature (it
| blinks lights and records a few mins of video locally to my
| external ssd if something is happening near it) when it
| came out, but thanks to the update it now does. Same for
| being able to access live camera feed from my car remotely
| on my phone, if i want to check on it. Oh, and another
| update later made it so that I can review the recorded
| security footage on the car screen directly (only when the
| car is parked), without having to unplug the SSD and
| reviewing videos on my laptop/phone.
|
| Those features above was never mentioned or promised when I
| was buying the car, because they simply didn't exist or
| weren't even planned at the time. Other updates improved
| the UI/UX in some major ways. All in all, I have no
| complaints about that experience at all.
|
| Also, none of those are auto-updates. Tesla will notify you
| if the update is available, but it won't be downloading
| them usung the built-in cell connection, only using wifi
| connection.
| matt_s wrote:
| It would be really neat for some company to produce kits to
| replace ICE's with electric motors and battery packs for
| modern-ish cars like a Corolla/Civic/Fiesta. No need for fancy
| LCD screens, auto-driving, etc. just replace ICE with EV parts
| and get 100+mi range and you'd replace most commuter/2nd car
| use cases.
|
| I envision it to be like PC parts. It would be awesome for
| standards to develop for EV's like there are for ICE. I'm sure
| its much more complicated and deals with high voltage so likely
| to need some education to not fry yourself.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| One maker converted his Tesla to ICE because you can't get
| repair parts for a Tesla.
|
| https://evobsession.com/converting-a-tesla-model-s-into-
| an-i...
| QuizzicalCarbon wrote:
| Ford sells the same electric engine used in their Mach-E as a
| separate kit. It's pretty cool.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| When I posed this to an engineer friend working in the
| automotive space his comment was that weight distribution and
| handling / safety (and liability) would be huge issues in
| retrofitting ICE cars en masse.
| johnla wrote:
| Well, if I can't rob banks in my Tesla then I don't think it's
| even worth getting one anymore.
| ajross wrote:
| The bank robbery anecdote is particularly weird here since the
| location history in question wasn't via Tesla at all, it was
| the fleet tracking system run by the owner of the rental car!
| CharlesW wrote:
| TFA says we don't know for sure, but is at least honest
| enough to note up front that it likely came from Steer.
|
| I don't think the fact that redundant systems were actively
| sharing car data negates the point of the example, though. We
| know Tesla is collecting this information, and
| https://www.tesla.com/legal/privacy makes it clear that Tesla
| will share this data with not only law enforcement but
| "service providers, business partners and affiliates".
| vardump wrote:
| A pretty interesting read. I didn't find anything alerting
| except that they share data with the law enforcement. That
| might not be desirable under some jurisdictions!
|
| It also says for example this:
|
| "We limit how, and with who, we share your personal data.
| Examples of when we may share your information include,
| payment processing, order fulfillment, product
| installation, customer service, marketing, financing,
| service or repair, and other similar services.
|
| We do not sell your personal data to anyone for any
| purpose, period. The table below illustrates who Tesla may
| share your personal data with depending on your
| interactions with us or purchases you make."
|
| [A table follows with examples.]
|
| [More precise details follow]
|
| ...
|
| "Law enforcement and government authorities.
|
| Description: Disclosure of information as required by law,
| or when otherwise appropriate
|
| Reason: To comply with applicable laws based on our legal
| obligation or legitimate interests"
|
| ...
|
| "Other third party business partners to the extent that
| they are involved in the purchase, lease, or service of
| your Tesla products."
| CharlesW wrote:
| I agree that it's incumbent on everyone who owns or is
| considering a Tesla to click on "Show More" under
| "Sharing Your Information" at
| https://www.tesla.com/legal/privacy.
|
| "Service providers, business partners and affiliates" is
| so vague that Tesla can share any data with almost anyone
| without revising this notice. If they ever do want to
| sell the data instead of giving it away, they can change
| the notice at any time.
| ajross wrote:
| > "Service providers, business partners and affiliates"
| is so vague that Tesla can share any data with almost
| anyone without revising this notice.
|
| Only if you assume bad faith and don't read the
| surrounding text. They say explicitly that that category
| is there to allow them to outsource actions they would
| otherwise do internally. I mean, sure, you can imagine
| that being twisted in the future. But what exactly do you
| want them to say? This is a _very_ typical privacy
| notice, and I don 't see any red flags at all.
|
| I mean, if you don't trust Tesla, don't buy one I guess.
| But trying to argue that they're somehow a unique privacy
| risk seems to be really strained logic.
| nullfield wrote:
| We should all be to the point of not trusting any of
| them, based on behavior; however, most people kinda need
| a car also.
| vardump wrote:
| Better to keep lots of copies of this page in the Wayback
| Machine and elsewhere to ensure any changes are noticed.
| tenpies wrote:
| Exactly, Good Citizens have nothing to fear.
|
| But the next time you try to go to a protest that is not
| sanctioned by the Democrats, expect your Tesla to refuse to
| take you there.
| tonmoy wrote:
| But if you had coincidentally parked near a bank while the
| robbery was happening law enforcement can easily pin it on you
| if there is lack of a better suspect. In other words you have
| less leverage in your legal defense
| [deleted]
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Wait until the Texas AG demands all data for Teslas registered
| to owners in Texas that have parked at abortion clinics in
| other states.
| [deleted]
| salawat wrote:
| You're not going far enough.
|
| Camera footage my friend. Remember, Teslas are broadband
| rolling surveillance devices.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| ... which is why the Berlin police department is trying to
| ban Tesla vehicles from their grounds [1].
|
| [1] https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2022/06/tesla-
| verbot-b...
| salawat wrote:
| Imagine that.
|
| Funny how the police push back on having applied to them
| what they are more than happy to see inflicted on others.
| dfdz wrote:
| I expect more from IEEE than a bait-and-switch:
|
| > license plate on that car showed that it was registered to ...
| Steer EV ... Agents served a subpoena on Steer EV for the
| renter's billing and contact details. Steer EV provided those--
| and also voluntarily supplied historical GPS data for the vehicle
| ... In this case, the GPS data likely came from a device Steer EV
| itself installed in the vehicle
|
| > according to researchers, Tesla is potentially in a position to
| provide similar GPS tracks
| sorokod wrote:
| Should the question not be "Who owns your data collected by
| Tesla?"
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| I dislike both formulations as it puts the answer in the
| question.
|
| I think it should be something like "Who owns the data Tesla
| collected from your car?".
| sorokod wrote:
| I'm all for precision. Isn't the idea of "your" car being
| challenged here?
| thfuran wrote:
| Well, what data? Date and location of sale of the VIN? That's
| Tesla's data. Location of the the vehicle last Tuesday at
| noon? That's my data and why is Tesla even collecting it?
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| Why do you think that is "your" data? There is no
| expectation of privacy in public places, therefore the
| location of your car is rarely if ever private.
| sorokod wrote:
| How far are you willing to take this line of thought?
| Would you be OK if your neighbors attached trackers to
| your car?
|
| Would you be OK for the boyfriend of your daughter to did
| the same?
|
| How about a tracker embedded in your shoe?
| thfuran wrote:
| There is a scale and pervasiveness of monitoring at which
| a lack of expectation of privacy becomes a certainty of
| the absence of privacy and I don't think that should be
| the expectation. Regardless, there are, as you say,
| locations where the expectation of privacy does have
| legal force but GPS monitoring doesn't care.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| One of the single best books on data collection, privacy, and
| ownership:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Habeas-Data-Privacy-Rise-Surveillance...
|
| In short, once you hand your data over to someone else, Third
| Party Doctrine applies and you lose MOST of your protections
| around privacy, warrants, etc. This applies to banking,
| communications, library records, etc, etc. Almost anything done
| in public does _not_ have the "assumption of privacy" and
| therefore gets even fewer protections (usually none).*
|
| If we want to roll back the surveillance society, we MUST abolish
| Third Party Doctrine and enact data ownership rules.
| Unfortunately, there are a LOT of dollars flowing because those
| rules are minimal and weak at best.
|
| * Not a lawyer but have followed and researched this one
| extensively.
| EricE wrote:
| If, god forbid, I ever have to buy a newer car the first thing I
| will be doing is yanking the damn cellular modem out of it. It's
| my car - not one I'm sharing with the manufacturer and who knows
| who else. With luck I'll be able to be buried with my current
| "dumb" vehicles.
| nilespotter wrote:
| Good luck trying to figure out how. I desperately want to do
| this in my new vehicle but I can't find information on where
| they are or how to get to them. Also it would void my warranty
| (although I'd do it anyway if I could).
| [deleted]
| 13of40 wrote:
| I've told this story here before, but a while back mine
| malfunctioned while it was at a body shop and started calling
| the SOS service repeatedly. After the police called me (and
| came by my house the next day) I contacted the dealership and
| they actually sent me instructions for unplugging it. I
| haven't gotten around to plugging it back in, and now if I
| pick "customer service" in the car's menu it just gives me a
| 1-800 number to call. It did complain profusely the first two
| or three times I started the car afterwards, but it
| eventually gave up.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > Also it would void my warranty
|
| No. For automobiles especially, your car's warranties aren't
| voided unless your modifications contributed/create a problem
| in the car. For Tesla, perhaps they could argue that removing
| the modem means they can't diagnose effectively because it's
| offline and not reporting any errors, but if a motor died
| they'd still have to fix it despite the modem being ripped
| out.
| anony999 wrote:
| >> the first thing I will be doing is yanking the damn cellular
| modem out of it
|
| That may be illegal just like it's illegal to tamper with
| consumer electronics/HDMI devices
| deelowe wrote:
| How would it be illegal?
| jjoonathan wrote:
| It shouldn't be illegal, but I don't doubt for a second
| that data-grubbing DRM-pushing auto manufacturers would
| conjure up a "think of the children" argument and have it
| made illegal if this ever became a widespread workaround.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| IANAL, but my understanding is that the DMCA makes it illegal
| to _distribute_ information or devices that would let you
| break HDMI encryption. But it 's not illegal to "tamper" with
| your own device.
|
| For automobile manufacturers to use the DMCA in this way they
| would have to make a case for some kind of copyright
| infringement that would be possible if the cellular modem was
| removed. Not impossible, but it would be a stretch for now.
| GravitasFailure wrote:
| A few manufacturers have tried using the DMCA in an attempt
| to quash non OEM parts for repairs and modifications, with
| John Deere being something of a poster child. I believe
| it's been at least partially quashed for the consumer
| market, but we'll see how long that lasts.
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