[HN Gopher] What does this button do? - My new car has a mysteri...
___________________________________________________________________
What does this button do? - My new car has a mysterious and
undocumented switch
Author : Koenvh
Score : 576 points
Date : 2024-11-29 19:59 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.koenvh.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.koenvh.nl)
| Rygian wrote:
| I wonder what should be the GDPR implications for the car
| dealership, selling cars that track their owner's location and
| not being able to confirm it, explain why it exists, or who
| receives the data.
|
| Unless the whole thing is disabled in absence of a registered
| fleet tracker key on the magnet on the right.
| spydum wrote:
| While I'm sure they discontinued the service on whatever
| cellular device transmits the data back it is a curious
| question about the legality of if they left the service in
| place and continue to track the vehicle long after they sold it
| K0balt wrote:
| While you do own the hardware, you probably don't own the data,
| licenses, and software in the SIM so you might not be entitled to
| the data it transmits once it hits the carriers network.
| Rygian wrote:
| Well,[the data it transmits] it's personal information, so the
| owner of the car has a very explicit right to it. (Car plates
| are from an EU country.)
| K0balt wrote:
| I don't know how that would work, since that data is the
| personal information of whoever is in the car at the time of
| collection, so I would guess that the applicant to get the
| info would have to substantiate that they were in the car at
| the time, regardless of the ownership of the car.
|
| Or maybe just ownership of the car is enough? I kind of
| suspect it might not be though.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Other way around. The person processing the data has a duty
| to make sure that they have a legal basis.
| Rygian wrote:
| The car belongs to the individual named Koen Van Hove (as
| stated in the blog). He holds GDPR rights to any location
| data that gets sent out.
|
| Before that, if the system allowed for any correlation of
| location data to who was driving at that point, the exact
| same rights apply too for each involved driver.
|
| Only if the data controller (the entity who made the choice
| to put a gps tracker on the car) took specific steps to
| ensure the location data could _not_ be correlated to an
| individual (and can prove those steps were taken), is the
| data safe from GDPR.
| lukan wrote:
| It might be your smartphone, but all the data it collects,
| including recording audio and video is now mine, when I send it
| to my server. Don't you dare tamper with or even look at it!
|
| (When did crazy things like this start becoming a real thing?)
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Legally speaking the data was recorded without consent so if
| the company receiving this data tries to claim ownership,
| they'll need to delete it anyway.
|
| However, because the author lives in a country covered by the
| GDPR, they have a right to receive, correct, and adjust the
| personal information collected on them. No need to capture the
| data transmitted by the system, the company is legally
| obligated to hand over every bit of personal information they
| have on the author, including any pseudomised information, in a
| format that's machine readable.
|
| In theory you'd be liable for racking up a bill if you use
| their SIM card, but I doubt it still works.
| pomian wrote:
| That was a fun read. It's interesting to think that they would
| leave it attached. Indeed, what could you do with that? Did you
| find the unit that the wires go to? Then you could open that up
| and see what chips, sensors etc are in there.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| Used car dealers install those as per bank requirement to find
| the car in case it needs to be repoed, if the customer finishes
| the payment it just stays in the car but the account is
| disabled (the dealer pays a monthly fee for nothing otherwise).
| So basically it's sending location data to nobody.
| justahuman74 wrote:
| Aftermarket GPS tracker, for those who just want the answer
| quickly
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| The metal thing looks like an ibutton / 1-wire reader, which
| matches the functional description given:
|
| https://www.atrack.com.tw/en/product/1-wire-ibutton-tag-read...
|
| If you have a flipper zero, maybe you could poke at it.
| janstice wrote:
| I wonder if it's a tracking off switch or a panic button? I used
| to work for a fleet tracking SaaS, and some customers with
| unionised workforces needed a way to disable tracking, and panic
| buttons were common too (although less so in Europe).
| caseyohara wrote:
| What would a panic button do in this context?
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Signal to HQ "I'm being robbed" or something like this, I
| would guess.
|
| Around here, such a button in this place would be for the 20
| 000 lumen extralights. Typically for cars with xenon
| headlights, like this Opel, the extralights are powered via a
| relay that takes control signal from a can-bus adapter that
| extracts the high beam signal, via a manual switch like this.
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| > "can I get free data from the SIM card embedded in the device
| that I now technically own?"
|
| That seems like the next-most-interesting question now that
| you've determined what the device is. Possibly followed closely
| by "can I use that free-to-me data in a fun way that might teach
| the people who installed the SIM to deactivate their devices when
| they sell them?"
|
| i.e. Could you send and receive enough on the connection using
| that SIM to cost them enough money that they'd notice it?
| TomK32 wrote:
| Even though the SIM was part of the car they bought, the SIM's
| contract is not in their name which means using the contract
| would be theft.
| Arainach wrote:
| Is there case law on this? I don't see any way in which this
| is legally theft by the OP (admittedly my knowledge is more
| US-centric than Euro-centric). If I let someone tether a
| device to my cell phone (or loan my phone to them), are they
| committing theft?
|
| The company on the contract voluntarily gave the SIM to OP.
| taeric wrote:
| Imagine it was a credit card found in the car, what are the
| material differences? Note the suggestion is to willfully
| use the device in a way.
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| Well, one is tied to a private bank account, the other is
| a privacy-violation device tied to no one.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| IAALBNYL it's not theft because they've been abandoned and
| are in the new owner's possession. If the prior owner can't
| be reached and the security company which claims to own
| them won't take them, they're probably fair game.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| I do not see any way in which this property could still
| be considered the previous owners. Let's say the camera
| was in the bathroom pointed directly at the shower. You
| just have to suck it up forever, knowing that someone
| could be watching? In fact, I could imagine it being a
| criminal charge for trying to capture people in the nude.
| What if someone has a child who bathes there? Now they
| were trying to create CP.
| fwip wrote:
| Even if that were the law, you could disconnect the
| cameras or cover the lens.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| What if it has microphones which are not so obviously
| obscured? I do not see why it should depend upon my
| technical acumen to non-destructively disable a
| surveillance device within my private space.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| It's property law 101 that possession and ownership are
| not the same thing.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| You better believe if I buy a property in Germany which has
| security cameras inside the absolute first thing that's
| happening is those are getting smashed to absolute bits and
| if anyone even tries to complain I'll sue them.
|
| I may even consider filing against the previous tenants for
| not removing them and so my being filmed destroying them
| was without my consent, it's a clear crime to me to record
| someone on their private property without their permission
| ..
|
| This is absolutely not normal anywhere.
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| Same thing in France and I don't understand some answers
| in this thread. My home -> my cameras, and you can be
| sure they will be removed and thrown away ASAP. It's at
| least a violation of my privacy and wouldn't be tolerated
| where I live.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| This can be difficult to grasp.
|
| I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm
| installed.
|
| I called the security company to transfer ownership but that
| couldn't be done without authorisation from the previous
| owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were
| unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned,
| and which had cameras _the previous owner could take pics
| from at any time_.
|
| My patience was running out so I threatened the security
| company with removing the cameras installed in the house I
| owned, but I was told that they owned them even if they were
| inside my house.
| hedora wrote:
| At that point, you could point out that you have no
| contract with them, and that they've abandoned their
| property on your place.
|
| The last time I checked, US property rights made it clear
| that you cannot just store stuff on other people's land
| without permission, and then complain when they throw it
| away.
|
| They could try to argue that whatever contract the previous
| owner signed still applies, but for that to be the case,
| they would have had to amend the deed to the property, and
| that should have been noticed by your title agency.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| FWIW this was not in the US.
| jhugo wrote:
| Regardless I would have carefully taken these down and
| put them in a box on the day I moved in. And then called
| them (or better, written to them) and given them a
| reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple months) to
| collect their property, making it clear that I would
| dispose of it after that time expired.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Why? After cutting the power to them I'd tell the company
| if they wanted them back I can take them down and ship
| them back at my standard rate of $500/hr
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| > given them a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple
| months) to collect their property
|
| Why waste your own time with this? If it's your house,
| you own everything inside. I would put all the cameras in
| the trash and forget about it.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Not so. My mother bought a house in France in 1988. The
| previous owners had a mountain of stuff in the barn that
| they would come collect "soon".
|
| 25 years passed. My mother started variously selling and
| disposing of their slowly rotting crap that they
| evidently were never going to collect, as she wanted to
| fix the structural issues with the barn, and their stuff
| was in the way, as it literally filled the entire ground
| floor.
|
| And then, one day, 30 years later, their children showed
| up, wanting to collect their inheritance.
|
| They sued. They won. She had to fork over about EUR100k.
|
| So no, just because you own the house, you don't own
| everything in it.
|
| In Europe, it's also common for you to buy a place, and
| then when you move in, you find the vendor has taken all
| of the wiring and plumbing with them. Sometimes they'll
| even take things like doors, staircases, floors, you name
| it.
| IanCal wrote:
| > In Europe
|
| You can't just lump 27 countries with wildly differing
| laws together like this.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Ok sure - Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy,
| Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, this happens. Can't
| speak for elsewhere.
|
| You have to ensure the contract of sale specifically
| includes things like wiring, the boiler, the radiators,
| flooring, light fittings and switches, because if they
| aren't explicitly included, they aren't included. There
| are some very odd definitions of chattels vs fixtures out
| there - in France, it has to be _nailed_ to the structure
| to count as a fixture. If it's screwed, glued, or
| otherwise not nailed down, it's a chattel.
| gberger wrote:
| 27 is just the EU. The whole of Europe is more like 50,
| which is even wilder!
| skinkestek wrote:
| > In Europe, it's also common for you to buy a place, and
| then when you move in, you find the vendor has taken all
| of the wiring and plumbing with them.
|
| This is the first time I hwar of this.
|
| At least in Norway the rule is that everything that is
| built in stays.
|
| So table, chairs, TV, washing machine, dryer etc goes,
| but built in appliances and built in place furniture
| stays.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Yeah, from what I understand this is not the norm in the
| Nordic states, but it is elsewhere.
| spockz wrote:
| It's the same in the Netherlands with the very odd
| exception for floors. Solid wooden floors are included
| but if it "laminaat" or anything not glued/nailed, it has
| to be explicitly mentioned in the sale contract. Just
| like with window shades etc.
| vkazanov wrote:
| Both times my, ehm, good friend bought a house in uk the
| docs included a very thorough list of things that had to
| stay, as well as things that HAD to go.
|
| Does England count as Europe?
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Not in this case, no - at least, it's not the norm in the
| U.K., whereas it absolutely is in a lot of mainland
| Europe.
| jhugo wrote:
| Geographically, England is part of Europe, but regardless
| of the EU membership thing, UK domestic laws have always
| been very different from those in continental Europe due
| to very different legal histories. They aligned on the
| kinds of things that the EU regulates, but when it comes
| to something like property abandonment I'd expect them to
| be wildly different.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Quite shockingly Old Blighty hasn't been French for quite
| some time.
| tomrod wrote:
| That's a super dumb outcome for your poor mother.
|
| Abandoned property is just that.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| In France it's only counted as abandoned if it is more
| than 30 years. These guys rocked up at something like 29
| years and 9 months, and because there had been a verbal
| agreement that they would one day collect, and my mother
| allowed it, she was deemed to have stolen property she
| was entrusted to store.
|
| She was actually lucky to avoid criminal charges.
| tomrod wrote:
| I maintain that this is a dumb (i.e. completely
| unreasonable) outcome for your mother.
|
| Abandonment should be measured at the takeover of
| property in lieu of agreement, and a reasonable time
| frame for pickup agreement is on the order of days, not
| years.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I really think she should counter-sue for storage fees
| and damages.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Your mom should have provided them a bill for storage
| fees the equaled or surpassed EUR100k.
| Aeolun wrote:
| That doesn't make any sense. What would the value of that
| stuff be if she'd just moved it out of the barn and left
| it to rot there?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| And how is there any record of what was in the barn, or
| how much it was worth, or either it has been stolen or
| collected by the owner any time in the past 30 years. I
| don't want to call OP a liar, but a lot of times when I
| hear outrageous stories like this the details are very
| different than what was provided.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Among other stuff, there was a bunch of Italian modernist
| art from the 50s-70s. It was literally decomposing in
| there, and my mother sold a few pieces at auction at
| about the 25 year point, which was then used as a
| reference point for the value of the collection as a
| whole, and as evidence that she was acting maliciously,
| that she knew the value of what was in there.
|
| The owner died in the early 90s - the folks who rocked up
| were the grandchildren of her ex-husband.
|
| As for people who have said "oh she should have charged
| for the storage" - that would have been nice, but that
| wasn't the agreement, and French law treats a verbal
| agreement as a contract, and also places the onus in this
| type of situation on the person holding the goods to make
| extensive efforts to contact the owner and/or their
| heirs.
| Flozzin wrote:
| I'm really shocked that 'soon' can be considered 30
| years. So you agree to store someones stuff for a short
| time, and then you are locked in for 30+ years? I thought
| america had crazy lawsuits...
| maccard wrote:
| Doing that is illegal in many places. Here's a decent
| summary in the Uk [0]
|
| [0] https://jebaring.co.uk/involuntary-bailee-what-to-do/
| behringer wrote:
| It's also just not very nice. It is ok to be nice to
| people. Do unto others and all that.
|
| And before I get called naive, courts do look very
| favorably upon defendants that are nice.
| j-bos wrote:
| It's not nice to stick eyeballs under people's
| vestiments. It's not nice to put hands on a stranger. Bad
| faith actions can be responded to without malice but
| there is no need to be nice. Non consentual cameras in a
| private dwelling are never good faith.
| cosmotic wrote:
| I think the sheriff's practice of putting stuff in the
| street during an eviction would be a possible course of
| action there.
| superb_dev wrote:
| Do you still have the cameras or did you remove them?
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| They were able to contact the previous owner in a matter
| of days and now the contract is with me, not him.
| bean-weevil wrote:
| They own the cameras. You can still take them down and give
| them back if requested.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| The thing is, first of all I'm hardly a handyman, I
| wouldn't have known where to start. Second, I was dealing
| with moving to a new place, which can be very stressful
| (to add to that, my girlfriend was 6 months pregnant and
| my dad had passed away unexpectedly less than 2 months
| earlier). And third, I wanted the alarm, just with me in
| the contract and with the access to the cameras, not the
| previous owner.
|
| I simply covered them. The threat was just me running out
| of patience.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I can't believe this is true. How can you have so little
| care over the privacy of your family? They have
| microphones too.
| behringer wrote:
| tape on the microphone holes render them inoperable
| N19PEDL2 wrote:
| Maybe you could just cut the wires. Surely the former
| tenant's contract does not oblige you to provide
| electricity and connectivity to those devices.
| j-bos wrote:
| Dude, that sounds stressful, but you seem to be agreeing
| to live a prisoners life and leaving your family within
| it. I'm am legitimately sad to hear about your situation.
| theodric wrote:
| So you uninstalled them and FedExed them to the company
| along with a bill for the deinstallation work, right?
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Sorry. But I have to ask.
|
| What the actual fuck?! Why would you have cameras _inside
| your house_ to begin with, let alone ones that upload to
| "the cloud" and let alone ones that upload to users you
| don't control?
|
| I'm totally shocked by this.
| devmor wrote:
| This is a disturbingly common practice - I have seen
| videos on Reddit, YouTube and the like that show moments
| captured from cameras obviously mounted inside
| _children's bedrooms_ with a cloud service company's logo
| on the feed.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I called the security company to transfer ownership but
| that couldn't be done without authorisation from the
| previous owner, which probably makes sense.
|
| No, that's how ownership of internet accounts works.
| Ownership of real estate is based on completely different
| principles; there is no earthly reason you'd need the
| previous owner to be involved. Who owns what real estate is
| a matter of public record.
| justinclift wrote:
| > they owned them
|
| Doesn't mean they need to be kept in their current location
| though. You're entirely within your rights to remove them
| and leave them in a safe place for them to retrieve at
| their leisure.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| I had a similar situation with an (active) alarm and
| monitoring system in the last house I purchased. One of the
| first things I did was clip the wires, remove everything
| and throw it in the trash with a few other things the
| previous owner had left behind. You are under no obligation
| to store or keep active property abandoned after a sale (at
| least here in the US).
| cosmotic wrote:
| The contract would likely say something to the effect of "I
| promise to pay for the data sent to or from this device" and
| nothing about the owner of the device. If anything was said
| about the owner, it would be that the responsibility of the
| original contract holder is to ensure the contract was
| terminated when the sale took place.
| realityking wrote:
| It's surprisingly common for SIMs in IoT devices to not be
| locked down. If the data usage spikes enough above the noise
| it'll probably be detected & deactivated.
|
| Here's an example from a few years ago:
| https://scootertalk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1370
| nlawalker wrote:
| Nice. Thought this was going to be
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22085089
| zymhan wrote:
| I'm reminded of a sim card installed in tracker for
| wildlife, that was then used by someone for their
| cellphone.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I work for a company that uses sensors with some kind of 4G
| connection. I don't know the details but I did ask our sensor
| guys what would happen if someone removed the SIM card (or
| whatever it is) and started using data. My recollection is that
| locking down those SIM cards is the responsibility of the
| sensor maker. We have an agreement to pay for all legitimate
| traffic at a contractual rate, but the device manufacturer
| actually owns the connection and pays for the data themselves.
|
| So you're probably using the connection in violation of the
| wishes of the responsible party, but it was not clear to me
| exactly how illegal that would be? Like I'm sure they could
| charge you with a crime but I have no idea what it would be.
| justinclift wrote:
| > they could charge you with a crime
|
| Doubt it. You'd be using a device you bought and now own,
| that didn't come with any kind of agreement/contract/etc to
| limit your usage. :)
| chgs wrote:
| I suspect that computer misuse / hacking laws could apply.
| I'm also certain that there will be small print if you
| bought it from a dealer.
| focusedone wrote:
| I work at a place with LTE GPS trackers on fleet vehicles.
| Tracking boxes get moved from old -> new vehicles when
| possible. Otherwise the cell and tracking services are
| deactivated ASAP to avoid paying a monthly fee on an unused
| tracker.
|
| I'd personally be equal parts creeped out and curious about the
| hardware if that showed up on a car I bought. If it's a former
| fleet vehicle, its probably deactivated.
|
| The particular sound described makes me think of older pre-lte
| stuff, which in my part of the world was abandoned and became
| useless a couple years ago.
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| That was also what the sound made me think of, but I don't
| think the sound would've happened with deactivated hardware.
| (?)
|
| But you're right, I don't think I've heard my phone cause
| that sound since I switched to an LTE phone.
| tengwar2 wrote:
| If the people who made it know much about telecoms, then no,
| the will not work. When your mobile device connects to the
| Internet, the connection tunnels through the mobile network to
| a gateway specified by the "APN" (access point name). This is
| usually set up automatically these days, but you can dig the
| setting out of your phone. That's for an Internet connection -
| however a company can pay for a "private APN". This is still a
| gateway, but they control what it connects to. This is often
| done for machine to machine connections, e.g. for utility smart
| meters - so a SIM for a gas meter will not be provisioned for
| the normal Internet APN, and if you were able to get that SIM
| out (difficult as they are not usually in card format) you
| would not be able to connect to the Internet. Typically the
| equipment company will negotiate a cheaper data price than for
| Internet access, since the data usage will be low and
| predictable.
|
| Now it could be that the people who built this tracking device
| are too small scale to negotiate a deal, or just don't know
| this, but my guess is that (a) the SIM is not in a physical
| format which can be removed and fitted in a different device;
| and (b) it is connected to a private APN which is not connected
| to the Internet.
|
| BTW, if you look up the Wikipedia article, bear in mind that it
| is a bit inaccurate - for instance it refers to an APN as being
| a gateway to the Internet, which is not always true. I'll
| correct it some time.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| Cars now have cell modems that you can hook up to select
| telecom providers to turn your car into a hotspot, so those
| cell modems/SIMs do have an APN for internet data
| Suppafly wrote:
| Our water company switched our meters from RF to cellular a
| while back, I'm not curious enough to mess with it, but I
| suspect you could repurpose the sim card from one of them.
| Kiro wrote:
| How do these things send the position? Don't they need their own
| cellular connection for that?
| mikestew wrote:
| From TFA: _and "can I get free data from the SIM card embedded
| in the device that I now technically own?"_
| Kiro wrote:
| Doesn't that mean each car has its own subscription? Why
| would they keep paying for it after the car has been sold?
| bouke wrote:
| The switch is probably for tax reasons, to record whether you're
| making a business vs personal trip. Personal trips go towards the
| 500 km allowance before the car is seen as indirect salary and
| should be taxed as such. Setting it to personal might also
| disable the tracking for privacy reasons.
| hexfish wrote:
| Having seen setups like this before this is pretty likely
| indeed.
| JSDevOps wrote:
| That was an interesting read
| gr33nq wrote:
| At first glance this reminded me of some Ford Crown Victoria
| Police Interceptor models which had similar unlabeled buttons.
| One would disable all exterior lights, including brake lights,
| for going into stealth/surveillance mode. An adjacent button was
| used to be able to remove the key and keep the engine running,
| while preventing the car from being shifted out of park until the
| key was inserted again. I haven't seen either feature re-
| introduced in the newer Explorers or Fusions though.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| > ... used to be able to remove the key and keep the engine
| running, while preventing the car from being shifted out of
| park ...
|
| I'm pretty sure (not 100%) that new cars with contactless keys
| have this feature by default. You can get out (with the key)
| and leave it running, but the shifter won't work until you
| return with the key.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Mine didn't. My contactless key needs to be nearby when
| starting the car. The shifter is independent and does not
| need the key.
| gr33nq wrote:
| I think you're right, although I've noticed that there's a
| timeout where newer cars automatically turns off if the key
| fob doesn't come back within range after so many minutes.
| Probably a safety feature to avoid accidental walkaways,
| whereas the button required a deliberate two-step action
| (hold down while turning and removing the key) to activate
| the feature.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Contactless keys and fleet vehicles do not go well together.
| javawizard wrote:
| I'll bite. Why not?
| akira2501 wrote:
| Loss of keys. If you expect the vehicle to be used by
| multiple different shifts then a lost key removes a
| vehicle from service unless you can reprogram it. Some
| cars let you program new fobs up to a limit then you need
| a dealership unlock to continue doing that.
|
| Easier is just to key all the fleet vehicles with the
| same standard non chipped key. Then any key operates any
| vehicle which removes a ton of operational friction. When
| I drove cab we also just used fleet keys, but only
| because we bought old police interceptors, which also
| meant, our cab keys could open and drive police cars.
| Which is why police fleet cars sometimes have an extra
| interlock button or switch in them which disables the
| shifter so it can't be taken out of park. Similar to the
| switches in this post.
|
| Vehicles assigned to a single officer may be different
| and will likely use the fob but the shift vehicles in a
| lot of jurisdictions just use fleet keys even today.
| jonah wrote:
| Many modern ambulances have a similar shifter disable switch so
| that it can be left running and someone can't take off with
| your ambulance while you're off collecting your patient.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| I was astonished to learn that Ford no longer sells sedans
| (Fusions) of any kind. Neither does GM. I dislike SUVs, and it
| seems the only choices for American sedans are a Cadillac or a
| Tesla. Hondas and Toyotas are selling like hot-cakes, but when
| they had to compete on quality American automakers just decided
| to walk away from the market.
|
| So no need to worry about that feature on Fusions... they don't
| sell them anymore. Nor Chevies, Buicks, Oldsmobile is long
| gone, no more Dodges or Chryslers... nothing.
| gweinberg wrote:
| I think I'll pwess... the wed one.
| afh1 wrote:
| The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that
| previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just
| forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?)
| new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled.
|
| Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by
| the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was
| a bill announced in the US for all new cars to be equipped with
| "driver impairment" tech which was called a "kill switch". Media
| rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or
| cameras to monitor the driver's behaviors, head or eye movements"
| and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill
| switch. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-402773429497
|
| Anyway, I'm staying with my old gas Honda until it dies which is
| probably never with proper maintenance and eventually
| restoration. I'll never go electric. Modern cars are just
| smartphones on wheels at this point, and smartphones are just
| spying devices at this point.
| pixl97 wrote:
| The longevity of our car not only on how good you drive, but
| how bad others drive.
| bluGill wrote:
| While not false, careful defensive driving makes a big
| difference. But most people hate someone cutting in front of
| them and so won't maintain large follow ng distances
| ddingus wrote:
| And maintaining that proper distance can be worse!
|
| I try, and often succeed and generally see risks all
| around.
|
| Too close, and often with few or no escape paths means
| maintaining best case attention and response times for the
| whole drive. That is tiring and usually just not enough.
|
| Too far back means people dropping into the gap non-stop!
| This too is tiring.
|
| I really hate how this aspect of driving.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I'm not in that much of a hurry, a couple minutes later
| won't make a difference. I have a friend though, twice in
| the last year she was rear ended sitting at a red light.
| Both time the car was totaled. Terrible luck on her part,
| but not much defensive driving could do for her.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I'm with you here. I have an 89 BMW (which is old enough to
| have an actual servo motor attached to the intake manifold for
| cruise control) and an 83 Land Cruiser (whose most advanced
| feature is that it controls its emissions using vacuum
| controlled pneumatic circuitry).
|
| I'm very glad I've put in the time to learn how to work on cars
| because I have zero interest in the tech direction of modern
| vehicles.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > 89 BMW ... and an 83 Land Cruiser
|
| I'm with you. Our daily drivers are 2011 Mitsu, 96 Toyota, 92
| Buick and a 63 Dart. Also a 61 Sunliner for when it's not-
| summer.
|
| The Mitsu is unfortunately drive-by-wire; I mostly avoid it.
| volemo wrote:
| How large is your family? Why do you need so many cars?
| sgt wrote:
| People who have many cars usually don't do it because of
| necessity, but because they love tinkering with the old
| automobiles.
| cratermoon wrote:
| At peak teenager/young adult time my family owned six
| cars. That's for two adults and three driving-age kids.
| The sixth car was something my dad, who was an old-school
| motor head of the sort who grew up using feeler gauges,
| just kept around for no obvious reason but to tinker now
| and then.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Bingo.
| floydnoel wrote:
| The Cybertruck is the only vehicle on the market that has
| drive-by wire. There was previously an Infiniti model that
| was partially drive by wire.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| I'm guessing that car is "drive-by-wire" via the
| throttle, which has not been an actual cable in most cars
| for decades at this point. Steer-by-wire is indeed just
| the cybertruck at this point afaik.
| floydnoel wrote:
| electronic throttle body controls are extremely common,
| yes. but they don't have any downside to driving feel, so
| i don't think it would fit what the GP was referring to.
| rpcope1 wrote:
| Almost every early electronic throttle like that drives
| like pure ass, and newer ones are hit or miss at best.
| Toyota seems have done a decent job with it, but everyone
| else kind of keeps pooching it.
|
| That falls in with a lot of stuff that felt like it might
| have made sense on race cars that I don't understand why
| people keep asking for on street vehicles (drive by wire
| throttle, CVTs, huge wheels with rubber band tires, certain
| kinds of traction and stability control, viscous coupled or
| electronic "all wheel drive" (not 4WD), along with the
| Subaru boxer 4 people get Stockholm syndrome over); all I
| can figure is that people are just OK driving stuff that
| drives and behaves like total shit.
| don-code wrote:
| 87 BMW here. I believe my servo is controlling the throttle
| cable itself. When the cruise control commands the vehicle to
| accelerate, the pedal physically moves.
|
| It's not my daily driver, but I would absolutely love to one
| day get another one as a project car - one that's not in such
| good condition that I'd feel bad removing the engine - and
| drop an electric motor in it. That likely _would_ become my
| daily driver. The car's incredibly well made, and a joy to
| drive.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Yep, you explained it better than I did! It's a really
| charming setup.
| InsomniacL wrote:
| I'm not knocking anyone, but i bet there were people who
| showed the same level of scepticism to a electric motor
| being attached to the throttle cable as people do today to
| electric cars
| no_wizard wrote:
| This makes me wonder what the cost is to convert a vehicle
| over to biodiesel so it can be ran on used oil.
|
| Still green, unlike gas, but restricts the surface area of
| issues related to modern cars
| mtreis86 wrote:
| Most injection systems are rated for 20% bio aka b20
| without voiding the warrantee. Bio beyond that doesn't have
| enough lubrication so you have to supplement it with a
| splash of something like 2-stroke oil. It can run for a
| long time like that without hurting the pump but
| manufacturers don't support it. Some gas stations sell b20.
| If you're talking straight veg you need a certain type of
| injection system for reliability, and even there you're
| decreasing the life of the pump. Old mechanical pumps work
| great, first gen cummins, vw 1.6, mercedes om617 machines
| can run on straight heated veg for a long time with no
| issues. Electronically controlled mechanical systems like
| the vw 1.9 tdi can run on it too but might be a bit more
| finicky about what you're injecting.
|
| Assuming you want to make your own bio you'd have to set up
| a transesterification process where you convert the trans
| fats out of the oil, that process uses lye so it needs a
| decent container and is best automated. If you're trying to
| recover the solvent, which is probably methanol, you'd need
| a still as well, and decent ventilation. Fully automated
| with raspi or arduino components is a couple grand or more,
| prefab units run something like 10k.
|
| If rather than bio you're talking straight grease, it is
| cheaper to clean but more expensive to set up the car.
| You'd need a second fuel tank, preferably heated depending
| on climate, some solenoid valves, and a heated fuel filter.
| And a pile of hoses and wires to connect it all. Maybe a
| grand or so to set it up depending on driving conditions,
| kits run 1-2, some are better designed than others.
|
| Either way you'd also want some big drums for holding tanks
| at home where you can let the fluid layers separate and a
| pump to move them around. Most car washes give away
| polyethylene 50gal barrels.
|
| Most expensive thing in my opinion, is your time and the
| cost of the oil. You can get something like 5-50gal per
| week per restaurant, tho most overuse the oil. Best places
| don't cook meats in there at all. Chain and large
| restaurants want a schedule. Cost of the oil varies, used
| to be paid to take it, somewhere around 2010 that inverted
| and now you pay for the oil.
| ddingus wrote:
| Right there myself.
|
| One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately
| unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive.
|
| Front wheel can remain gas with transmission. Add more
| generating current capacity, and have that dumped into the
| rear drive system batteries.
|
| With my current car, the V6 gets very good economy at speed,
| and poor economy in town or in traffic.
|
| An assist from the rear can tackle the poor economy cases
| nicely, leaving the rest to the gas engine.
|
| Depending on battery capacity, I suppose it could do most in
| town driving at say 40 and below.
| Gh0stRAT wrote:
| This is exactly how Toyota's AWD works in the Sienna these
| days.
|
| It gets 35mpg city and highway, 1mpg less than the front
| wheel drive Sienna (which, to be fair, is also a hybrid)
| ddingus wrote:
| Good to know. Does it have EV only range, or just assist?
| op00to wrote:
| I love older cars and drove an early 80s Volvo until 2010 or
| so, but I also love side impact airbags, antilock brakes, and
| a car that mostly just "works".
| Loughla wrote:
| When I was younger I loved having an 84 Chevy Scottsdale.
| It was a cool looking truck and was easy to work on. I used
| to love getting under the hood to chase down problems and
| find solutions.
|
| Now my knees hurt when it's cold outside, so crawling
| around on the ground to fix the fucking u-joint AGAIN isn't
| that fun, and I also like knowing that my children might
| survive if we get in a crash; something that's genuinely up
| for question in old vehicles.
|
| I would pay a premium for a new car without an
| "infotainment" system, cameras (except backup camera), gps,
| or any form of touchscreen.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I was really hoping to see am EV startup go after the
| niche of barebones vehicles. I would absolutely have an
| EV if it was a safe chassis with good range, a powerful
| enough motor, and none of the infotainment bells and
| whistles.
|
| I want to be able to diagnose my car if it has issues,
| but I _don 't_ want a system complex enough that it
| requires over the air updates.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I do have one newer Toyota Tacoma for the purpose of "just
| working" and it does a great job of fulfilling that role,
| but includes a host of features and such that I really have
| no interest in. But if you have project cars, you really
| just need a very stable "normal" vehicle for day to day.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| For Volvo, I know that the 850s were the first to have
| airbags built into the seats for side impact, and I think
| they had anti lock brakes in those as well.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| What does any of that have to do with a car being electric?
| sellmesoap wrote:
| Let's find a list of electric cars without some form of
| network connection!
| IshKebab wrote:
| Found it:
| Huppie wrote:
| You jest, but I have one: It's an Opel Ampera-E (in the
| states that's a Chevy Bolt), it's a 2018 model with all
| the connected features but first it was disconnected from
| OnStar with Opel being sold to PSA and later it was fully
| disconnected because it uses a 3G modem for communication
| but the 3G network was switched off (in most of Europe
| anyway...)
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Coda EV
|
| Rav 4 EV
|
| Nissan Leaf
|
| Fiat 500e
|
| Smart Fortwo electric drive
|
| ...
|
| There's probably a dozen or so first-generation (well for
| this century) electric vehicles that are just regular
| cars that happen to have an electric power plant.
|
| The upside is that you can buy them used, for a couple
| grand. The downside is that they were manufactured with a
| 100 mile range, and your lucky if you can find one that
| still retains half that.
|
| If aftermarket batteries become common, they'd be perfect
| around-town vehicles.
| earleybird wrote:
| I'm currently contemplating upgrading my 2013 Leaf
| battery to a 62Kwh (and much longer range). It's a
| substantial cost but that would extend the cars life
| another 15 years. (un)Fortunately I've taken decent care
| of the original 24Kwh which is at 80.6 SoH after 11
| years. Its use case is daily commuter under 45 miles -
| that's over 11k miles/year (or 18k km/year). At 2% loss
| on the SoH, that's another 5 years before it hit's 70%
| and has a noticeable drop in range.
| sellmesoap wrote:
| I once saw a business proposing at a town hall near me
| that they would open a used ev/hybrid lot, the town was
| very reserved about approving the business and in the end
| it fell through. I love cars and tinkering with them, in
| my experience you can get a lot of miles out of an old
| car, newer technology can be daunting for old wrenches.
| I'm somewhere in between with my technical background.
| The idea of a 'kill switch' in a car is disconcerting for
| me, but this list gives me hope! Thanks!
| lostlogin wrote:
| Pretty sure my 2018 Leaf doesn't.
| everdrive wrote:
| Not sure when this will end, but through 2024 the S and
| SV models (ie, the two lowest trims) for all Nissans do
| not have network connectivity. This is one the reasons I
| bought a 2024 Nissan Frontier over some other vehicle.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Electric cars are essentially black boxes. When you take it
| apart, you have largely no idea what any of the chips do,
| even if you chase down what they're connected to. Is this the
| infotainment system or is it the infotainment system and a
| data gathering system that sends all my data off seas?
| There's no way to know. Old cars don't have that problem.
| Here's an engine, here's a gearbox, add a radio if you'd
| like, but by and large it's possible to grok what's in your
| car. With newer vehicles in general, and electric cars
| especially, it's near impossible to tell.
| josephcsible wrote:
| But that's not a gas vs. electric distinction, but rather
| an old vs. new one. Modern ICE cars have all of those
| problems too.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Yes but the point is, this technology is a blocker for
| people who might otherwise be interested in an electric
| powertrain vehicle.
|
| If you want an old car without all this crap, you can get
| one. But it pretty much has to be an ICE.
| bluGill wrote:
| You can convert any ice car to an ev. I takes time but is
| straight forward
| asteroidburger wrote:
| For various definitions of "you." That's far beyond the
| reach of the average consumer.
| snozolli wrote:
| So pay someone to do it for you. The free market has a
| solution.
|
| It's odd how anti-hack _Hacker_ News has become.
| jmb99 wrote:
| Time, money, and lots of knowledge and skill. Actually,
| lots of time and money too.
|
| It's really not a practical thing for at least 99% of the
| population. Probably more like 4 or 5 nines.
| djbusby wrote:
| Bild your own electric in an old style body? Fun, if
| nothing else.
| nine_k wrote:
| Also time and expense.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Probably not a good idea as the battery weight wouldn't
| have been figured into the original chassis/brakes
| design.
| codingdave wrote:
| Right, you need to do that engineering yourself. And ICE
| engines are heavy, so it typically is reasonable to work
| out as the lighter engine compensates for the battery
| weight. It is a design task, not a project killer.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| If modern EVs are anything to go by, the battery weight
| will be substantially more than the weight of an ICE
| engine plus gearbox etc. But yes, it'd be for the
| hobbyist to figure out the details and whether it is safe
| enough to drive.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| The EV version of the Hyundai Ioniq is only about 60 kg
| heavier than the hybrid version and at about 1 500 kg is
| not much over the average for cars of its class.
|
| EVs really are not a great deal heavier than the ICE
| versions of the same or similar vehicles.
|
| The Jaguar I-Pace EV is lighter than some variants of the
| F-Pace ICE.
| lawaaiig wrote:
| Hyundai offers an EV version of the Casper: it's 1335kg
| vs 985kg for the petrol variant. Surely that's a great
| deal heavier? The Aygo finds an all-electric competitor
| in the Renault Zoe whose battery pack alone weighs 300kg,
| a hefty increase compared to the 70kg engine of the aygo.
| Volkswagen's up! comes in at 929kg; the e-up! registers
| at 1229kg.
|
| Regarding the I-pace vs the F-pace I was unable to find
| more than a single version with a greater weight than the
| I-pace, though I admit I haven't analyzed the specs of
| all 108 editions. That single example weighing more was,
| of course, a hybrid.
|
| EV versions are, primarily due to the weight of their
| battery packs, significantly heavier than their ICE
| counterparts and that's fine.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I'm honestly amazed there are not more conversion kits.
| Pull the IC powertrain and gas tank, replace with battery
| and electric motor. It's obviously way harder than it
| seems or I think a lot of folks would be doing it.
| xp84 wrote:
| They actually even make cars exactly like that. They're
| pretty compromised cars though. An E-Golf for instance is
| just what it sounds like: they took the existing Golf and
| made it an EV.
| DennisP wrote:
| I think the main issue is that it takes a lot of
| engineering from the ground up to make an electric car
| with good range and performance. Maybe if batteries get
| significantly better, then conversions will get more
| popular.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > this technology is a blocker for people who might
| otherwise be interested in an electric powertrain
| vehicle.
|
| This surely isn't a large group.
| ddingus wrote:
| Maybe in a decade or two, your assertion will evaluate
| closer to true.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| I think legacy auto did a good job promoting this tho
| jsight wrote:
| Yeah, its the same stuff that I've been told for decades
| now. TBH, it is probably less true with a lot of EVs than
| it was with the gas cars. ECUs are pretty strict and
| sometimes hard to hack.
|
| Meanwhile, third party motor controllers for Tesla motors
| exist, and the batteries aren't exactly magic.
|
| There's really nothing about electric drivetrains that
| makes anything vastly more locked down.
| p1necone wrote:
| Yeah if the world went in the direction that prepper
| types seem to get wet dreams about petrol ICE cars would
| only be usable for a year or so - petrol has a shelf
| life, and you ain't running your own refinery.
|
| A lot of diesels can run off of any vaguely fuel-like
| liquid you decide to put in them, so I'm sure
| sufficiently knowledgable people would keep those
| running, machining parts for them etc.
|
| But electric vehicles are _by far_ simpler than both of
| those, and generating electricity is easier than
| producing fuel you can shove in a diesel engine.
| snozolli wrote:
| _petrol ICE cars would only be usable for a year or so_
|
| The Internet really overstates this. Fuel injected
| systems are sealed. Carbureted systems are open to
| outside air, so the fuel is constantly evaporating,
| leaving residue behind, and absorbing moisture from the
| atmosphere.
|
| Gasoline in a sealed container remains usable for far
| longer than people on the Internet say it will.
|
| Anyway, the final state of an apocalypse car would be
| running on wood gas. North Korea runs some or all of
| their military trucks on it (this may have changed as
| they've increased relations with Russia). An episode of
| Car Talk explained how it was used by German civilians
| during WWII:
|
| https://www.cartalk.com/radio/show/1201-20-miles-wood-
| chip
| twobitshifter wrote:
| You can make an ICE run on wood gas which is arguably
| more apocalypse proof than electric.
| 6SixTy wrote:
| Problem with gathering data off cars is that it's really
| not that effective vs your phone. A car realistically just
| sits around doing nothing 80% of the time, while a phone is
| with you 24/7, likely powered 24/7, and already has
| telemetry mechanisms built in. An old car with someone
| using a phone probably still collects the same data as you
| assert.
|
| And an EV without smarts is legitimately just a golf cart.
| kelnos wrote:
| In theory I can disable most if not all of the telemetry
| coming out of my phone, though. I can also choose to
| leave my phone at home, knowing that it's likely there's
| still _something_ on it that 's collecting data on my
| movements, even if I've been careful about disabling and
| uninstalling things.
|
| But the car is largely a black box when it comes to its
| electronics, and if I need to drive the car somewhere, I
| can't leave the black boxes at home; they come with me
| wherever I go.
|
| > _And an EV without smarts is legitimately just a golf
| cart._
|
| Sounds fine to me.
| brailsafe wrote:
| > A car realistically just sits around doing nothing 80%
| of the time
|
| A bit besides the point, but isn't it wild how inherently
| wasteful personal cars are? Every time the thought
| crosses my mind to get another one, if I don't stop at
| the cost, I stop at the fact that I'll have this giant
| chunk of metal sitting idle on the street or somewhere
| else nearly all the time. It'd be useful in an extreme
| minority of cases (for me), but I/we pay for it all the
| time by allocating quite a lot of space and money to
| them. The tires, the insurance, taxes, fuel, charging
| stations, driveways, parking garages, natural resources,
| air quality, ambient noise, senseless deaths, it's crazy.
| Granted, some aren't a result of idle existence, but
| c'mon.
|
| Renting an arbitrary car periodically ends up being the
| most tolerable option. A small temporary expense when
| it's really needed or desired, and it's enough to remind
| me of the good and bad bits.
| jfim wrote:
| Depends where you live, and how much of a hassle it is to
| get a rental car.
|
| If you live somewhere with decent public transportation
| and good car sharing infrastructure (eg. walk to a nearby
| car share and unlock the doors with an app or a card vs
| Uber to Hertz and wait for an hour to sign paperwork),
| then yes that's a viable option. For many places in the
| US and Canada, that's not viable unfortunately.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Selfdriving taxis solves much of the 98% unused car
| problem.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| They also create problems in terms of extra journeys as a
| private car will go from A to B, whereas a taxi goes from
| C to A to B to C.
|
| It's quite amusing as people try to come up with more
| efficient use of cars and typically end up reinventing
| public transport (e.g. buses, trains etc).
| _huayra_ wrote:
| Bro just platoon the autonomous taxis into a convoy, give
| them separated lanes, and get rid of the rubber wheels
| and add steel wheels and steel lane guides for maximum
| efficiency. It's obviously new and revolutionary!
| DennisP wrote:
| Those extra journeys can be minimized with decent routing
| software. Even if it's as simple as ending up at B, then
| going directly to the nearest customer waiting for a
| ride.
|
| And fwiw, if Tesla gets their robotaxi stuff working,
| their 22-passenger "robovan" is basically a bus anyway,
| just without a driver.
| jaredhallen wrote:
| Sounds like maybe you don't need a car. That's good for
| you, and I truly mean that. But that doesn't mean it's
| the case for everyone. It's a big, diverse world out
| there.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Um the fact that some people in some (less developed?)
| places need cars is not an argument against cars being
| wasteful...
| rglullis wrote:
| Unless your idea of "diverse world" is confined to
| (suburban) North America, the need to own a car is the
| _exception_ , not the rule.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Rural southern England here. Public transport is non
| existant where I live. You need a car if you want a life.
|
| I lost my driving license for medical reasons and have
| spent two years without driving. I am really conscious of
| what a car means in terms of having a social life,
| working, etc. If I was younger, I would have had to
| relocate
| rglullis wrote:
| Tell that to the Amish.
|
| Car dependency is something that we've learned, not the
| natural state of things.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Car dependency is something that we've learned, not the
| natural state of things.
|
| Yes, it is not the natural state of things but for many
| people it is the actual state of things. I absolutely
| hate the fact that I live in a car focussed society but
| that is where I do actually live. And because of my
| investment in my house and garden I don't want to move
|
| > Tell that to the Amish.
|
| I had to count to 10 before responding here.
|
| Perhaps you didn't notice the bit where I said I have
| spent two years without a car. It is something I have
| thought about a LOT. And have been impacted by. I don't
| have a convenient Amish community nearby to help me put
| up barns in my backyard, or even to lend me a horse to
| ride to the local B&Q when I need to buy a new tool of
| some sort. I deeply wish there was better public
| transport - I am not a petrolhead - but there isn't and
| won't be for the foreseeable future.
| icehawk wrote:
| None of what you said here makes sense in the context of
| what you replied to.
|
| > _Tell that to the Amish._
|
| The Amish have large populations in the northeast US, not
| rural southern England.
|
| > _Car dependency is something that we 've learned, not
| the natural state of things._
|
| What does this have to do with the fact someone was
| unable to drive due to medical reasons and learned first-
| hand how much society was set up to need a car?
| brewtide wrote:
| Internet dependency is something we've learned, not the
| natural state of things.
|
| So, try to go about your existence without Internet of
| any sort and please report back at any difficulties it
| may cause for you.
| rglullis wrote:
| This is not about _usage_. I am not saying we should live
| without cars. I am saying that there is a very bad
| systemic issue if people simply _can not live without
| owning a car_.
|
| If you want to make a comparison with utilities: The fact
| that people in Flint are getting bottled water delivered
| from distant cities (and the fact that some people prefer
| to drink bottled water anyway) _does not mean that this
| is not a serious crisis_.
|
| I am not saying "other people can live without cars, so
| just suck it up". I am saying "if you are living in a
| place where you can not function without a car, this is a
| serious issue and you _should be getting the pitchforks
| to hunt down the responsible authorities that brought
| this to you_. "
| samatman wrote:
| The Flint water crisis has been over for a very long
| time.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I think a modern life is better than farming with draft
| animals and handiwork. Especially if I were a woman.
| bbradley406 wrote:
| The Amish ride in horse-drawn buggies and hire private
| car drivers for longer trips.
|
| I'd rather not go back to the days of horses as the
| primary means of transportation though.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| That's not true. Most of the world (by land area) exists
| outside cities, and outside a city you will usually need
| to own a car.
| rglullis wrote:
| 80+% of people live in urban areas.
| ddingus wrote:
| That depends doesn't it?
|
| I keep my cars for a long time. 200k miles is the usual,
| and that has held true buying used a little ways north of
| 100k miles already on the board.
|
| If we designed for very long car life, the waste equation
| would look different.
|
| Toyota does, and there are a small number of people
| planning on half a million miles. Recently there is
| evidence Toyota is either struggling on this metric.
| Quality problems or deliberate design intent change?
| _huayra_ wrote:
| > Recently there is evidence Toyota is either struggling
| on this metric. Quality problems or deliberate design
| intent change?
|
| I'm hoping they fix this. There's almost no other reason
| to buy a Toyota other than this reliability reputation.
|
| It seems like the way to go now is a naturally-aspirated
| Subaru, which I ended up after all the Toyota dealers
| near me treated me like a chump (which apparently is
| common; Toyota doesn't have as much "say" over their
| dealers as other similar companies afaik). Subies have
| basically been iterations on the same engine for a decade
| (the FB series), and the brand cannot afford to do much
| goofy R&D. They're also still dealing with the head
| gasket reputation despite that being >10 years old at
| this point (almost 20).
| ddingus wrote:
| Yeah, a friend has a Suburu and we just had this same
| chat.
|
| My most recent buy was a golden era Toyota and the
| difference is notable when I look at current models.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Honda is similar without the Toyota attitude. I'd never
| buy a Toyota, ever.
|
| All of the newer safety doo-dads are less reliable. Where
| I live, the road salt effectively caps effective lifespan
| of a car to 180-220k miles. The exhaust and suspension
| maintenance started to approach or exceed the cars value.
| ddingus wrote:
| I recently did a Toyota to Honda and back to Toyota
| cycle.
|
| I liked the overall performance of the Honda. Little
| things like slightly more aggressive gear ratios,
| steering and such were superior on the Honda. Economy was
| almost a push, but the edge goes to Toyota.
|
| The Honda got my attention for service and repair more
| than the Toyota cars have. And Honda had the advantage
| overall. My Toyota was older than the Honda, both similar
| mileage, but the Honda failed earlier. Transmission. :(
|
| I came back to Toyota, but wanting some of the creature
| comforts offered by Honda, I chose Camry this time.
| Excellent car. It's a serious, understated, very
| unassuming vehicle. It performs, feels better than a
| Corolla did, and still lacks the subtle things like gear
| ratios that are a bit more fun.
|
| I live where one can put a half mil on a car, if it's up
| for it. Damn near did that on a Ford Expedition 2000's
| era vehicle. Guzzled gas, but man! I loved that one for a
| ton of reasons. Being an active family at the time, the
| Expy made sense.
|
| For me having the thing just go when I do the maintenance
| properly matters more than the other aspects do. So,
| Toyota it is!
|
| *I buy used, 10 to 20 years back, moderate to low mile
| cars, under $5k. No new vehicles for me. They simply do
| not make sense.
|
| Now, current Toyota might be a turn-off for me too. The
| quality issues playing out right now seem worrisome. I
| hope they get past that.
|
| I'm driving 2000 era vehicles because that was the sweet
| spot for people like me who will do their own work a
| majority of the time. I enjoy that, and I know it's done
| right. It's gone south a few times with shops and I
| really hate having to navigate that BS.
|
| 2000 to 2010, Toyota has me, but Honda is damn close.
|
| So tell me about the Attitude please. Super curious about
| that. What's the big turn-off? And are you sensing a
| newer thing, or is this long term, basic?
|
| No judgement or battle here. Just genuine curiosity.
| ddingus wrote:
| On a separate topic, is there anything to be done about
| the salt?
|
| I feel for people living where they do that. I like long
| term car ownership and that seems like a curse right out
| the gate!
|
| Can the car be treated, washed? Hmmm, our move to
| negative ground makes the salt worse. Positive ground
| cars would help a lot with corrosion, but we don't make
| those anymore. I never learned why that is.
| dsign wrote:
| I've been of a similar opinion for many years. I have
| public transport and my office commute is about two hours
| and half in each direction, but I only need to go to the
| office once per week, so it's somehow acceptable.
|
| But I'm getting old. I've decided I want to use my
| remaining years of any strength to do more hiking,
| kayaking and camping, and for that I need a car every
| weekend. Rentals would be slightly more expensive than
| owning a second hand one. But I do wish car ownership
| were cheaper and more painless.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > likely powered 24/7,
|
| This is a weird thing to call out. I'd suggest a car is
| powered as much as a phone. I'm trying to decide for
| people that have a car and a phone which is more
| infuriating to not have power.
| 6SixTy wrote:
| Kill switches across the battery aren't terribly uncommon
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's your retort? Do you have numbers of them being
| anything more than a rounding error? More and more cars
| need something reset when the battery is disconnected. I
| can only assume that this will become even more prevalent
| as a "security feature". I had after market head unit
| that used that as an anti-theft deterrent.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| On the other hand, cars are much less limited in terms of
| sensor size (allowing you to determine location and
| acceleration more precisely, for example), power and
| permissions. In theory, root permission on your phone
| would be better, but a normal app won't have this amount
| of far-reaching permissions, but the manufacturerers have
| full control over hardware and software on your car.
| ddingus wrote:
| To me, that makes it _their_ car.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > And an EV without smarts is legitimately just a golf
| cart.
|
| Not really no.
|
| There's a gulf of difference between a car and a golf
| buggy.
|
| And we can prove that by turning your argument the other
| way and saying: if that were true then ICE vehicles would
| just be petrol-powered golf carts.
|
| Clearly that isn't even a remotely accurate way of
| describing your average car
| BigGreenJorts wrote:
| I mean, besides shape and speed, what is the difference
| that most people are concerned about. I wasn't aware that
| golf carts are all electric. I just thought of a golf
| cart as a car used specifically to traverse golf courses
| and resorts.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Shape, speed, comfort (better seating), body work,
| windscreen, lights, gears, radio, air conditioning... I
| could go on
|
| If people just wanted to drive around in vehicles that
| were equivalent to golf carts then everyone would own a
| quad bike instead of a car.
|
| Cars have been around for more than a hundreds years so
| it's astonishing to me that some people cannot imagine
| what a car would look like without the "smart" features
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| And luddites been criticising cara for being too modern
| for hundreds of years too.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The Luddites haven't been criticizing cars for anything,
| given how they came and went 50 years before a first
| proper car was built.
|
| And, if anything, the Luddites were not anti-technology,
| they were _anti-being fucked over by capitalists_. The
| problem they rose up against wasn 't the automatic looms,
| it was the way they were deployed - to replace skilled
| workers instead of augmenting them, depressing salaries
| and eliminating jobs across the industry. The Luddites
| weren't fighting progress, they were fighting to keep
| themselves and their descendants from destitution.
|
| Alas, since technology was involved and technology is
| magic, the misconception about the Luddites has spread
| wide and persists to date, conveniently distracting
| everyone from what the actual problem was. Compare with
| everyone today whining about "tech bros" and the supposed
| folly of "solving social problems with technology", which
| is both wrong and entirely missing the real problem,
| _which is the same as the ones Luddites fought and lost
| to_.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Yup, the parallel is the dream of a lot of the AI
| companies "Hey look, this LLM can maybe come in and do
| 80% of the work, so maybe you don't need 80% of your
| staff? Certainly you don't need the most expensive
| members".
|
| That's effectively the scenario that Luddites found
| themselves in. Looms came in and decimated previously
| well paying jobs and the owners of the looms basically
| told the skilled workers to pound sand.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The luddites were smart.
|
| I listen to the dev guys at work gush about how they are
| like 40% productive with LLMs, and look at their budget
| asks. Hmm.
| samatman wrote:
| Calling someone a Luddite doesn't mean you're saying
| they're a textile worker organized by Ned Ludd.
|
| So it doesn't matter what the historic Luddites were or
| were not, because it's not a statement about them at all.
|
| You know this perfectly well, and are merely pretending
| to misunderstand what's meant.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > I wasn't aware that golf carts are all electric.
|
| They aren't. Many have gasoline engines.
|
| But "glorified golf cart" was a common dismissal of early
| (generally pre-Tesla) EV efforts.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Not necessarily. Cars are a great proxy for human
| behavior.
|
| Long term, cars will be leased based on driving behavior,
| and more critically, will be taxed based in driving
| distance and style.
| quailfarmer wrote:
| They're not black boxes, you're just not an electrical
| engineer. They're actually way simpler than ICE in a bunch
| of ways that really improve reliability. We just need to
| develop a collective understanding of how electric
| drivetrains work, the kind of understanding that we had
| developed in previous generations for ICE cars
| wrycoder wrote:
| LOL, you should give it a try IRL:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41970406
| quailfarmer wrote:
| Yeah I read that thread, it sounds like great progress!
| Really makes me think about the hardware I put out into
| the world professionally, and if I could realistically
| have reversed engineered it with no prior knowledge.
|
| Cryptography is probably the real game changer here,
| secure boot, attestation, message authentication. Can't
| exactly blame automakers for wanting those features,
| given the stakes, but that would make reverse engineering
| fairly impossible.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is a funny comment because that's almost exactly
| what I have a degree in. The point here isn't the engine
| though, even though those are also a separate beast, but
| rather that all of these vehicles are packed to the brim
| with a bunch of chips with internet access and you have
| no idea what's really running on them. With electric cars
| we're seeing even more of this than with ICEs.
| quailfarmer wrote:
| Sorry, a quip in bad faith. Collectively, _we_ (would-be
| car maintenance people) are not well enough versed in how
| these types of systems are designed. This is a collective
| failure, lack of documentation.
| glitchc wrote:
| Unless you have the complete source code available to
| you, this is a patently false statement.
| ddingus wrote:
| Yes, reverse engineering is labor intensive.
|
| Expensive too. Your test harness is likely the car!
| stavros wrote:
| Cut the antenna on the modem?
| PopePompus wrote:
| I think the antenna(s) is in the little shark's fin on
| the car's roof. Could a Faraday cage be made to cover
| that?
| stavros wrote:
| I'm fairly sure that yes, though you could also cut the
| cable. Access might be tricky.
| wrycoder wrote:
| The average electric car is a nightmare kludge.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41970406
| DennisP wrote:
| That's not "the average electric car," it's just a Leaf. It
| doesn't necessarily imply anything about a modern Tesla,
| Lucid, or BYD.
| rcpt wrote:
| > a kill switch
|
| The funny thing is that's what cars do to other people because
| we don't have enough monitoring.
|
| My e-bike is limited to 20 because "safety". Your car should be
| to.
| salawat wrote:
| Your e-bike shouldn't be limited. You should get on that.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Your e-bike shouldn't be limited. You should get on that.
|
| Absolutely. It's the first thing we fix on our 2-wheel
| transpos.
| rcpt wrote:
| You're right. Because my e-bike is of negligible danger to
| others.
|
| But cars kill tens of thousands every year. Speed limits
| and red lights being on the honor system isn't working.
| Luckily technology, like the little GPS tracker in the
| article, can fix it.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Most things that transfer power from individuals to
| future governments is a clear no from me.
|
| I am happy with our current government.
|
| But reading history I have realized that the scariest
| thing that is is powerful governments.
|
| Honor and trust work extremely well: anyone of us can
| create enormous caos if we want to but most of us don't
| so it doesn't happen.
| rcpt wrote:
| I don't like that my kids can no longer cross the street
| we live on because people have stopped obeying traffic
| lights and cops no longer enforce the law. The honor
| system isn't working and people are dying because of it.
|
| Now what are your specific fears about speed limiters on
| cars?
| pdonis wrote:
| _> I don 't like that my kids can no longer cross the
| street we live on because people have stopped obeying
| traffic lights and cops no longer enforce the law._
|
| The best solution to living in a place with bad people in
| it, if you can't get them to leave, is to move. There are
| plenty of places to live where people do obey traffic
| laws and cops do enforce the law.
|
| What I don't like is people trying to punish me, a law-
| abiding responsible adult, for the misdeeds of others who
| are not.
| card_zero wrote:
| How about non-specific fears about limiter devices
| generally, such as chains.
| justinclift wrote:
| Pity about the downsides of the technologies you mention
| though. :(
| rcpt wrote:
| What downside?
|
| You're not supposed to run red lights or exceed the speed
| limit. This should be enforced electronically. The
| machines are unbiased and more accurate than cops.
| Cheaper too.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> You 're not supposed to run red lights_
|
| Even if it's an empty intersection and I can clearly see
| that there is no traffic coming, and the stupid light is
| staying red for way too long simply because the local
| government can't be bothered to put in a smarter one?
|
| _> or exceed the speed limit._
|
| Even if it's an empty limited access highway and the
| speed limit is set too low because whatever government
| runs the road can't be bothered to update it to reflect
| the current circumstances?
|
| Sure, if a cop catches me (or a monitoring camera does)
| doing these things, I get a ticket and have to pay a
| fine. But that just reinforces the point that traffic
| laws are way more about revenue for municipalities than
| they are about actual safety. If they were about actual
| safety, then I wouldn't get a ticket for violating the
| letter of a traffic law when there was negligible risk of
| actual harm.
|
| You seem to believe that just because some people put a
| law in place, it must be the best possible tradeoff among
| various competing factors. All human history shows that
| such a belief is false.
| chgs wrote:
| There's a big difference between being punished
| appropriately for doing something, and being able to
| present your mitigating circumstances, and being
| prevented from doing something.
|
| By all means fine me for going through the red light,
| then allow me to explain to the judge the mitigating
| reasons (carrying a heart attack patient etc)
| SoftTalker wrote:
| An e-bike going 40mph (or even slower) can easily kill
| you or someone else.
| matsemann wrote:
| A car hitting a pedestrian at 30 mph is 80 % chance of
| death. At 20 mph the chance is only 20 %.
|
| So the outrage and over-reactive legislation put on
| electric bicycles or electric scooters is quite insane in
| comparison. Max 15 mph on an electric bike, no limits on
| a car in the city..
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Speed limits and red lights being on the honor system
| isn 't working._
|
| Speak for yourself. I don't need a nanny monitor in my
| car to drive safely. Nor do the vast majority of drivers.
| There are about 150 _billion_ cars in the world. Only a
| very tiny fraction of them kill people. And punishing all
| the people who do drive responsibly because of the
| mistakes of the tiny fraction of drivers who don 't is
| getting things backwards. The consequences should be on
| the people who _do_ kill others with their cars, not on
| the people who don 't.
| xnx wrote:
| > There are about 150 billion cars in the world.
|
| This is wrong by ~100x.
|
| "There are about 1.475 billion vehicles on Earth in
| 2024.": https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2021/06/how-many-
| cars-are-the...
| frenchy wrote:
| Electric motorized bicycles exist, they're just called
| motorcycles or mopeds. The whole point of an e-bike is the
| limiter, and size restrictions.
| wutwutwat wrote:
| One requires a licensed operator. One doesn't. One requires
| liability insurance. One doesn't.
|
| Complain about power wheels, because you're comparing two
| things that have nothing to do with each other.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| Your ebike is limited because it can legally be operated by
| anybody (including a child) without needing any kind of
| license. If you want to legally operate a faster electric
| two-wheeled vehicle, take the test to get a motorbike
| license.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Is that why?
|
| I get up to multiples of that on a push bike every day. The
| kids that rip past me do too.
| rcpt wrote:
| It's not why. That's just a talking point that gets
| repeated all too much. In most places you don't need a
| license to operate a boat and they go as fast as you can
| afford.
|
| Despite what the other poster is saying, there's no law
| of physics that says speed can only be unlocked by
| licensing.
| Kerb_ wrote:
| I dunno about "most places". I definitely had to get a
| boating license, though for some reason the law had an
| exception for people born before 1978. A cursory search
| show most states have some sort of legislation regarding
| it. Many other countries have different legislation based
| on engine horsepower and age, but it's definitely
| regulated to some degree most places I've seen. I don't
| suppose you'd be able to paddle hard enough to cause
| serious damage
| ddingus wrote:
| Oregon resolves that by regulating -on motor" only speeds
| to something a little under 30 and less than a kilowatt.
|
| Everything else is simply a pedal assisted ride.
|
| And a vehicle needs to offer pedal power to qualify for
| unlicensed use as an e-bike. Otherwise, it becomes a
| motorcycle and requires registration,
| ddingus wrote:
| I used to as a kid myself. The norms were generally
| slower overall, limited by muscle fatigue mostly.
| Gee101 wrote:
| I'm sure there will be kits to swap the ice engine to
| eletricfor most popular cars eventually. Then you will have
| more control about what features is added.
| akira2501 wrote:
| I've seen people do this but I think it's unlikely. The
| weight on an ICE car is slung much differently from an EV and
| placing a battery bank where your engine used to be is not a
| great idea.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I may be daft but it seems like a great idea. Same weight
| and everything. In France you get a decent subsidy if you
| convert your ICE to EV.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Your engine is part of your crumple zone. You do not want
| your battery to be. Same reason the fuel tank is usually
| in the back of the vehicle.
| djaychela wrote:
| Engines do not crumple, and a proper electric conversion
| will retain appropriate space.
|
| Fuel tanks are not "in the back" for good (see: ford
| pinto) reasons.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Fuel tanks are in the back for solid reasons. But they
| are placed before the second wheel axis. In case of crash
| that area will protect the tank. Pinto had it after the
| rear tires, so totally unprotected.
|
| A big battery in the place of the motor will turn you
| into a BBQ in case of collision because fire will fall
| directly towards the driver. Lithium batteries start
| burning when hit with some force, and can't be stopped
| once they start burning.
| KumaBear wrote:
| That whole system looks like what we install on police patrol
| cars. Left switch allows you to keep car running even when keys
| are removed (but you can't drive it will kill the ignition).
|
| GPS is for obvious reasons tracking. But these don't look like
| patrol cars so it's out of my wheel house.
| Simran-B wrote:
| > Most people would have probably driven around for years with
| a foreign GPS tracker.
|
| So basically everyone with a smartphone? I'm not sure if it's
| really worse if the car has its own GPS and cell connectivity.
| How many people turn off their phone or leave it at home? And
| you can buy other people's location data, so...
| gruez wrote:
| You can turn off your phone or go into airplane mode. Can you
| do that with your car? Even if most people don't use that
| option on a daily basis, doesn't mean it's fine.
| markdown wrote:
| So you put it in airplane mode while in a car and then
| disable airplane mode when you get to your destination?
| What's the point of that?
| gruez wrote:
| >then disable airplane mode when you get to your
| destination?
|
| Why would I need to disable it? If you're not using the
| built-in navigation (which probably costs money anyways)
| and are using carplay/android auto instead, you should be
| able to leave it in airplane mode indefinitely. What
| critical functionality would I be missing out on?
| markdown wrote:
| Well... for most people... everything.
|
| It sounds like you use a dumb phone. Anyone who takes
| this stuff seriously enough to use a dumb phone will be
| buying a dumb car.
| chgs wrote:
| OP isnt talking about putting the car in airplane mode,
| but the phone.
|
| The point is that you are already tracked via your phone
| (which is likely kit in airplane mode), so there's not a
| massive gain to preventing car tracking.
| gruez wrote:
| >The point is that you are already tracked via your phone
| (which is likely kit in airplane mode), so there's not a
| massive gain to preventing car tracking.
|
| That's like arguing "you're already plastering your face
| on social media, why are you hand wringing about
| corporations/governments building a facial recognition
| database?". The difference is that the former is
| consensual/optional, whereas the latter isn't. Moreover,
| just because most people aren't exercising their privacy
| rights, doesn't mean it's okay for those rights to be
| trampled on for everyone. Most people aren't activists or
| journalists who need free speech protections, but that
| doesn't mean we can trample on the first amendment.
| Saying you don't need privacy because you have nothing to
| hide is like saying you don't need freedom of speech
| because you have nothing to say.
| karlgkk wrote:
| > So basically everyone with a smartphone
|
| Tbh considering the accuracy of modern triangulation
| technology... anyone with a cellphone, period.
| wruza wrote:
| The difference is in intent. People dislike intended tracking
| by a third party, that's it. You cellphone company, your
| google, your govt can have it. Others can not. Even when they
| can, people actively don't want that. What's wrong with it?
| clarkmoody wrote:
| Self driving + conversation monitoring => lock the doors and
| drive you to the nearest reeducation camp for uttering
| wrongspeak.
| eastern wrote:
| Media people obviously thought that kill switch meant something
| that can kill the driver and rushed to reassure the public that
| no that was not the case.
|
| They're good people at heart. Don't misunderstand them.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Last year Mozilla did a study on the privacy of modern cars.
| Every car they tested showed terrible privacy problems.
|
| _Privacy Nightmare on Wheels: Every Car Brand Reviewed by
| Mozilla_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644
|
| ( _edit_ I see I 'm not the first to link this in this thread)
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Whenever I talk about this issue with friends and family I
| bring up how that report revealed Nissan was gathering info
| on sexual activity in their cars and can sell it to third
| parties. That usually gets people to start listening.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Was Nissan actually collecting this data? All I can find is
| that the privacy policy retained the right to it (some
| lawyer probably though about what happens if they
| accidentally record you getting frisky, and put it in there
| preemptively), but no evidence if it actually happened.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Does it matter? We can split hairs over whether or not
| they are actually doing the thing they give themselves
| the rights to do, but that feels unproductive and
| disingenuous.
| brookst wrote:
| Yes it matters. Or at least it matters whether the claims
| you make are true, and there is a difference between "had
| a right to" and "did".
|
| Have I told you about my neighbor who uses a leaf blower
| nonstop from 7am until 8pm? Well, he doesn't actually, be
| he has a right to, and it's splitting hairs whether he
| actually does or not.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Ok, give me remote access to your computer. I'll send a
| contract saying I can sell what I find, but I haven't
| done it so it's cool and it shouldn't be cause for alarm.
| brookst wrote:
| It's for sure cause for alarm, but it is a different
| alarm than if you gad broken into my computer.
|
| I'm not a fan of the "they did something bad, so we might
| as well pretend they did something worse" line of
| argument. It strikes me as dishonest.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| In 2024 to assume a company is not exercising virtually
| all the rights you've given them when you agreed to their
| terms and services - especially when they stand to make a
| ton of money doing so - is wild to me.
|
| These companies do not get the benefit of the doubt. I do
| not need proof to assume they are selling us to the
| highest bidder when they explicitly outline it in their
| terms and services and have done it time and time again.
| Experience has shown us that more often than not they
| will.
|
| I also didn't say Nissan stole or broke into anything. My
| example is appropriate.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Has Nissan sold this data time and again?
|
| Or are you again presenting an assumption as fact.
|
| I think assuming a company is selling your data is a
| completely fair one. But it's also completely fair to ask
| that people don't use language that implies factual
| knowledge to represent those assumptions.
|
| If only to make your argument better you might evaluate
| your comments and see how your language is weakening it.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| At some point you're just coming off as either
| unbelievably naive or playing the steel man. We clearly
| don't see eye to eye here. My skepticism of the car
| manufacturers - especially the ones listed in this very
| damning report which includes Nissan - is warranted
| whether you agree or not. Feel free to sign on the dotted
| line. I won't be convinced to agree to that nonsense.
| myself248 wrote:
| On the other hand, do we have any means of finding out
| whether they did? It's one thing if you can say "No, they
| definitely don't, here's what's actually sent and here's
| how it's used and here's the contracts limiting what's
| gathered". Otherwise we're all just speculating.
|
| But in the absence of solid proof, I think the history of
| the last several decades of surveillance shows that it's
| completely reasonable to assume the absolute worst.
| Snowden showed that the scope of government data
| collection was far beyond even the wildest assume-the-
| worst theories floated in tech media prior to the
| revelations, and Doubleclick (wearing its Google facade)
| makes the NSA look lazy.
|
| The reason these assumptions are reasonable, is that
| there's incentive for them to be true. Someone's willing
| to pay for that data. Maybe not very much, but if it
| costs almost nothing to collect, then it works out.
|
| The way some manager sees it, Nissan would be "leaving
| money on the table" if they didn't spy on their customers
| to the absolute maximum permitted by their EULA. This
| gets brought up in every internal meeting about telemetry
| features, I can assure you. (I've been in those meetings
| for a number of automakers, though not Nissan
| specifically, the whole industry is on board. It turns
| the stomach. My voice was not heard.)
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Yeah at this point in my life I just immediately assume
| if I give a company a right to do something, they're
| going to do it. It's an assumption everyone should
| operate under.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| It's different. The leaf blower thing is something
| everyone has a right to do, and if it actually bothered
| enough people the municipality would put some
| restrictions on it regardless, and they didn't have to
| intentionally seek it out in legal scripture, and anyone
| can verify that they are using the leaf blower.
|
| With the cars, they went out of their way to get the
| right to do so, implying they want to do it, otherwise it
| would be a waste of money. Nobody can really verify
| whether they are or are not doing so, as that's
| confidential company information and it's not illegal
| (since they have to right to do so) so nobody can
| subpoena them to find out. So maybe they are doing it and
| just lying about not doing it.
| haswell wrote:
| > _Have I told you about my neighbor who uses a leaf
| blower nonstop from 7am until 8pm? Well, he doesn't
| actually, be he has a right to_
|
| While I think it's reasonable to split hairs about
| whether or not they were actually collecting the data, I
| think this is a really problematic analogy for a number
| of reasons.
|
| I think a better comparison would go something like this:
| "My neighbor told me he might record everything that
| happens in my back yard".
|
| Your neighbor having the right to run his leaf blower
| constantly isn't analogous to your neighbor directly
| claiming they might do something that impacts your
| privacy. Even if they never actually record anything,
| coming out and saying they might is more newsworthy than
| an unstated "right to be annoying" that never occurs.
|
| It's still worth distinguishing between "my neighbor said
| he might" and "my neighbor is actually doing this", but
| just the claim on its own is still worth paying attention
| to if you care about your privacy.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Yes. It comes down to intention.
|
| The charitable read is that they are notifying you of the
| possibility that the car's data collection may
| unintentionally include sexual activity. E.g. your car
| was recorded as having a rocking motion while parked.
|
| The other read is that they are intentionally collecting
| sexual activity data for nefarious purposes.
|
| The first is the lawyer drafting the release being
| overcautious. The second is a corporation being evil.
|
| I'm not in love with either, but the claim was that
| Nissan was actively collecting data about sexual
| activity, when there is no proof of that. The only thing
| there is proof of is that they put a notice in their
| terms of service.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| > The first is the lawyer drafting the release being
| overcautious. The second is a corporation being evil.
|
| How was the hypothetical overcautious lawyer able to
| independently come up with such a specific scenario,
| which would require intimate technical knowledge?
|
| I believe your are missing a third option, which is a
| synthesis of both. This is that the engineers reported
| that their sensor data could be used to collect sexual
| activity. However, in response to that, the corporation
| preferred to cover themselves legally rather than making
| any technical effort to address the risk on their
| customers' privacy.
|
| The lawyer is not being overcautious, but simply
| displaying the corporation's priorities. The corporation
| is not being evil, it is just being psychopathic.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Seems more likely that a lawyer simply made it up without
| engineering justification
| kasey_junk wrote:
| I've been in conversations many times where lawyers chose
| language about a product that the product couldn't do and
| there would be no reasonable way to do it technically.
|
| The language is usually in response to specific
| precedents or jurisdictions where surprises happened to
| someone else.
| RobRivera wrote:
| YES!!!!!
|
| there's plenty of REAL privacy matters to address than to
| invent demons and then undermine genuine issues with 'boy
| who cried wolf'!!!
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| NO!!!!!
|
| We can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time, and
| frankly I'm not going to wait to find out I got screwed.
| When it comes to privacy you have to be proactive, you
| can't claw it back.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| FYI for anyone who owns a Subaru: you can opt out of 3rd-
| party data sharing here
|
| https://www.subaru.com/support/consumer-privacy.html
|
| If you don't live in one of the states mentioned in the first
| paragraph, expect this to take a very long time. For me it
| took 6 months.
| malfist wrote:
| You can also opt out of Ford too. They default enable
| sharing with third party for features, default disable for
| sharing with data brokers like LexisNexis. It requires you
| to put in your driver pin to enable that
| Intralexical wrote:
| Uh... Can you also opt out of _first_ party data sharing?
| Or is Subaru still going to be spying you while pinky
| swearing to at least not share it with anybody else?
| cipheredStones wrote:
| > Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just
| "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver's behaviors, head or
| eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the
| vehicle". So... a kill switch.
|
| You're selectively quoting in a way that misrepresents the
| article.
|
| The post the article quotes:
|
| > "Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement
| access to a 'kill switch' that will be attached to ALL new cars
| in 2026," read several posts shared widely on Twitter and
| Facebook.
|
| The actual functionality:
|
| > In either case, if a driver is found to be impaired [by
| automated monitoring within the car], the car might employ a
| warning message, block the driver from operating the vehicle,
| or if the vehicle is already in motion, direct it to a safe
| stop or automated ride home.
|
| > None of the technologies currently in development would
| notify law enforcement of the data collected inside vehicles or
| give government agencies remote control of vehicles, according
| to Jeffrey Michael, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University's
| Center for Injury Research and Policy.
|
| The car has an automatic system which can prevent the driver
| from operating it, but no one outside the car can trigger that
| system, which is clearly what the "kill switch" posts were
| claiming.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| If it's not air gapped the company could be compelled to
| activate it remotely.
| emmelaich wrote:
| So, it is a kill switch.
|
| Just not the sort of kill switch that someone (who?) sometime
| (when?) described, and such description is one that you've
| neither quoted or given.
| cipheredStones wrote:
| You and afh1 seem to be reading both the article and my
| comment as focused on whether it's appropriate to
| characterize a device that prevents a car from starting as
| a "kill switch".
|
| I didn't say anything at all about that term in my comment,
| and while the article says it's hyperbolic, arguing about
| that term is clearly not the focus of the article.
|
| Just going to quote the whole opener here - it's about the
| claim that the law enables cops to monitor you and shut
| down your car, which is clearly false.
|
| ---------------
|
| [Headline] Posts distort infrastructure law's rule on
| impaired driving technology
|
| CLAIM: President Joe Biden signed a bill that will give law
| enforcement access to a "kill switch" that will be attached
| to ALL new cars in 2026.
|
| AP'S ASSESSMENT: False. While the bipartisan infrastructure
| bill Biden signed last year requires advanced drunk and
| impaired driving technology to become standard equipment in
| new cars, experts say that technology doesn't amount to a
| "kill switch," and nothing in the bill gives law
| enforcement access to those systems.
|
| THE FACTS: In November 2021, Biden signed the
| Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, ushering into law a
| $1 trillion bipartisan deal to maintain and upgrade the
| country's roads, bridges, ports and more.
|
| One provision in the legislation aims to prevent drunk
| driving deaths by requiring all new vehicles to soon
| include "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention
| technology" as "standard equipment."
|
| However, in the months since the law passed, some social
| media users have misrepresented the provision online,
| falsely claiming it will give police access to data
| collected by the technology or allow the government to shut
| down cars remotely.
|
| "Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement
| access to a 'kill switch' that will be attached to ALL new
| cars in 2026," read several posts shared widely on Twitter
| and Facebook.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Just going to quote the whole opener here - it's about
| the claim that the law enables cops to monitor you and
| shut down your car, which is clearly false.
|
| That's just the straw man the article is using to claim
| that it isn't a kill switch. They want the claim to be
| false so they adopt a version of the claim with a flaw in
| order to knock it down.
|
| The obvious problem being that the actual implementation
| is at least as bad. Now you have the law mandating that
| the car activate the kill switch _by itself_ , with no
| human in the loop you can even try to reason with.
|
| What happens when you're driving erratically because
| you're on some dangerous ice road and trigger a false
| positive that strands you in the wilderness? What happens
| when you're actually impaired and then turn around to
| discover a wildfire approaching your location, in which
| case "don't die in a fire" should override "don't drive
| impaired" and you should immediately evacuate, but your
| car won't let you?
|
| It's an ill-conceived and dangerous law and its critics
| are in the right. The operator should _always_ be able to
| override the computer.
| cipheredStones wrote:
| As I said in a sibling comment, the fact that there are
| real concerns about something doesn't justify ignoring
| the truth value of inflammatory claims about that thing.
|
| If one person is criticizing Big Pharma because they use
| shoddy trial methodology when they can get away with it
| and heavily market minor variations on existing drugs,
| and another person is criticizing Big Pharma because
| they're poisoning our blood with fluoride in service to
| the Illuminati, it's not appropriate to lump them
| together and say "Big Pharma's critics are in the right."
|
| (Also, I think the idea that they deliberately adopted a
| weak version of the criticism to argue against is rather
| conspiratorial - dumb unfounded nonsense gets very
| popular on the internet all the time! Valuable criticism
| that requires nuance is memetically disfavored by
| comparison!)
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > If one person is criticizing Big Pharma because they
| use shoddy trial methodology when they can get away with
| it and heavily market minor variations on existing drugs,
| and another person is criticizing Big Pharma because
| they're poisoning our blood with fluoride in service to
| the Illuminati, it's not appropriate to lump them
| together and say "Big Pharma's critics are in the right."
|
| But it's also not appropriate to lump them together and
| say "Big Pharma's critics are in the wrong."
|
| > Also, I think the idea that they deliberately adopted a
| weak version of the criticism to argue against is rather
| conspiratorial - dumb unfounded nonsense gets very
| popular on the internet all the time!
|
| It's hardly a conspiracy to suppose that media outlets
| choose which claims to fact check based on how they want
| to influence readers.
| cipheredStones wrote:
| > But it's also not appropriate to lump them together and
| say "Big Pharma's critics are in the wrong."
|
| And accordingly, I didn't ever say that this was a good
| bill or all its critics were in the wrong. A lot of
| people in this thread seem to be reading that into my
| comments, but all I did was take issue with a
| misrepresentation of an article that argued against a
| specific negative claim about the bill.
|
| Which I think is representative - it's very hard to make
| a narrow point about specific arguments without people
| assuming that you're taking a firm stance on one side or
| the other of a general issue.
| throw16180339 wrote:
| > The car has an automatic system which can prevent the
| driver from operating it, but no one outside the car can
| trigger that system, which is clearly what the "kill switch"
| posts were claiming.
|
| That assumes that the feature is implemented securely, which
| is hardly guaranteed. Would you bet a large sum that it
| wasn't exploitable? I wouldn't.
| cipheredStones wrote:
| No. But "new cars will have mandatory automated controls to
| prevent drunk driving, which may be implemented insecurely
| in a way that creates major vulnerabilities" (very
| reasonable) is not the same claim as "Joe Biden signed a
| bill that would give law enforcement access to a 'kill
| switch' that will be attached to ALL new cars" (blatantly
| false).
|
| The fact that there are real concerns about something
| doesn't justify ignoring the truth value of inflammatory
| claims about that thing.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| I think the greatest concern is that the cops don't seem
| to care about personal privacy at all. They'll do
| anything that's physically possible to do to prove guilt
| of a person, they have the Power of The State behind
| them. They're going to get access to this technology and
| they will use it to stop vehicles, it's simply a matter
| of time. Police in the US only ever get more powerful,
| more militaristic, more immune to consequences. There's
| an easily visible path from where we were before the bill
| to where the poster (incorrectly) claims we're at. Just
| because they don't currently have the power doesn't mean
| we should be taking every affordable step towards giving
| it to them.
| jsight wrote:
| Government overreach is the big thing that I'm worried about.
| All of the overreactions to adas is really heavily driving it.
| At some point, they will have to realize that the same
| attention systems used for adas could be used all of the time.
|
| Given that there are hundreds of deaths each year due to
| inattention, it'd be almost irresponsible not to look into it.
|
| But a lot of people won't like where that leads.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| What is "adas"?
| nereye wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-
| assistance_s...
| endofreach wrote:
| > Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point, and
| smartphones are just spying devices at this point.
|
| Exactly. I saw a clip of an elon musk interview where he was
| asked if tesla would ever build a smartphone. I had to chuckle
| and think to myself, they already do. It just doesn't fit in
| your pocket, has wheels and actually tries to kill you
| physically.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > Modern cars [...] and smartphones are just spying devices at
| this point.
|
| I take it that you _need_ a car (which is true for many) and
| also _need a computer_ (also true for many).
|
| What precautions do you take in computing given that you _use a
| computer_ that is _connected to the Internet_ ?
|
| The former (i.e. computer) has an unknowable supply chain with
| blobs of code that you don't vet yourself, and the latter (the
| Internet) has overtly become a surveillance system.
| valval wrote:
| I know your comment is just the traditional HN karma grab, but
| rejecting technological advancement in vehicles based on
| privacy concerns means missing out on significant improvements
| in safety, efficiency, and comfort. Would you also reject
| modern healthcare because hospitals use connected devices?
| dmichulke wrote:
| One is likely an emergency of a necessary system (body) and
| the other is not an emergency of a much less necessary system
| (car).
|
| Not sure your analogy fits.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| More Americans live without healthcare than without cars
| wruza wrote:
| What is the nature of karma grab?
| valval wrote:
| The "I'm a tech guy so I shoot my printer if it makes a
| weird noise" meme essentially.
| ddingus wrote:
| I just picked up a low mile, garage kept Toyota sedan. V6
| sedan, my favorite combo! This one has plenty of power, looks
| totally unassuming, and can get great economy when I drive
| modestly.
|
| I plan on driving it a very long time. Same reasons.
|
| It also predates the big infotainment systems. I really dislike
| the big screen and many functions turned into touch controls
| dangerous to use in motion.
|
| Finally, it is easy to service. I will do that myself as long
| as I am able.
| bluescrn wrote:
| > Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point.
|
| Complete with non-replaceable batteries.
| ajuc wrote:
| Why are kill switches in cars bad?
|
| It's a vehicle that can easily kill other people. It often
| does. It's reasonable to require drivers to be in good enough
| shape before trusting them with lives of random innocent
| people.
| zfnmxt wrote:
| I understand your position (and it's one I'm absolutely swayed
| by to a degree and sympathize with), but I can't help but think
| that you are assigning unreasonable weights to privacy vs.
| safety/convenience. (Or, perhaps more honestly, I have to
| remind myself to be reasonable about these weights in my life.)
|
| Do you think preserving your privacy in this one aspect of your
| life will have a greater net benefit to your life than driving
| a safer car (under the assumption that newer cars are safer)?
| Especially given that presumably there's still data being
| collected on you even in an old car (cameras on the road, other
| people's cars, your phone, etc).
|
| By analogy, what's the marginal benefit of not eating any food
| in packaged in plastic if your water supply is full of
| (unavoidable, for the sake of argument) microplastics? Is doing
| so worth the cost (no food for you, buddy!)?
|
| I guess this is just another round of being principled duking
| it out with pragmatism.
| ftrobro wrote:
| Privacy is a safety concern. If some government agency can
| control your car remotely, chances are that others also will
| find a way to do that.
| throw16180339 wrote:
| This is especially true if you keep a car for decades. My
| car is a 2001 and I've had it since 2008. It's possible
| that a manufacturer could provide security updates for a
| comparable period, but that seems like an extraordinary
| claim.
| chgs wrote:
| Even without the privacy aspect it's a problem. Last weekend I
| was driving home in my ICE car guzzling on those dead
| dinosaurs, and maps on my CarPlay unit went haywire, first I
| was slightly off to the east by say 50 metres, but this got
| worse and at one point I was 10 miles away.
|
| Unplugging my phone and the location snapped back to he correct
| place. Seems that in CarPlay an iPhone will believe what the
| car says about position, and when it's wrong, tough.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Since I'm going to buy a new car in the following years,
| wondering which cars don't have those? I don't mind old gas
| cars but I don't have the knowledge to tell whether the car
| contains those eSIMs.
| bbarnett wrote:
| These days, the better question is in which cars can you
| disable the esim.
|
| Some have a fuse you can pull for the modem, without
| disabling anything else. Others you can pull the antenna, and
| add a resistor instead.
| inahga wrote:
| In some disconnecting the antenna isn't enough, it just
| reduces the range of the modem. Another option is if the
| modem can be physically removed.
|
| e.g. http://sandsprite.com/blogs/index.php?uid=7&pid=462&ye
| ar=201.... I think this head unit is shared amongst
| Chrysler vehicles, so Chrysler is an option (but then
| you'll have two problems).
| chiph wrote:
| A Lexus forum member went through several attempts to
| physically disconnect from the Toyota cloud and
| ultimately had to compromise on this, as the hands-free
| Bluetooth also went through the data communications
| module and they weren't willing to give that up.
|
| The interesting part is that even though the antennas
| were disconnected, there was enough RF making it's way
| through the plastic sides of the module to give him
| 2-bars of signal strength. Wrapping it in grounded
| aluminum foil still allowed enough signal strength for
| transmission when they were very close to a cell tower.
| GPS signals were also being routed to the communications
| module over the car's network from the entertainment
| module (not sure why the entertainment module needs a GPS
| antenna or location data).
|
| Ultimately they opted-out from data collection using the
| Lexus app and will rely on legal protections - in
| addition to disconnecting the antennas.
|
| https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gx-2nd-
| gen-2010-2023/983214...
| _huayra_ wrote:
| Subarus don't precisely fit this criteria, but you can opt
| out of 3rd-party data sharing in all 50 states.
| sebstefan wrote:
| There should not be an expectation of privacy from the
| authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on
| which you need a license to drive
| telgareith wrote:
| Then leave the US.
| Lio wrote:
| Why do you think you should not have an expectation of
| privacy when driving?
|
| Do you not consider reasonable to have an expectation of
| innocence when going about your business?
| littlestymaar wrote:
| We're not talking about monitoring traffic on roads there,
| but about an embedded spying device that is enabled even when
| you're in your own garage and is also being used commercially
| to monetize your private life.
| hypeatei wrote:
| This argument doesn't really make sense. The "expectation of
| privacy" in public doesn't refer to losing all your rights
| and letting anyone peek into anything when they want to.
| Vehicles can also be used on private roads or property, so
| the privacy invading tech would need to account for that
| (which I'm sure it doesn't, and there isn't a straightforward
| solution)
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _There SHOULD NOT be an expectation of privacy from the
| authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads
| on which you need a license to drive_
|
| let's say somebody else said "There SHOULD be an expectation
| of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor
| vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to
| drive"
|
| Is there some reason I should side with you over them, or
| just your opinion? If the courts decided that there was an
| expectation of privacy on public roads, would you agitate to
| change the law so there wasn't?
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| While there is no expectation of privacy when one is out and
| about on the city streets, it generally means "you can take a
| photo of a fountain on the city square without getting every
| tourist that was caught in the photo to sign a release", not
| "you can rummage through everybody's bags"
| usrusr wrote:
| Some other good ones: there should not be an expectation of
| privacy when performing surgery. There should not be an
| expectation of privacy when performing the monopoly on the
| legal use of force.
| Someone wrote:
| > but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars
|
| All. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECall:
|
| _"eCall (an abbreviation of "emergency call") is an initiative
| by the European Union, intended to bring rapid assistance to
| motorists involved in a collision anywhere within the European
| Union. The aim is for all new cars to incorporate a system that
| automatically contacts the emergency services in the event of a
| serious accident, sending location and sensor information.
| eCall was made mandatory in all new cars approved for
| manufacture within the European Union as of April 2018."_
| aagha wrote:
| It's crazy the EU passed this and collecting someone's IP
| address or assigning them a random UUID is considered a GDPR
| violation.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| _Assuming the tech is not abused_ , it makes perfect sense
| (GDPR Art. 6(1)(d)). And, in fact, abusing the tech would
| be a GDPR violation. You might consider it foolish, but
| it's not inconsistent.
| callalex wrote:
| Quite the opposite! Since people can have faith that they
| are protected by GDPR, they can have machines that actually
| work to help them, instead of hobbling them out of fear of
| being exploited.
| moogly wrote:
| Interestingly, everyone is actually scrambling to get the
| legislation changed or a replacement for eCall that works
| over 4G/5G before 2027 because 2G/3G is or is being shut down
| all over the place. Otherwise, technically, driving these
| cars could become illegal in the EU.
| 0x3444ac53 wrote:
| I have a '98 Honda with 324K miles on it. I'm awful at
| maintenance but I've had it for ten years and it refuses to
| die.
| _heimdall wrote:
| This is a huge reason why I won't buy more modern vehicles.
|
| Safety features and fuel economy are night and day when
| comparing a 5 year old car and a 30 year old one, but between
| the privacy issues and inability to diagnose or fix a new car I
| just can't do it.
|
| I bought an 80s model truck that sat in a garage for over a
| decade and has 50k original miles on it. I'm still chasing down
| a couple gremlins in the system, but its nice to be able to
| work on it myself. Bonus that it may not be driving perfectly
| right now but its happy keep on chugging, even if a sensor is
| bad or I get an occasional code for running lean.
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| Isn't the gas mileage really really bad though?
| uoaei wrote:
| Everyone chooses their own balance of bills. Personally
| (I'm not who you're replying to) I'm happy to pay more in
| rent and utilities if it means I can ride my bicycle most
| places instead of, say, being a 10-minute drive from the
| nearest crosswalk. In the end, my emissions are probably
| much lower than someone who can't imagine leaving their
| house without their car keys even though I drive an ICE.
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| Makes sense. The other issue that is mentioned would be
| the safety features. Air bags and side impact systems are
| massive jumps forward in safety. Most people aren't
| concerned enough with privacy to trade those for it.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Safety is definitely a tricky tradeoff for me. If I
| couldn't work on the vehicle myself either way I'd have
| something newer, the combo of privacy and maintenance tip
| the scales for me (definitely an outlier though).
| uoaei wrote:
| FWIW I'm the same, definitely sketched out by the thin
| pillars and lack of side airbags though. But I absolutely
| hate the GPS and presumably-always-on front- and rear-
| facing cameras.
| _heimdall wrote:
| We don't drive very much honestly, and the cost of
| maintenance has tended to even out.
|
| Our truck probably gets around 16 or 18 around town, up to
| 20 if the conditions are right. Not great compared to a
| modern truck with a 4 cylinder turbo, but I really don't
| think I go through more than a tank of gas in a month
| (albeit a larger 20 gallon tank)
| snozolli wrote:
| _tech which was called a "kill switch". Media rushed to say
| it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to
| monitor the driver's behaviors, head or eye movements" and
| "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill
| switch._
|
| It's not a kill switch, the link you provided explains that
| it's not a kill switch, yet you still call it a kill switch.
|
| If you were paying any attention, then you _know_ that idiots
| online were portraying this as the cops being able to remotely
| disable your car at their will.
|
| In fact, the requirement is for the vehicle to pull safely to
| the side of the road when it detects an impaired driver (DUI or
| medical emergency). There is no external initiation, it's
| entirely self-contained.
|
| It's not a kill switch. It's not remotely like a kill switch.
|
| Having personally been within minutes of crashes involving a
| drunk driver who blew a stop sign and smashed into a fire
| hydrant, and another driver experiencing a health emergency who
| crashed through an intersection at 80mph in a 25mph zone, I say
| bring it on. Ignore the Rogan-sphere FUD peddlers.
| prirun wrote:
| > Anyway, I'm staying with my old gas Honda until it dies which
| is probably never with proper maintenance and eventually
| restoration.
|
| I would have stuck with my 2003 Honda Accord too, except that
| some woman, probably talking or texting on her cell, slammed
| into me while I was stopped at a light, totaling my car and
| damaging 3 others. I got $8K for my car after arguing with the
| insurance company, and paid $28K for a 3 y/o replacement.
|
| The fine for texting while driving in Kentucky is $25.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| What is the relevance of your anecdote? I'm genuinely
| confused.
| ronsor wrote:
| That other drivers determine whether or not you get a new
| car just as much (if not more than) you do.
| wslh wrote:
| I am new to the car/data show, is an eSim really installed on
| cars around the world? Or is it an Amrican thing? Thinking for
| example on Europe data regulations.
|
| If so, this is a good fit for a class action.
| sampo wrote:
| > There was a bill announced in the US for all new cars to be
| equipped with "driver impairment" tech which was called a "kill
| switch".
|
| In addition to de-banking, they can also de-car you.
| jonah wrote:
| My car came with a similar toggle switch under the dash. I
| figured out it was to fully disable the ABS system. (The previous
| owner was a fan of taking his car two track days.)
|
| I kept accidentally toggling it off with my knee, so I replaced
| it with a nice flush push button. I haven't tracked the car yet
| though.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > I now know my car is being tracked still, and that they know I
| did try out what the car's acceleration is like at full throttle.
|
| At 101hp, I am sure noisy, but not thrilling.
| ilikeatari wrote:
| So this was a gps tracker that was installed by a fleet and never
| removed. The larger issue is that most car companies in the US
| are reselling your data on newish vehicles (2016+) anyway. I am
| still amazed that this is not a larger issue.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _The larger issue is that most car companies in the US are
| reselling your data on newish vehicles (2016+) anyway._
|
| A fun read related to this: _" Privacy Nightmare on Wheels:
| Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla - Including Ford,
| Volkswagen and Toyota - Flunks Privacy Test"_
|
| https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-...
|
| Small excerpt:
|
| > _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.
| They say they can share and sell consumers' "preferences,
| characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions,
| behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes" to
| data brokers, law enforcement, and other third parties._
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why? It is quite clear that the mass populace just doesn't
| care. That's the bigger story. So many people are quite happy
| giving away data that they don't fully understand or even want
| to take time to try to understand as long as they get
| free/discounted service/fees and use the same equipment to keep
| up with the Jones. Another study should be why otherwise smart
| people cannot come to terms with this.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| People care about privacy. But in our current telling its a
| hard problem to understand and the costs are too high. The
| costs are not talking to friends, or not driving a car. So as
| a coping mechanism people will convince themselves they dont
| care for privacy.
|
| The phenomena you're describing isn't about caring.
|
| You're describing a "trade" in the same way mobsters and
| conmen do.
| dylan604 wrote:
| What are you on about? Mobsters and conmen break laws.
| There are no laws being broken by these data
| hoarders/brokers. Maybe it's closer to Stockholm syndrome
| or abusive/toxic relationship or something where people are
| mentally accepting the unhealthy situation as if it were
| normal.
|
| The costs of talking to friends endlessly about this boring
| privacy is having no friends. You're telling an addict what
| they are doing is not good for them, but they are not ready
| to hear it.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Meanwhile this is coming as a standard feature on many new cars,
| and all your data goes straight to LexisNexis.
| Ccecil wrote:
| Back around 2004 a friend of mine worked at a car dealership in
| the Bronx that sold high end used cars. They were putting GPS
| trackers in all of the cars they financed so they could repossess
| them when the customer didn't make their payment. This was/is
| (from my understanding, IANAL) very illegal. They never told the
| customers either. The financing was ridiculous and they preyed on
| the people who had just enough down and didn't care what they
| were signing so they had a large percentage of repossessions.
|
| Made me wonder how many other shops were doing the same
| thing...even 20 years ago.
| gmueckl wrote:
| Dealerships in the US have become more brazen about that
| practice. They won't hide that they installed the device.
| Instead, they will upsell you on an anti-theft device.
|
| One dealer tried to sell one to me to the tune of 600$/year.
| That told me that they were butchering the wiring on every
| brand new car that hit their lot. I walked out without a deal.
| to11mtm wrote:
| It's _slightly_ more complicated than that.
|
| In most cases, Dealers don't own the cars on their lot; they
| are financed either by a manufacturer's financing arm e.x.
| FMCC, Ally (sorta), NMAC, or an independent e.x. Santander.
|
| Oftentimes, the Tracking device is part of the finance
| company's agreement, if not part of keeping insurance costs
| down.
|
| Of course, dealers are more than happy to try to charge you
| for -not- removing it...
| snozolli wrote:
| _That told me that they were butchering the wiring on every
| brand new car that hit their lot._
|
| There's no need for butchering. All that's needed is constant
| 12V. Maybe an aux 12V if you need to know when the car is on.
| At most, they may have installed a relay to cut the fuel pump
| or ignition, which is no more invasive than a standard alarm
| installation.
| watersb wrote:
| https://dogsonthe4th.com/mystery-solved/
| bitwize wrote:
| It's the magic/more magic switch.
| kleiba wrote:
| As long as privacy-related misconducts are considered petty
| offenses, these things will just continue. Governments fail to
| see the implications because the virtual world is too difficult
| for them to understand. As long as there are no laws that
| actually get enforced, your privacy isn't worth anything.
| imiric wrote:
| The problem isn't with governments. It's with people.
|
| Most people don't care about their privacy. Even if they do,
| the majority of that group don't care enough to give up the
| conveniences they get in exchange for it. This leaves a small
| group of people to fight for protecting their privacy, as well
| as of those who don't care about it. This is an uphill battle
| against trillion-dollar corporations and the governments
| they're in symbiosis with.
|
| Some governments do make an effort, but it's too little, and
| too ineffective to matter in the grand scheme of things. I
| wouldn't expect this to improve, and can easily see it getting
| worse. I hope I'm just being pessimistic.
| treyd wrote:
| I've more recently found that "laypeople" really _do_ care
| about their privacy and but are unaware about what data it 's
| possible for corporations to collect. They _do_ rightfully
| uncomfortable when they have their questions answered, but
| feel powerless to be able to do anything about it.
| imiric wrote:
| That hasn't been my experience. Maybe that was the case 10+
| years ago, but most people these days understand what
| they're giving up when using these services. The argument
| then becomes "I have nothing to hide", "I only use it
| occasionally", "What's the worst that could happen?", etc.
| It all boils down to them valuing the experience they're
| getting over their privacy. I've had these conversations
| with both technical and nontechnical people, and in nearly
| all cases I've had to argue in favor of privacy. I've yet
| to convince anyone to change their habits.
|
| I share and empathize with the feeling of powerlessness,
| but most people will choose convenience, user experience,
| etc. over privacy, even when there are reasonable
| alternatives. Hell, I will sacrifice my own privacy if a
| service is indispensable and there's no alternative. We
| can't expect people who value it less to do otherwise.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| In my experience, trying to tell an average person the
| kinds of things that companies can do with their data,
| which the companies themselves have admitted to and written
| into privacy policies, just gets you labelled as a
| conspiracy theorist.
|
| The things companies can, will and promise to do with your
| data are sometimes so far fetched that people assume
| they're impossible. At least this was the case 5 years ago,
| haven't tried persuading anyone in recent years.
| spike021 wrote:
| A lot of used cars have something like this. I'm honestly more
| surprised OP apparently bought the car either sight unseen or
| without questioning this before signing any paperwork.
| toast0 wrote:
| I've got something similar on a car I bought that was
| previously leased. I didn't notice it while doing the test
| drive, but it was almost certainly there the whole time. One
| day, I'll try to remove it, but afaik, it doesn't do much other
| than sit there. Maybe it drains the battery a bit, but I think
| the OEM modem was probably worse... I removed that recently
| because I was doing work that got me halfway to removal anyway.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| I bought a used van a few years ago at a strange time: I needed
| a particular kind of vehicle right away, and there broadly just
| weren't any at a reasonable price (because chip shortage,
| mostly). I spent a long time (several weeks) looking, and
| became increasingly frustrated with what would have normally
| been a simple process.
|
| When one showed up at a good local dealership, I bought it. I
| barely looked at it first.
|
| Unusual? Probably. But those were unusual times.
|
| Anyway, it had a small metal toggle switch mounted under the
| dash. The old-school kind, with the metal tag painted with red
| and black On/Off silkscreen.
|
| I never did figure out what it was for.
|
| I had a peek more than once (of course) to see what it
| connected to, but it was just a Siamese pair of wires that
| drifted off to unseeable areas.
|
| The only other modification I could find was a very neatly-
| installed remote starter.
|
| And that remote start box did have a switch input (for valet
| mode, whatever that means), but it was not connected.
|
| (It all got ruined in a crash a couple of months ago and the
| purpose of the switch shall thus remain a mystery.)
| spike021 wrote:
| Sometimes it's for a sound system or some other wired feature
| someone installs from aftermarket stuff. When they sell the
| car, it's easier to remove the added system and leave the
| switch.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| That's pretty common, yeah. Or fog lights. Or (on VCM
| Hondas, such as this example) VCM foolers/defeats.
|
| I didn't ever find any evidence of aftermarket anything
| except for some suspension parts (new shocks/struts, tie
| rods, woot) and the remote starter. And...the switch.
|
| Given the fact that the vehicle is probably headed to China
| by now to make new cars out of, the switch will just have
| to remain strange and unknown.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Most of those GPS trackers for corporate use require a data
| connection, which is probably costing someone $EURPS 10/month for
| the line at least.
|
| Usually when you stop paying for that subscription, the line gets
| deactivated.
|
| So probably nobody is getting that GPS trace.
| milesvp wrote:
| I work in this space, and I've seen advertised components (most
| likely SOCs) that had "lifetime" cell data included in the
| price, costing, on the order of, $50. It is becoming
| increasingly cheap to have low bandwidth cellular connectivity.
| snozolli wrote:
| Can you post an example of one of these products?
|
| I've been dabbling in this space and I'm having a hard time
| finding any data service under about $2 - $4 per month.
| rubynerd wrote:
| Going by Hologram's public pricing, a GNSS "heartbeat" per-
| minute would cost $4/month on a PAYG model. With tiered
| contract pricing, I'd expect that to drop to $1/month for a
| mid/large-sized telematics organisation.
|
| https://hologram.io/pricing/
| orliesaurus wrote:
| Anyone that has a Tesla knows what data they track? Or is it
| dependant on the features you have active ...
| pnw wrote:
| There is a list at https://www.tesla.com/support/privacy and
| you can request a copy. They state never sell or rent your data
| to third-parties, and sentry and dashcam data is only stored
| locally. They anonymize the data they do use, presumably for AI
| training.
| tempest_ wrote:
| > sentry and dashcam data is only stored locally.
|
| That must be new https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-
| workers-shared-sens...
| whs wrote:
| In that link "The company requires car owners to grant
| permission on the cars' touchscreens before Tesla collects
| their vehicles' data"
| tempest_ wrote:
| What format does that take? Is it the "Click Ok to agree
| to everything so you can use the app" type crap?
|
| I am reticent to give Tesla the benefit of the doubt.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I remember reading a similar article, here, in the last year or
| so.
|
| It was about a mysterious box. Turned out to be some kind of
| remote disabler.
| m3galinux wrote:
| Whoever bought my old Honda Fit is asking the same question right
| now; I installed a button in about the same place. They'll have
| fun figuring that one out. Honda Fit's AC is designed a lot more
| for fuel efficiency than effectiveness. So I added a resistor
| parallel to AC temperature sensor (and the switch inline) which
| makes the system think it's warmer than it really is, so it cools
| more. But with the risk of allowing the coil to freeze up. I
| called it the "AC Boost Switch".
| Ductapemaster wrote:
| As a former Fit owner, I wish I had thought of this! The AC was
| really bad. We did a lot of road trips and it really struggled
| out on the long desert highway stretches.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I'm not doubting your solution but at the same time would
| turning down the desired temperature in the car achieve the
| same goal?
| m3galinux wrote:
| Didn't help. With AC on maximum it'd still "turn off" early.
| Honda claimed working as designed.
| smitelli wrote:
| Most automotive A/C compressors are either on or off, with
| the engine ECU commanding an overriding "off" under hard
| acceleration or when fuel economy or other situations require
| an interruption in cooling.
|
| Some older temperature dials actually mixed the cold A/C air
| with the hot air from the heater core to make those in-
| between temperatures.
| snozolli wrote:
| _Most automotive A /C compressors are either on or off_
|
| All AC compressors are either on or off. The compressed gas
| is gradually released by the TXV. The drop in pressure as
| the gas exits the TXV is what makes it cold.
|
| _Some older temperature dials actually mixed the cold A /C
| air with the hot air from the heater_
|
| What vehicles _don 't_ do this?
| prmoustache wrote:
| > Unlike the Peugeot, the Opel has gadgets - quite a few of them.
|
| It is funny because that Opel IS a Peugeot.
|
| Same group (Stellantis), and same mechanicals as the contemporary
| Peugeot 208 with only minor aesthetics and branding
| modifications.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I thought Opel was a GM marque?
| prmoustache wrote:
| It used to be but it has been until 2017 when the Stellantis
| group, itself a merger of PSA and Fiat Chrysler, bought them.
| deergomoo wrote:
| And his old Peugeot (107) is also a Citroen (C1) and Toyota
| (1st gen Aygo).
|
| Thankfully Toyota did most of the engineering, which I think is
| the main reason ours is still running after minimal maintenance
| with > 100,000 miles on it.
| geor9e wrote:
| Title should be "...My used car has a mysterious and undocumented
| switch...". It would be a lot more interesting if some model of
| new car had an undocumented switch.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| > After a bit of perseverance > I figured out what it is
|
| I disagree: after failing to figure out what it was, you asked
| for help and somebody else figured out what it was.
| ruckfool wrote:
| yes, agree to the last lines about requesting data under GDPR. I
| would go further and sue the company collecting data against my
| knowledge
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > now I'm basically driving around with a foreign GPS tracker
|
| You mean your phone?
| ehnto wrote:
| I love hardware mysteries.
|
| I mostly drive old 90s enthusiast cars, and I have had my fair
| share of undocumented switches.
|
| The most surprising to date was in a Nissan Silvia, from 1989.
| Sometimes it wouldn't crank off the key, given the solution
| chosen it must have been a wiring issue. Instead of fixing that
| wiring, the previous owner had directly wired power to the
| starter via a "missle switch" style switch, and instead of
| mounting it anywhere remotely useful, it was just spliced into
| the loom and sat on top of the rocker cover in the engine bay.
|
| So if it wouldn't start, I had to leave the key at "on", hop out
| of the car, bump that switch and then it would start. Obviously
| standing in front of a manual car while starting it is the
| dumbest thing next to wiring your starter to a switch in the
| engine bay. Fortunately I never ran myself over.
|
| Another one, I will keep short, a 97 Skyline would only light up
| ready to start 1/4 times. Seemingly randomly, on key bump. Turns
| out the flash memory for the fuel map had corrupted, and
| depending on the temperature and a bit of randomness from the
| sensors, it would only hit a corrupted cell occasionally. It got
| worse and worse as more of the table corrupted, until it would
| only start say 1/60 key bumps.
|
| It was a dodgy power wire causing the corruption, and fixing that
| plus reflashing the tune fixed the issue.
| butz wrote:
| NMI switch, for debugging?
|
| After reading post: Oh. That makes me wonder how many second hand
| cars are driving around with similar features?
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| I'm pretty sure there is no little man in a back room somewhere
| tracking his every move.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I love my bicycle
| xvilka wrote:
| I hope some day there will be a car brand that is privacy-
| friendly. As "dumb" as possible.
| deergomoo wrote:
| Shout out to the old Peugeot 107. You'd struggle to fit your
| shopping in the boot/trunk, 0-60 takes several business days, the
| brakes are more of a suggestion to slow down, even moderate hills
| require dropping to second and ragging the engine (no idea what
| the redline is cause ours doesn't even have a tach), and opening
| the passenger window requires reaching across from the driver's
| side.
|
| But it was mine and my wife's first car and we have a lot of
| happy memories of places that car has taken us to. Aside from the
| odd flat tyre and a new clutch and timing belt over the last 8
| years, it's never let us down (it was largely engineered by
| Toyota which certainly helps there). We got a new car at the
| start of this year so it doesn't see much use now, but we've kept
| it as a second car because it's so damn cheap to run and
| maintain.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| I don't buy the GPS tracker explanation... they would have
| installed it without the switch, because why would they trust the
| driver to turn it on and off?
| parkaboy wrote:
| I bought a new Ford F250 a few years ago and it came with a
| built-in fleet management service/subscription with GPS tracking.
| I flipped it a few months later to a dealer and I had to
| proactively bug them to take over the access to the service.
| Would have been very easy to spy on the future owner.
| herczegzsolt wrote:
| More than likely an iButton reader to identify the user and a
| business/personal use switch.
|
| The switch basically does nothing, but tha state of it is logged
| in the tracking system along with the routes the car takes. In
| many EU countries you tax differently for personal use, so the
| switch is sort of important for tax reasons.
| simonjgreen wrote:
| If you continued reading to the bottom of the article you would
| find validation for your hypothesis
| kordlessagain wrote:
| The article doesn't specifically mention iButton or one-wire
| systems. It just describes a metal plate "to hold a magnet
| next to" that's connected to a fleet tracking system for
| driver identification. While this is similar to how
| iButton/one-wire systems work, it's not fact since the
| article doesn't confirm the specific technology used.
| _madmax_ wrote:
| New car sounds like brand new car, not used car. Which have
| history.
|
| I found the title a bit misleading in that regard.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Steven Wright: "I have this switch in my house that doesn't seem
| to do anything. It's in a hallway, so every time I pass it, I
| flip it: up, down, up, down...up...down. A few months after I got
| the house, a guy from Indonesia called me on the phone and
| said...'stop it'"
| cyberbolt23 wrote:
| ??
| jspash wrote:
| It's all in the delivery
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Fake/simulated security indicator.
| SilentM68 wrote:
| If you press it, "They will come!"
| LimeLimestone wrote:
| After looking at the photo, and before actually reading the post,
| I was sure it was a switch for retrofitted fog lights - they are
| not required in the US and you must to have them in Europe in
| order to pass MOT.
|
| I have an almost identical looking switch in my Mustang (which I
| imported from America) and it does exactly that - turns the fog
| lights on and off :)
| xp84 wrote:
| Realistically I can't imagine the old owner would keep paying for
| the data connection on cars they've decommissioned and sold off.
| The device probably is just searching for a network all the time.
|
| Probably. Obviously this assumes competence, attention to detail,
| and responsibility with corporate funds.
| graycat wrote:
| The more such evidence about new cars means the more I'm glad I
| got a used car, a 2001 GMC in good condition!!!
|
| Car makers: For some people your new cars can't compete with your
| 20+ year old used cars! Right, 20 years of changes resulted in
| big steps backwards.
|
| In general avoid obscurity and complexity. And instead emphasize
| the KISS principle -- keep it simple silly!
|
| Suggestion: For SUV models with a door in the back, some have
| just one door and a hinge at the top. Instead have the long
| common two doors, one with the hinge high and the other, low.
| That way, can actually have a "tailgate picnic party" and reduce
| the number of times a head hits the door.
|
| And there is a problem: Please return to the old round
| headlights, two for low beam and two more for high beam. They
| gave better light, didn't have a plastic covering that got
| cloudy, didn't have the current obscure way to replace a light
| that failed, and were easy to understand and aim and cheap to
| replace.
|
| I know, the old lights were cheap. But also remember, they were
| better!!!
| sandeepthroat wrote:
| 380 comments for "discussing" a simple fleet tracking addon. It's
| Saturday, get out and have fun instead, you nerds. Oh wait, that
| uppens your carbon etc. footprint.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Soon as I saw the round thing I knew it was an iButton:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Wire
|
| I have seen them on Home Depot forklifts. Lift operators have the
| iButton key fob to allow the machine to stay operating. Years ago
| I was with a guy who though the could load our truck himself,
| started the lift, alarm goes off and it shuts down.
|
| Used cars can have all sorts of crap in them from mods or
| whatever. And who knows what abuse a used car has seen but this
| car was fleet maintained and GPS monitored so likely a good used
| car.
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