this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
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I assumed from your title that you, like myself, are more concerned about the fact that EVs all seem to be "smart", and cloud connected, and effectively hardware as a service to spy on you, and prevent repairs, and have software lockouts of features.
Like TVs, I think there's no incentive for the companies with the ability to make dumb devices to actually make them. Adding all this functionality is unfortunately what people expect.
This is happening with gas cars too. I was driving an Infiniti rental car and every time I started it, the infotainment system showed a disclaimer about Infiniti collecting and using data. There was a way of opting out of just some of the data collection, but no way of opting out of all of it.
How does it connect to the Internet if you never connect your phone to it? Do they have their own network?
Yes, most cars have had their own data connection for a while now. If I know correctly, it's a requirement for Europe since you have to put that button to call emergency services in the car, so it has to have a GSM module, so effectively it has to have mobile data.
So, forced data collection. Wow
Well technically GDPR applies, but who knows if any cars are actually compliant.
I know of a story where a judge actually said that car makers are within their rights to collect your data as long as there is no harm done. Loius Rossmann made a video about it
On one side, what the fuck, that's not how it's supposed to work. On the other side, at least precedent doesn't mean much in the EU.
FWIW the EU's eCall system doesn't actually require a GSM module in the car; it's enough to use a phone connected to the Bluetooth handsfree kit.. That said, since most manufacturers already have the module for data-harvesting anyway it's kind of moot.
On star is one of those networks. There should be info in the owners manual on which fuse it goes to so you can pull it and disable it.
That's actually good to know. Thank you
That and safety and I genuinely don't care for bells and whistles, as they add to the cost unnecessarily. Whenever I needed a new car, I never bought new, I always bought second hand and made sure it's the "lowest trim" of the model. So much cheaper for the same car. I come from a 3rd world country and am used to cars that just drive with no other purposes. So, why not save my money and also be safe, you know?
Yeah, historically that's how it worked, fewer features meant less money. The difficult part today is, the cheapest products are being subsidized with these "smart" features. For cars, as well as most other products, they are able to charge less because they can harvest your data, or lock you into their repair shops, or show you ads. We're now at the point where it costs more to have a bare bones device, and it's cheaper to sell your soul to the company.
And unfortunately, buying second hand doesn't get you out of it. Just like how digital purchases can't be re-sold or traded, "smart" cars can be remotely locked down if they determine it's been resold.
This twitter post used to be a story of a person who resold a tesla, only to have Tesla remotely downgrade the battery capacity because they determined they made a mistake when servicing a previous owner.
Are they're any evs built with OpenSource in mind? Like its honestly cool that you can more closely control how they drive because it electronically controlled but tech enshitification makes most the stuff I've seen always tainted by it.
Tesla is built on top of Ubuntu with their own closed source spin. But yeah, that would be amazing if we had a completely FOSS system on some cars. I'd be willing to pay extra for it. Fuck, man. Shit is getting out of hands.
Wait, they're closed-sourcing Ubuntu? Doesn't the GPL say that any fork or derivative of any GPL'd product has to have the GPL? It's supposed to propagate.
They were until they got in trouble a couple of years back for not contributing shit back. I think they have an "android" approach where they have their own shit running on top of Ubuntu now.
That explains... some
I don't know actually. I'm sure there are open attempts to convert cars to electric. But if you mean something like level 1-3 autonomy, I would assume it would have to be approved by a regulating body, and I don't think any open projects would have seeked that level of approval yet. It's one thing for someone to root their phone and their camera doesn't work, it's another if they root their car and cause an accident.
It's not a full car or even entertainment system, but comma.ai is an opensource autonomous driving software. Last time I looked into this was a few years ago, but basically for most newer cars you can rip out the adaptive cruise control, and effevtively replace it with autonomous driving. Either powered by certain supported phones or dedicated hardware.
Comma is super exciting for the driving assistance parts!
Open source is good for distributed projects. But because of economies of scale, remotely economical car manufacturing will always be centralized. That power gradient would make open source very difficult.
I guess I see potential as systems become more digital that they have more potential to be interchangeable. Kind like how computers hardware is.
You can use smart tvs as dumb screens though, just donβt connect it to internet. Is there a similar way for Evs?
The problem with smart TVs is they're just straight up worse than dumb TVs, even when not connected. Old school TVs turn on and start showing you TV in a few seconds. Smart TVs take tens of seconds every time you try to turn them on.
You're not wrong, they put the bare minimum chips required to run the UI in the most popular TVs, to the point that they take forever to do anything, including boot their shitty OS.
Thatβs a problem with most new technology, isnβt it? Sure its not ideal but also not a dealbreaker, unlike the tv showing ads or sharing my usage data with others
Pi-holes all the way, ha!!!!
Yeah, I only connect my TV to update it, and then immediately delete it's internet connection.
And yes, unfortunately updates are necessary to be sure you're getting all the functionality working correctly (ex. HDR compatibility). I've learned the hard way that the TVs don't necessarily ship with perfect drivers.
As for cars, it's not just the internet. Like apple products, they can make it impossible to repair without going to a licensed dealer. The technology has ways of making you play ball with them.
And even then, I wouldn't put it past them to sneak a cell card into the car somehow to phone home whenever it wants to, regardless of whether you choose to connect it to the internet. I know they've offered this as a feature in the past, why not put it in and just not tell the customer?
Some tvs require you to connect to the internet to set up I believe. Cars have their own built in connection, (such as OnStar)so you can't avoid connecting them in the first place since they come connected from the factory.