How many cars sold in 2016 can be activated without the manufacturer's permission? If you break your engine control module, who, if not the original manufacturer, can provide you a new one that works for your car?
(Serious question, no sarcasm.)
What do you mean with manufacturer's permission? The parts are sold independently of the vehicle as far as I'm aware. You can buy loads of ECUs for modern cars on the internet and there is no consequence of installing it.
We can only hope that a similar movement to Linux on PCs builds up steam up in the automotive space, as many of us like being able to understand, adapt, and improve on our vehicles.
Using public infrastructure is a privilege, not a right.
I agree. That's the way its going to go. People kill 40K/people a year in the US simply driving, and injure/maim hundreds of thousands. There's no way self-driving cars aren't better than that.
Want to build your vroom vroom car? Own the entire stack down to the atoms? You'll get to drive it at track day at a track, not on a public road.
> Personally, I prefer the latter even if it means I could get killed at any moment because the risk is all part of the experience; not only of driving but really just life itself.
Agree, but that sentiment will die a slow death over the next few decades, just as those fond of the horse and buggy are no longer with us.
The number of teenagers with driver's licenses is the lowest in history. Compound that with the 65+ cohort aging quickly, and older drivers being dangerous drivers (lower reaction time).
It's not a convenience delta. Its an experience and safety delta. We are talking tens of billions (if not more) of dollars in savings from taking the human out of the loop.
The value of such a statistic is questionable given that the minimum age for a license has increased of late.
http://time.com/money/4185441/millennials-drivers-licenses-g...
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/11/466178523/like-millennials-mor...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/14/the-m...
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2016/0120/Why-are-Mi...
That said, this is going sideways because I didn't make a complete and clear post originally. Never mind.
Not true. People kill 40K people by crashing their cars into them, not by "simply driving". Make crashing your car into people illegal and punish that. No reason to ban driving.
Except that people don't crash their cars deliberately, it's unintentional and unavoidable.
There's no point making it illegal to do something that only happens accidentally. People will still do it accidentally.
The only thing you can do is mandate changes to the system which remove the possibility that those mistakes will be made. Driverless cars are one possible change that we could make.
And people can still speed unintentionally by forgetting to check the speedometer every so often, but speeding is still illegal.
Not stopping at a stop sign or red light for a right turn is illegal, but people often times make "California Stops" unintentionally.
I am _not_ arguing you shouldn't be allowed to tinker with your vehicle. You're just not entitled to the source code that runs it (unless you buy a car from a manufacturer that agrees to that as part of the sale agreement), nor are you allowed to make modifications and take it out on a public road if you could cause harm to others.
I buy used cars and repair them myself. I wonder if this disqualifies me from ever owning an electric car? While more recent cars have begun down the troubling path of making less and less user-serviceable, most cars still have either official service manuals or 3rd party manuals (based on tear-downs), and a healthy after-market parts market.
You're "calibrating" the battery. This has been around on BMWs for a long time (my 2008 535xi had this). If you replace the battery yourself and obviously can't program it in, the car will bitch endlessly, but it'll still work.
The motorcycle comes with three keys: a red one and two black ones. The black ones will turn on the motorcycle but can't be copied. The red one can be copied and is intended as backup in case you lose the black ones. If you lose three the only way to turn the motorcycle on is to get a new ECU from the manufacturer.
I guess most modern cars are the same.
I think maybe I'm not going to sell my 1995 Nighthawk after all! Sounds like it might make more sense to just keep it running, simple and straightforward, without having to worry about all this fragile automation.
Edit: http://www.myturbodiesel.com/wiki/key-and-remote-replacement...
Tldr: You need the SKC to do it, only VW knows what the SKC is. Or you can hack the immobilizer.