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Comment by pwagland | Hacker News Reader

So this is something that has always kind of bugged me about Tesla. If you have an accident, they are more than happy to drop the crash data "proving" that you were at fault, look at the recent stories about running into a road barrier and the back of a firetruck for recent examples of this. And, of course, they don't ask you first if they can release it.

However, if you want the data, you can't have it… you have to go to court to get it.

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Accompanying this tight information control your Tesla can only be repaired at a Tesla dealership, with tight control over parts and labor prices.

https://gas2.org/2015/01/06/this-is-what-30000-of-damage-loo... and lots of forum posts out there on this

A bunch of horror stories of months-long turnarounds for fender-benders too. https://jalopnik.com/teslas-potential-body-shop-backlog-nigh...

Yeah, Tesla is as guilty as anyone as pushing forward the destruction of the concept of owning the stuff you buy.

> If you have an accident, they are more than happy to drop the crash data "proving" that you were at fault...

Indeed. It is disturbing that Tesla is not in the slightest bit concerned by how obvious it is that it is lying about its motives, as that indicates that it does not see any downside from doing so.

GDPR doesn't sound so bad now, does it? :)

Well, I'm (living as an) European, so I actually support GDPR anyway. But yes, I always wondered exactly what grounds they used to publish some of this data.

I'm curious why you think that being European implies you also support GDPR.

You have succinctly, albeit unintentionally, summed up why the GDPR is often seen as bad. The way I read it "the end goal is good and/or some part of it is good, so it is all good, right?" Requiring transparency requirements of companies like Tesla is laudable without a bunch of baggage and large sweeping changes. Unfortunately people often can't see the difference between intent and implementation and assume you are for both or against both.

It still does.

No.

You know what sounds nice?

Having the choice to not buy a Tesla.

I don’t need Government™ to tell me what kind of contracts I can agree to.

> Having the choice to not buy a Tesla.

If Tesla's business model proves successful, all other car makers will copy it, and then it doesn't matter which brand you buy.

Look at the TV market. You technically have the choice not to buy a "Smart TV," which sells your info to god-knows how many third-parties and spies on you 24/7. But good luck finding one. Sony, Samsung, LG? They all have the same spyware features. Your only option is to buy brandless Chinese TVs with terrible picture and worse sound quality.

How long until all manufacturers start acting like Tesla? What choice will we have then? Start walking everywhere like our ancient ancestors?

Can't you just not connect them to the Internet?

For now, yes, but if the business model is successful enough (particularly for something as expensive as a car), is there anything stopping a manufacturer bundling in their own Internet connection?

The "Smart" software also tends to add a lot of latency, which may or may not be acceptable depending on your circumstances.

You can try. I recently learned that Ethernet-over-HDMI is a thing: now that you know that, you can potentially disable it on the other end of the connection, but lots of people are connecting their TVs to the internet without even knowing.

The protocol supports it yes, but I think you'd have a hard time finding a single person who has ever inadvertently connected their TV to the internet through HDMI. Hell I think you'd have a hard time finding a TV that even supports this functionality, and if you do my bet is it's a specialty thing made for the hospitality/service industry.

This is what I did.

How about create a purchasers’ union and use your collective purchasing power to influence the behavior of companies, the way that companies use their power to control consumers.

I don’t have any problem with your union; in fact, I might join such a union. Just don’t force everyone to join it, which is what happens when laws are made for everyone as a result of the bad decisions of some.

I don’t know if such a union is legal to form… which I guess illustrates the point that @gonational is trying to make; too many laws can bite you.

First of all, I don't think it would be practically feasible to do this in the real world. As the old saying goes, if person A finds a way to get 100 million dollars by making 100 million people lose $1 each, he would have every incentive and tool to get that money and no one would have any incentive to stop him. Imagine the enormous costs of forming a purchasers' union, both direct and transaction costs. You can never convince enough people to join one to make it have any negotiation power.

Second and more importantly, the companies have found a way to circumvent one of the most important and fundamental pillars of our civilization, access to judicial system, through forced arbitration and class action waivers. If they had the power to get rid of something this fundamental, I am sure they will find a way to defeat any attempt to form a union like the one you advocate though laws, contracts, EULAs, etc.

The big problem with government and laws is that the more government and laws there are the more an advantage big companies have, since big companies are the only single entities that can stand up against large and complex structures such as government and legal systems.

Pertaining a purchasers’ union, I don’t mean something that would bureaucratically bogged down purchasing. I mean something like a club where you only purchase from those companies approved by the club, and everybody in the club gets to vote on which companies will be allowed to be purchased from.

Sure, very simple logic. That is of course until Comcast becomes the only internet provider in your area. I prefer my gov to have my back on those simple things just in case a particular situation that makes it easy for anyone to screw me over arises.

OK, let’s see if we can think of one solution to that problem… Oh! Enforce existing anti-trust laws!

This, plus the fact that the increasingly monopolistic reality of ISP in the United States is a direct result of overregulation.

We don’t need more laws. We need to enforce some of the most basic laws that have existed fore more than a century.

In your opinion, what is the perfect number of laws anyone should have? 10^4? 10^5?

Unregulated capitalism by no means naturally prevents large monopolies being formed. That's why the government got involved in "trust-busting" in the first place.

This only seems to happen for accidents that turn into national news, speculating that Tesla was at fault (or with drivers actively accusing them of fault). Their response is (understandably I think) to defend themselves when they can show they weren't at fault. I'd assume that if you have an accident and don't make it a media story, they don't publish your driving errors.

So something that is entirely outside of your control may determine if Tesla shames you in front of millions of people and violates your privacy? That's the defense you're arguing?

Plus Tesla never releases the crash data, they release select snippets that make them look good. For example, the famous "six seconds" claim in the barrier incident but absolutely zero data on their automatic emergency braking's actions, what autopilot was doing, what sensors detected, or any of their other systems.

Worth noting that one of the issues is Tesla's data, such as sensing hand placement, might inherently be problematic. As r/teslamotors users pointed out in the wake of Tesla's response to the Utah crash, AutoPilot apparently has false negative problems: failing to detect when hands on the wheels:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8jz5tl/tesla_r...

> Ok so here's what bugs the shit out of me: The overwhelming majority of the time that my car nags me to put my hand on the wheel, my hand's already on the wheel, I'm just not applying enough torque for the car to "see" that because my left elbow is resting on the window sill and my hand is resting on the 9oclock position. So I give it a quick wiggle and then we're friends again. This means the car logged a "no hands" event.

In the case of the fire truck, the driver pretty much admitted to fault. But what about the California man (i.e. the "six seconds" incident) who died by running into a median? We don't know for sure if his hands were on or off, or when, or if the car properly detected it. Tesla was kicked off the NTSB investigation for releasing data. Tesla's argument was that it had the right to make a defense, but I think it's reasonable to argue that NTSB's rule is to prevent such selective release and framing of data:

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20180412.as...

The fact remains that they're 'completely dedicated' to your privacy including from yourself up until putting that data out benefits the company. So they have access to that data only in ways that benefit and exculpate the company while you as the driver and source of that data cannot use the data about yourself to defend yourself without going through the courts!

So I personally understand that _Tesla wants this_. I just don't agree that Tesla should be allowed to do this. It will be interesting to see what happens when the next European accident happens now that GDPR is in place, since I am pretty sure that they do not have _explicit_ consent for this. _I_ have _definitely_ not given explicit consent for this, and even if it is written into the contract in a vague way, that will not be good enough to stop a GDPR infraction.

And that is something that I support the GDPR for.

I am still a bit amazed that we haven't had a major lawsuit that heavily fines/restricts most of Tesla's behavior at this point. They seem to think a car that they've sold is still theirs, and that they can do these sorts of things. Another big one is using the Autopilot sensors to collect data to send back to Tesla even if you don't buy or use Autopilot, or their refusal to "activate" a salvaged vehicle that you legally have a title for if they don't like how it was repaired or who serviced it.

Cars are a significant property which, unlike a lot of other items, even comes with a proper title of ownership, it's hard to imagine any of Tesla's behavior regarding the car's data, activation practices, etc. would hold up in a court of law.

Given that most people who can afford Teslas can afford lawyers, I'm kinda surprised nobody's gone for the payday.

Can a Tesla owner comment it they signed some sort of T&C related to this data? I wonder can Tesla be sued for revealing this data without owners' consent.

Tesla's privacy policy is worded to allow these kinds of disclosures:

https://www.tesla.com/about/legal

> Tesla may transfer and disclose information, including information that may or may not personally identify you, to third parties to comply with a legal obligation (including, but not limited to, subpoenas);...to verify or enforce our policies and procedures;...to prevent or stop activity we may consider to be, or to pose a risk of being, illegal, unethical or legally actionable; or to protect the rights, property, safety, or security of our products and services, Tesla, third parties, visitors, or the public, as determined by us in our sole discretion.

Is that even valid? They obviously can write anything they want but that doesn't make it right or legal.

Is only the owner allowed to drive a Tesla? Do any other drivers have to sign a document on the dashboard before starting?

I guess the data is built into the price of a Tesla? Would be nice if there was an option to pay not to be so heavily tracked.

Or to be citizen of a government that gave a damn.

The could price the data at $1M, a price no one would pay.

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