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Comment by semiotagonal | Hacker News Reader

> But Kennedy's biggest concern at the moment is in the area of automotive safety

No doubt. I was pricing out a Mercedes online, and looking through the summary one of the standard features was "over-the-air updates". That is the last thing in the world I want. An expensive car shouldn't be acting like an Android phone. It shouldn't be connected to the internet at all.

If it's updating anything other than the entertainment system, then they're completely nuts. Get the internet out of my car, I already have a phone for that.

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> looking through the summary one of the standard features was "over-the-air updates". That is the last thing in the world I want.

I agree. Under no circumstance would I buy a vehicle that is connected to the internet or is capable of wireless communications, unless I could physically disable that and still be able to use the vehicle.

The industry seems to differ, though, so I pretty much expect that any car I own in my lifetime will be a rather old one.

>I pretty much expect that any car I own in my lifetime will be a rather old one.

I recently came to this conclusion, for similar but not identical reasons. Modern vehicles have increasingly complex electronic and mechanical systems wrapped around the engine to improve efficiency. The complexity is becoming a risk, in my opinion, due to the potential cost of maintaining the vehicle beyond 5 years of age.

My usual buy in is around 5 years old, and the cars I have access to now are a huge liability due to all the additional features that can go wrong (DPF, EGR, variable vane turbo etc etc).

My next vehicle will be an old, normally aspirated, petrol engine with the simplest wiring loom I can find.

not exactly related to the IOT issue in the article, but the actual lifespan of the drivetrain of these EVs is -really- appealing [0]. unfortunate that we have to be worried about the peripheral software issues and can't just get the benefits of the more environmentally friendly and reliable cars

0: https://qz.com/1737145/the-economics-of-driving-seven-teslas...

does everyone know that cop cars are internet connected?

Connected and what controls what are two different things people do not jump off the cliff just yet

I'm not sure I understand why you're bringing up cop cars...

> Connected and what controls what are two different things

Absolutely true, but even if it were impossible to control the car via the connection (which seems doubtful given that these cars accept OTA software updates), there's still the issue of data collection and reporting.

In a related note....

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/five-...

Five months after returning rental car, man still has remote control Man can still track vehicle, lock and unlock it, and start and stop its engine.

I fully agree. And I'm absolutely frightened of buying a car these days. For all I know, it has this sort of wifi-connection built in even if none of the marketing materials or promotional materials mention it. Would the rep I'm talking to even know if there is a connection in the car? Is there any legal requirement for them to notify me of connectivity they have with the car?

I'll use this as an excuse to buy a 70's Alfa next time I'm car shopping.

>Get the internet out of my car, I already have a phone for that.

Think you have a future of cycling ahead of you. I'd be surprised if overair updates aren't standard in <3 years on all cars.

Or older vehicles. Going forward I am not buying anything made after 1970's. And that is fine, because I find them much easier to work on. Pre-smog is also a bonus, for me anyway.

>Or older vehicles.

Even that is problematic. Insurance, congestion charge etc

I've not experienced that. With older vehicles, the only price difference I saw was related to the lack of ABS and air bags.

Depends on the city. In some - mainly EU - places old cars are a killer. Everything is set up to strongly discourage use of old cars. e.g. Cars going for peanuts? That's cause it costs a fortune to safely dispose of it as required by law (i.e. recycle). Easily solution is to sell it.

See also Norway's rules about electric cars. That sky high adoption is a direct result of weapons grade carrot & stick to force it

Isn't that the same as Tesla?

I think the person you are replying to would also dislike this feature in a Tesla.

That's true, I'm not looking to buy a Tesla. I'd include touchscreens as another problem but that's separate from the article's subject.

I appreciate your consistency.

We've been looking to buy an electric vehicle and thought Tesla was a no-brainer. Random reports of software issues have persuaded us to wait.

Now, I'm learning there are more options from more mature brands that just don't receive as much attention as Tesla.

According to a Bloomberg survey of 5,000 model 3 owners, 98% say they would buy it again and the vehicle had surpassed their expectations. 99% percent of respondents said they would recommend the Model 3 to their family or friends.

I live in Puerto Rico where a Tesla doesn't make much sense due to the infrastructure, but these numbers still made my neck hurt with a little bit with FOMO.

I am glad there are people who buy the Tesla and like it.

I was very excited when they were first announced and was heavily considering the Model 3 as an option before it was released. Then I started reading about the features; touch screen controls, OTA updates, telemetry. None of those things are features to me, they are detriments.

Touch screen means that I have to context switch when adjusting temp.

OTA updates means that my car can end up bricked or have a buggy update.

Telemetry is removal of my privacy.

If you disallow remote telemetry (which is an option), I wonder what it would do. You should try one for a weekend. They are a fantastic car. Tesla is very careful and successful with their software updates. You can just refuse to update them (in my 7 years of owning now two of them, I've never had a problem with updates). There have been 2 or 3 updates that were required because they were safety issues (they changed the way the s adjusts the height of the car at high speed to be more conservative in one of them). Tesla software is not like the shit software you'd expect in legacy car companies.

According to a Bloomberg survey of 5,000 model 3 owners, 98% say they would buy it again and the vehicle had surpassed their expectations.

I don't doubt those numbers at all, but here's the trick: I'll bet you could find similar numbers for just about any electric vehicle. And here's why: the odds are extremely good that if you own an electric vehicle, it's your first electric vehicle. The market just isn't that old. I bought one of the first Nissan Leafs, and it's only eight years old.

Okay, so if we can agree that most EV owners are on their first EV, then of course 98% of them are going to buy another one because regardless of make or model, EVs are just that good. Yeah, yeah, you drive from SF to LA every day, but we're not talking about you, we're talking about people that already decided to buy an EV. I'd venture that many are like me, and after a bit feel that ICEs are downright primitive. So their next car is going to be an EV, and why not buy the one I'm already happy with?

The Model 3 has not existed for long enough for those statistics to make any sense. It's very easy for somebody to love a new car.

People say about the same for the S, and they came out in 2012.

It's true that there are bugs in software updates. However my car has gotten 5% faster twice from 2 separate software updates. Never had this experience in another car and it's truly fantastic.

Let's be fair. The most recent release has also caused a few people to have near misses as their car goes in a direction opposite to what they intended. Frequent software updates comes with risks.

Yeah of course. As I understand it we all checked boxes basically agreeing to be on the bleeding edge of software updates so that issues like this can be identified fixed before general rollout. Yes it's crazy.

> Random reports of software issues have persuaded us to wait

Case in point, the current release that has been rolling out over the last week or so definitely has some ominous bug reports.

But on the other hand, updates aren't forced, you can cancel them when they're offered.

It's a double edge sword, really. I've had several cars that desperately needed an update but it was impossible to get. I think I lean in the direction of having OTA updates available, as long as I maintain 100% control of them. And I need to be able to control data from my car going into the cloud. I think Tesla has both of these covered, though it could be implemented more elegantly.

Every car has some random problem. Don't forget there are 30k fires every year in the engine of internal combustion engines (of course there are a lot of those cars). But no one says I won't buy a gas car because it might catch on fire. Tesla quality is generally very high. They are made by humans so there will be some problems, but they can be fixed. My car is 4.5 years old now, recently decided to buy the extended warranty and keep it till it's 8 years old.

As long as I can physically turn that off, and enable it myself if I want to check for an update I'm kinda fine with that.

If they're going to provide software updates, make it a manual process, like updating the BIOS on a motherboard (not while it's running, need physical access, password protected), with package integrity checks like most Linux distributions have.

I could see that being a good feature for a built-in Satnav system.

Tesla does over-the-air updates that make fairly significant changes to the way the car operates.

Wouldn't Android Auto or Apple CarPlay defeat the purpose of a built-in Satnav system?

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