By my reading the car has an anti-theft device that was triggered by the installation of seats. There is a remote system to override the anti-theft device, but that doesn't work because it requires mobile reception.
It's kind of funny, but this doesn't really tell you anything about the dangers of "smart cars" or anything.
The situation in here is more like "haha, ok, we just need to tow this thing out of the garage and try again" - no big deal.
E.g, it's not perfect but it is secure.
Hehe I wouldn't normally pick up on typos but this a great one - "tow" your car outside, unless maybe you're planning to kick it out there :-)
Only a little while later did it occur to me that what I did was probably illegal in at least 3 different ways.
In my defense, I did ask the gas station attendant if he thought it was her car...
Additionally, even average cars these days tend to have removable towing eyes with easily damaged plastic blanking plugs. The chance of damaging an expensive car doing this seems very high. Especially trying to drag it out of an underground car park. If I owned a towing company I'd take a hard pass on that job.
[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9qn...
No big deal when the reason you can't get a signal is that you're in a parking garage. Rather more of a life-threatening defect when the reason you can't get a signal is that you're driving through an unpopulated desert where there are no cell towers or other people.
Well, by the very definition, there can't be that many people there - so unfortunately they will have to buy something else, or discuss it with their dealership before they purchase the car. When I got my current car(2020 Volvo XC60) the dealership did warn me that if I don't have signal many features in the vehicle won't be available(no idea if it would "brick" itself if I tried repairing it in the middle of a desert, but I'm not interested in finding out).
And before you say that's insane... You'll find plenty of video evidence on Youtube and places like it that this happens. In fact, McLaren sent a car themselves.
And yes, the Nullarbor can be very dangerous if you break down, and there are vast swathes of it with no phone signal, because maintaining anything out there is a losing battle.
Besides, I think there's a certain fundamental misunderstanding here - the car disabled itself because it "thought" it was being stolen. It's no different than triggering a car alarm in any car made in the last 30 years - most systems will kill the ignition until you reset the alarm.
The difference here is that Ferrari can unblock the car remotely for you - but I'm certain it's also possible in-person with some kind of key/button input or some diagnostic device.
It's no different than what 1990s volkswagens used to do, if you removed the battery the radio would be locked until you entered a special pin code, but of course the dealership wouldn't give you the pincode, you had to take it to them and pay them some money. The only difference here is that Ferrari can now do this remotely(if you have signal).
Seems like you're giving Ferrari too much credit, as the engineer they sent out wasn't able to get it working (eg in-person).
The car needed to be towed (back to Ferrari I guess).
A desert should be considered for a Toyota Landcruiser, for a Ferrari it would be a low probability cell of the matrix. Stuck in a tunnel underground? More likely to happen. In a concrete building with people tampering the car? Even more likely.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_mode_and_effects_analy...
These kind of cars can and do fail for many other reasons, basically parts reliability is not a top priority.
Being in a desert with no possible assistance is just a situation you'll want to avoid, anti-theft system or not.
What happens if your car breaks down for run-of-the-mill mechanical reasons when you're driving through an unpopulated desert with no cell towers or people?
How likely is this failure mode, compared to mechanical failures?
Which wouldn't happen. This is an anti-theft system. So are you saying that the anti-theft system would engage while the car is being driven for a while by the correct owner ? If that were the case, that would be an egregious defect that should be corrected.
The car is not disabling itself just because there's no signal, that would be terrible. It disabled itself because it thought it was being tampered with. The fact that not even a Ferrari tech was able to get it going is actually a major endorsement for the system.
If it can happen during a car seat installation then it can happen six hours after a car seat installation when the plug comes loose, or makes proper contact for the first time since the seat was installed, or when you hear something rattle and pull over to try to fix it.
And even if it won't shut down while the vehicle is already in motion, if it does it the first time you stop to stretch your legs, you're still stranded.
Perhaps due to poor risk analysis or value.
Statistically the Honda Civic and Toyota Camry are much more likely to be stolen; stealing an expensive vehicle is problematic in 1) Security Features 2) Conspicuous to drive 3) Conspicuous to fence 4) Insurance spends more money to find it 5) (in some cases) difficulty to drive.
Is replacing the seats in your car basic?
Edit: My point is - We shouldn't be making smart cars and TVs because there are always going to be bugs that are not forceable and can cause your device to brick. I wouldn't want a smart microwave or coffee maker.
e.g you could override the security system with a signal jammer.
> The fact it had no signal at the time of the tamper safeguard being triggered meant that remote recovery wasn't an option, even when we moved it into the open. Idk, an extra layer of theft protection I suppose.
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9qn...
Having some kind of backup would probably be easier than breaking whatever encryption they're using, and something like this would be a "weakest link" scenario, so anything you put would probably decrease in security.
Besides that, don't really want something a technician can just bring to you, because anything like that can be stolen or sold, so you were probably gonna have to tow it anyways.
I have no clue if that's anywhere close to the actual decisions, but it's not super hard to come up with a thought process that leads to the conclusion that the possible inconvenience of being even more stuck than usual when your car is stolen in a place where you don't have cell service is better than the security reduction of having a backup anti-anti-theft mechanism
I’ve been following the thread on Reddit and there’s an added piece you’re missing. The mechanic triggered the anti-theft device so the car went into an initial lock down, that can be disabled remotely by Ferrari. The mechanic contacts Ferrari who can’t override the anti-theft because the car is without signal. At this stage the anti-theft mechanism is also attempting to contact Ferrari, probably with location data to help recover the car, still thinking it has been stolen. But due to the fact that it can’t get a signal out, it assumes the worst and enters full lock down mode that requires some sort of fix that can only be performed by Ferrari themselves.
Reality - if they had just pulled it outside they could have had it fixed in no time.
No, the car will be disabled due to the anti-theft system. The anti theft system doesn't need connectivity to work.
It does need connectivity to be disabled remotely by Ferrari. However, that is never needed during normal operation. The owner of the Ferrari modified the car (after market seats, apparently), causing the anti-theft function to immobilize the car as a safety measure.
Also, Ferrari's are useless in the apocalypse. I mean one benefit of the apocalypse is that maybe you could drive a Ferrari. Nope, they disable themselves when the grid goes down.