Something that touches power-train needs to be ASIL-D grade. For a good reason.
And it happens all the time. Functionally - I don't see much difference between a misbehaving control module and a driver having a stroke.
You can also solve both problems with a single stroke by making public transportation effective and preferable in places where density is likely to make this a problem (cities).
In the age of the accelerator and break going to software systems instead of mechanical systems, it is 100% possible to crash that software and all the sudden you cannot break.
this is only because we have incredibly high safety standards when it comes to cars.
There’s a huge difference: one can be reasonably prevented. Unfortunately we can’t reliably prevent people from having strokes.
Nonsense, we can implement draconian licensing laws and Orwellian medical record sharing laws to keep the at risk off the roads. The peasants can have all the strokes they want, just not on the roads.
(The above is satire but it's proximity to viewpoints that aren't satire should make people uncomfortable.)
Or take it to the limit and make driving so inconvenient that nobody drives, thereby solving the problem once and for all.
I’d say we can choose to place that line somewhere between “regulating modifications to cars” and “draconian health examinations for licensing”.
In your satirical scenario the methods needed in order to prevent strokes while driving are far less reasonable than the methods needed to regulate modifications to critical systems of cars, from feasibility of implementation to the effects on personal privacy and liberty. Therefore I think we can pretty easily distinguish the two and they are not really that similar.
Medical events, mechanical failures, software failures, they're all in the long tail of "rare causes of accidents". The fat part of the curve is made up of various flavors of willful dumb driver behavior. It is pure foley to direct more resources at those problems than the bare minimum needed to look like you're "doing something" so that the people who don't understand how likely these events are are placated. The bulk of resources spent toward safety should be allocated toward reducing dumb things drivers do.
Legally binding regulations for auto maintenance? Legal stops on the road for tire wear checks? Legal scrapping of cars that don't pass certain safety standards? Legal checks for dementia and vision for the elderly?
Basically - why is this one the one that you draw the line at? What makes it special? Most folks can agree that neither the driver nor the public want a vehicle with a malfunctioning control module. It's not like there are misaligned interests here. Tuning should be expected to work just as well and any other after-market modification. Are you concerned that it provides more torque, or more speed? Because the same thing is true of just buying a different car...
Should a sports car be illegal because it has more torque?
Should we ban red cars because - statistically - they're more likely to be involved in an accident?
Should no one be allowed to drive a subcompact because crash mortalities are nearly double those of the average vehicle?
Why? Why does this require regulation that you're proposing? What warrants the loss of control for the individual, in a case where it's pretty clear interests are aligned, and there are dozens of other nearly identical risks?
We have total control over not installing aftermarket safety critical software, which may or may not allow a driver to break.
You can tinker with the powertrain but it still has to pass smog.
If you're worried about people surreptitiously breaking the law then it doesn't matter what the law is because those people are breaking it regardless.
"Well we shouldn't" is also a very reasonable response to this. Cars should have speed and acceleration governors. The main reason they don't is that they haven't, but in this case "personal freedom" is basically just the enjoyment of the driver.
There are very very few other domains where we allow people to risk harm and death to other nonconsenting nonparticipants just because it's enjoyable to them. We should bring cars in line with our other social norms, not increase the degree to which they are an outlier.
Wouldn’t the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act still apply?
After all, your engine must have been running hot and accelerated the wear on the mount. Oh, logging shows it wasn't? Must be a malfunctioning thermostat. That'll be $3,000 for the mount, the thermostat, and the labor. Not including any extra charges, fees, surcharges, taxes, or overcharges.
Car dealers are no different from insurance companies. Whether it's warranty or insurance, they make money by denying claims. The ECU is enough of a black box that practically anything critical can be blamed on it if it's not using factory settings.
Consider, how much just a single lawyer cost per hour I don't think it would be worth it a lot of the times unless the entire car was basically destroyed or something very expensive has failed to have enough value to justify it. Otherwise the repair is gonna be a lot times in a similar ballpark cost wise (for most cars) as a law suite.
-Edit- Moreover if the case is not decided quickly or settled it could also end up costing a lot more.
Yes, but only if they think they can get away with it. This kind of thing happens all the time.
Arguably, the fact that the ECU was modified is evidence enough. It's pretty difficult to argue that an aftermarket stereo head unit, or air intake, or "ooga" horn caused engine damage. That would be a fairly easy win in court if the dealer is foolish enough to think anyone would buy that explanation.
Remapping an ECU is very different. If an ECU is remapped, that likely means the engine is operating outside of the intended parameters, and dealers would probably argue that the ECU is not intended to be modified by 3rd parties. From their perspective, why should they foot the bill for damage caused by changing how the engine functions? The dealer can deny your warranty claim because they know there's a 99.9% chance you won't fight it, and that you'll probably lose anyway if you do.
In the case of Mercedes and their paywall for faster acceleration, they could argue that any "hack" to enable faster acceleration is not only a form of piracy but that a hack could lead to dangerous situations; when say a bit is flipped to enable the acceleration, but the rest of the conditionals in the programming aren't aware of this change, the behavior of the vehicle can't be entirely predicted.
I don't necessarily agree with any of that reasoning, but this is how car companies not only defend their ability to deny warranty but extract more revenue from its customers going forward into the digital future.
In the case of Apple it's pretty hard to justify the court costs for a 1000 dollar device. So Apple rarely has to prove that the Jail break was the cause of the failure. They technically can't deny warranty claim if a modification was not the cause of the failure. However, Apple operates basically by default for almost all failures if Jail Broken you get no warranty which is technically not legal.
And naturally, case law as well.
The act is intended to allow voiding the warranty after modding the ECU (even though the act predates ECUs and so doesn't mention them). Well your radio warranty would probably still apply, but modding the ECU has potential to damage the engine, and therefore the engine is out of warranty if you touch the ECU code.
Thankfully, a lot of us live in better-governed states than California. And even if it is illegal where you live, stuff you own shouldn't try to enforce laws against you.