The "you will own nothing" advocates will continue to keep pushing for stuff like this.
Who are these "advocates"?
>You will own nothing and you will be happy.
Alternatively it could have a darker interpretation: you will be a slave and you will be happy, because that's all you're going to get.
I suppose it depends if you look at the WEF as a benevolent institution looking to benefit humanity or very rich people looking to solidify their own position at any cost.
Literally every time I have seen the quote brought up in dissenters' milieus, it included the "and you will be happy" part.
Unsurprisingly, because the implicit paternalism makes it almost as repellent as the first part.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-wef-idUSKBN2AP2...
It seems like it is, but read it closely. Reuters here is not debunking the phrase was said by a WEF politician, they are debunking that is is a goal of Agenda 30.
Nobody made that claim in the first place.
The article I linked provides context and paints a different picture; not sure why you consider that to be unrelated.
Given that happiness is often a cultural construct (wildly different things make people happy dependent on the cultural context), and that many WEF members are cultural influencers the critics response is that the current people will not really be happy, but the WEF will arrange the culture so that future people are. Any outside group conspiring to change your culture is a normal cause for alarm.
Used car buys will look at this as the without model. Maybe this will work out as a lot of used car buyers don't care about speeds they won't go anyway (though they should ask if this was ever on as that does put more wear and tear on a car). I don't think this will work out for things like heated seats: the buyer will want a car with heated seats and one with a subscription for heated seats is worth less money to price sensitive buyers.
Really? No remote access, security notifications, navigation facilities? No watching TV while charging? No OTA updates that obviate the need to take it to the dealership for routine fixes? No open source location analytic API?
I mean, I'm sure there's some bad stuff that happens too. But this is very much throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I won't tell you what you, personally, want in a vehicle. But the market as a whole absolutely wants their cars on the internet.
6-speed manual, adjustable seats, a GPS/nav screen and radio/aux, and a damn cupholder is all anyone needs from a car. Everything else is just a bunch of accessorial crap that usually detracts from the form factor of a functional car.
I can't even find anyone who will sell me one with those features disabled. My only option is just to buy cars from before those features existed, and it gets harder every year.
Of course my only car with nav is 11 years old, maybe there are other features of more modern systems worth having. I doubt it, but I have to allow for the possibility. The real key here is the car is 11 years old - if you only buy new cars you may fail to realize how bad features such as nav age. When my car was new 3g cell networks were the fast service (4g existed but it was in the early roll out phase), and thus what I would expect my car to have: now 3g is gone - so even if my car had a NAV subscription it couldn't get OTA updates.
I'm not saying that these are inherently bad. Hell, I'd enjoy having programmable 2-driver power-adjustment settings for the driver seat. That, dual zone climate control, and google maps built into the nav are basically the only luxury features I think really add value to a car. But I'm not dying without them. Meanwhile, my wife wants all that, android auto, ventilated seats, a moonroof, the side-view mirror blind spot assistance things, automatic cruise control, an auto-dimming rearview mirror, automatic lights/brights, being able to start the car remotely, etc.
I'm not telling you what to desire in a vehicle. I'm just saying that reactionary ludditism makes for poor market analysis. People want connected cars, period. I don't make the rules.
Engine (drivetrain really) power, torque, efficiency, durability and reliabilty are core aspects of a vehicle. Being able to accelerate (and brake) when needed is important. Watching a YouTube vehicle in traffic is not. Carmakers should be focused on improving drivetrains, handling (chassis, suspension, brakes, etc.), safety in collisions (including pedestrians/cyclists). Not on introducing a bunch of superfluous luxuries that only serve to drive up the cost of a car (and make people worse, more distracted, more selfish drivers).
Edit: It's not ludditism to oppose needless 'improvements' that increase the complexity, cost, supply chain requirements, weight, and fragility of a vehicle. It's utilitarian.
Well then they should learn how to fucking navigate. Learn where North is and go from there.
This measurably improves fuel economy. Not sure why it's grouped with the others.
This study says 3% - 6%. [0]
The fact that inefficient vehicles exist doesn't seem like a reason to make more efficient ones even more efficient.
[0]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S111001682...
The only semi-valid reason for connectivity here is navigation, but even then I'm already paying for a connection for my phone so I'll use that instead. I don't even want a big screen on the dashboard anyway, which means having navigation software built-in would be a worse experience than using what I already have.
I've never owned a car that does any of these. I'm very happy with my car. I do not see the benefits of them outweighing the downsides.
However, I REQUIRE an air gap between the Internet and any electronics that are involved in piloting the metal box that is currently transporting my squishy flesh at 130 km/h.
So no, no self-driving Tesla for me.
(As an aside, what kind of person gets excited over "open source location analytic API[s]"? Do you actively enjoy being tracked by your corporate overlords?)
Everything else can be solved using your phone/tablet.
And yes, it undoubtedly would be a nicer experience to have navigation done entirely on the in-car display. But IMO in-car displays and interfaces are universally terrible.
What would that be useful for? If I am away from my car, I absolutely don't need to "access" it. It is not a home server or something like that.
> security notifications
What are those? Notify me that my car is being broken into? Maybe it is good-to-have, but far from crucial.
> navigation facilities
No thanks, I have a phone for that. I can connect it to my car's screen if needed.
> No watching TV while charging?
No, it just takes a couple of minutes to fill up. You should try one of these new-fangled internal combustion engine cars. They are amazing!
> No OTA updates that obviate the need to take it to the dealership for routine fixes?
What routine fixes? My car has never needed a software bugfix in the decade I have owned it.
> No open source location analytic API?
Huh??! Is this a satirical post I've fallen bait to?
Or just don't put so much software in it that you need security updates for remote access in the first place, how about that?
> navigation facilities? No watching TV while charging?
Why would I pay to have the same features as my phone/tablet/laptop but with the added disadvantage of not having access outside the car?
They're talking about being able to get notifications about the security of your car (e.g you left the trunk open, someone is opening the door etc). I'm guess you don't have a modern car, but having a security system for your car is super useful, especially if you live in left-leaning crime-friendly place like SF.
> navigation facilities? No watching TV while charging?
> Why would I pay to have the same features as my phone/tablet/laptop but with the added disadvantage of not having access outside the car?
Because you can access it on a 15-30" screen rather than a 6" phone screen
Displayport over usb-c would also solve this problem.
The baby is dead and should be disposed of.
Yes, but that doesn't require I give up freedom or control. The number of years a vendor provides upgrades adds value to the product (i.e. long term commitment or not). The cost of a car is so ridiculous any more that expecting a lifetime of software updates is probably a rational demand from a consumer.
> but a lot if for safety reasons
Yes, so? I wrote software for vascular ultrasound devices in the 80s. Those could do really bad things to humans. Upgrades were provided for free and accounted for in the price of the product because... SAFETY IS NOT OPTIONAL and should never be relegated to a subscription where if you stop paying YOU ARE UNSAFE.
The Mercedes HP subscription is not safety related, but it is true that at some point stopping updates will have some affects on safety, but don't forget that "legacy" cars locked you with its initial hardware and software, many times only later models upgraded safety feature based on experience.
I'm sure 80s and early 90s era vascular ultrasound devices are long obsolete, out of service and not supported. The point is cars are VERY expensive these day. It is ridiculous that a product that costs $35,000 has a $30/mo subscription for updates or features. This is majoring in the minors.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/flyfeature...
A mechanical engineer can lose their license if their work results in deaths.
A software engineer can't lose their license because they don't have one.
Perhaps a professional license may improve software development and thus better software in consumer products like cars where bad software design can result in deaths.
BioE doesn't have anything like that yet either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomedical_engineering#Trainin...
Looks like while there is not a particular license for BioE they can be licensed under other disciplines.
In very rare cases where a flaw is found, it is updated at dealerships via recall.
Easy quick and frequent updates done modern silicon valley style are dangerous and absurd for something as safety critical as a vehicle. Things are practically guaranteed to intermittently break while you own the vehicle, because there is no way the extensive factory testing is repeated for each minor update.
Most vehicle ECUs are traditionally made with very simple C or assembly software that simply maps inputs to outputs via a lookup table... and the same basic ECU firmware is used for decades and shared by numerous car manufacturers (e.g. almost all cars use BOSCH fuel injection ECUs). If they have a complex algorithm or model to generate these tables, that code never goes on the ECU itself, to minimize the complexity and make it reliable and predictable.
So the car manufacturer doesn't even develop any code, they only produce a table of numbers for flashing into the ECU, eliminating the possibility of algorithm errors. Once you physically test in diverse conditions that hit every possible value in the lookup table, there is very little room for an unexpected problem to pop up later on. Recalls updating the ECU tables have been mostly to reduce emissions and improve performance, but the vehicle still works fine under all conditions without it.
One thing I find really fascinating, is that old fashioned diesel engines had a mechanical injector pump, which was basically a sort of simple mechanical computer that in some sense works the same as described above. All vehicles pretty much used the same pump, but each had different "lookup tables" physically machined into a steel block as a curved ramp.
I like the philosophy explained in this article, that mentions Dieter Rams thoughts on the Porsche 911 design:
https://www.classicdriver.com/en/article/design-furniture/mi...
I don't buy the idea that this philosophy can't be applied to make safe and modern electric vehicles.
If this can’t happen then I’m cycling or taking the bus.
The dealer had the software and would update it for free (typically part of a recall) on my 2004 bmw, you can get this software and tune for only premium fuel (less safety)
Still, I don't want to have subscriptions for basic auto features like heated seats and how fast the car can go. I don't even like that Tesla makes you pay for access to the full battery, but at least that is a one-time purchase.