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Comment by underseacables | Hacker News Reader

This is awful. Now we will have to jailbreak our cars just do use basic features.

Or avoid buying newer cars. That's what I do to avoid surveillance by the manufacturer, and it would be equally effective for this.

It would increase the value of older cars.

Or create the conditions for the rise of electric hotrods.

Seems likely. "We're all Cubans now."

Many states will ban the purchase of used ICE vehicles eventually just as they have deadlines for banning new ICE vehicle sales, or at least make the process so onerous they might as well have banned them.

Maybe, maybe not. Right now, though, that isn't a reality.

Oh there's a way around that. Places like Lisbon and London already have time periods where older vehicles cannot enter parts of each city without paying a fee. It's only a matter of time that they're banned altogether for "the sake of the environment".

Don't worry, I'm sure they'll make that illegal too, just like when they outlawed personal importing of cars from cheaper markets in the name of safety. Because everyone in the car world knows, after 25 years, a car is automatically safe for the road, right?

> Because everyone in the car world knows, after 25 years, a car is automatically safe for the road, right?

Nobody is claiming that.

The US Federal government is claiming that! "A motor vehicle that is at least 25 years old can be lawfully imported into the U.S. without regard to whether it complies with all applicable [Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards].(1)"

After 25 years, it is assumed to be so safe they don't even need to comply with vehicle safety laws. If the import ban was about safety, it wouldn't ever allow cars previously legally considered 'unsafe' onto the roads, but the 25 year law pretty much gives away it was about people importing Lexuses and BMWs for less than it cost to buy one in the US, which made the manufacturers unhappy.

1: https://www.nhtsa.gov/importing-vehicle/importation-and-cert...

They aren't saying after 25 years the cars are safe. Right in their statement they acknowledge that the cars may not meet safety standards.

I suspect the 25-year cutoff is mostly about allowing enthusiasts to drive classic cars. There's a small number of them. Allowing millions of new unsafe cars to be sold to random consumers would be a terrible idea. I think the rules make sense.

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