Hacker News Reader

Comment by bell-cot | Hacker News Reader

True. But if:

   #1 - You need a new car
     and
   #2 - All your new car options are connected
     then
   #3 - See #1

Or, maybe those cheap new Chinese EV's I've been hearing about will not be connected, nor connectable, "because cost-cutting". That trick might also save the Chinese manufacturers a load of legal headaches and issues.

View on HN

That has also crossed my mind in the past. The Chinese government being the source of conserving privacy from an acceleratingly authoritarian, western world dominating centralized government is rather ironic.

I could see it happen just for the Chinese to enter the U.S. market. It would also at the same time cause massive rifts in the west’s self-image of openness, equality, non-discrimination, anti-racism, etc (just like the TikTok ban is exposing) and the public will become painfully aware of the false and fake nature of our governments, if they block cars/Chinese companies without a legitimate justification.

If I were the Chinese I would do just that, not only offer cars that are not connected other than if one wants to connect their phone, but even make it a major issue and part of their identify and advertisement campaigns.

There is nothing particularly ironic about that - it's in the Chinese government's interest to control its own citizens and subvert its adversaries' control over theirs, and vice versa. See also Russia granting asylum to Snowden, and the myriads of Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern etc. dissidents sheltered by the Western bloc. I imagine we would see more of the converse were it not for the language barrier, too.

If anything, we should be grateful for this situation; in a worse world all these governments would abide by gentlemen's agreements to not act against each other when it comes to controlling their subjects, notwithstanding their differences.

You probably don't need a new car. A lightly used connected car with a 3g modem is no longer a connected car. I've got two now; one of which had a 3g modem added as a factory recall because 2g was shutdown and the connected features stopped working.

Depends in which country you drive. Germany has still 2G enabled (at least for some networks) while they removed 3G. Other countries did the opposite, but many European countries will still have 2G or 3G for a few years.

> 2g was shutdown

On T-Mobile it's still operational, they cancelled the sunset indefinitely. (3G is shut down though)

US car sellers seem to like ATT and Verizon. My personal experience with T-Mobile was that 2G became unavailable; maybe it worked in some places, but my 2G only phone would never connect anymore.

The coverage footprint was never as large as LTE or NR. They also never added new 2G coverage later on, some markets started with LTE-only.

If your device is 2G only, needs an older SIM containing the SIM application that T-Mobile doesn't activate anymore. (I only have one of these still working). However 3G phones with 2G fallback will work on new sim cards through the USIM application (technically even esim through stuff like esim.me).

> maybe those cheap new Chinese EV's I've been hearing about will not be connected, nor connectable, "because cost-cutting".

TCL TVs are so cheap because they sell ads and information about what you’re watching to anybody who will buy it. Why would cars be different?

Or buy an older used car.

We need a website that shows models and "safe" years.

Or how to modify them to not phone home. Happy to pull fuses or connectors.

Yea, it's gotten to the point where recent cars are such a minefield of misfeatures and unwanted features. Traditional car buying sites like Autotrader need to offer better filters. I should be able to check a box that says "No touchscreen," "No microphone," "No cellular connectivity," "No telemetry," "No account[1] required" and so on. Without this, you need to filter by year, but that's not really precise.

1: Aside: The idea of having to have an online account with the manufacturer in order to use a car is so ridiculous, I can't even believe I'm typing it.

At this point I've considered building a mostly finished kit car. These privacy violations should absolutely be illegal. I shouldn't have to deal with GM selling my driving data to my insurance provider. I can't just buy a different car either as they ALL do it now.

Also, a car should not be like setting up an iPad. Dedicated buttons are superior and safer, but it won't happen again at this point outside of an act of Congress as the manufacturers found out it's cheaper to make just a single touchscreen.

> The idea of having to have an online account with the manufacturer in order to use a car is so ridiculous, I can't even believe I'm typing it.

Where is this the case? I haven't heard of this before, granted i haven't bought a car in about 8 years. My 2016 4runner has the little mayday button and gps aftermarket thing but you have to pay for the service, if you don't pay then my assumption is it's not transmitting anything. I know Tesla does OTA updates so they must be connected 24x7 but I haven't heard of that requirement for any other cars. Is it just an EV thing?

I know there are still plenty of places in the US with absolutely no cell phone much less data service, i'm assuming these cars are drivable there with maybe a "no connection" indicator. I wonder if there's a way to disable the ability to get a reliable connection without actually removing power to a component.

On the other hand, if you're driving a car with your phone in your pocket then it's a moot point. Your phone is the best citizen tracking device ever invented.

edit: i want to be clear and I agree, having to have an online account to operate a car is _absolutely_ ridiculous!

Of course not! The Chinese will surely connect their EVs and report everything back to China if they can. We're talking about a country with mandatory PC (and probably phone) spyware.

> #1 - You need a new car

At this point I'm settled on the fact that I will never own a car newer than 2014.

#3 - Move somewhere you don't need a car.

lol jk, Vancouver is too expensive, and there is no where else in NA where car ownership is optional for parents.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com