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Comment by afh1 | Hacker News Reader

The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled.

Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new cars to be equipped with "driver impairment" tech which was called a "kill switch". Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-402773429497

Anyway, I'm staying with my old gas Honda until it dies which is probably never with proper maintenance and eventually restoration. I'll never go electric. Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point, and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.

View on HN

Last year Mozilla did a study on the privacy of modern cars. Every car they tested showed terrible privacy problems.

Privacy Nightmare on Wheels: Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644

(edit I see I'm not the first to link this in this thread)

Whenever I talk about this issue with friends and family I bring up how that report revealed Nissan was gathering info on sexual activity in their cars and can sell it to third parties. That usually gets people to start listening.

Was Nissan actually collecting this data? All I can find is that the privacy policy retained the right to it (some lawyer probably though about what happens if they accidentally record you getting frisky, and put it in there preemptively), but no evidence if it actually happened.

Does it matter? We can split hairs over whether or not they are actually doing the thing they give themselves the rights to do, but that feels unproductive and disingenuous.

Yes it matters. Or at least it matters whether the claims you make are true, and there is a difference between “had a right to” and “did”.

Have I told you about my neighbor who uses a leaf blower nonstop from 7am until 8pm? Well, he doesn’t actually, be he has a right to, and it’s splitting hairs whether he actually does or not.

Ok, give me remote access to your computer. I’ll send a contract saying I can sell what I find, but I haven’t done it so it’s cool and it shouldn’t be cause for alarm.

It’s for sure cause for alarm, but it is a different alarm than if you gad broken into my computer.

I’m not a fan of the “they did something bad, so we might as well pretend they did something worse” line of argument. It strikes me as dishonest.

In 2024 to assume a company is not exercising virtually all the rights you’ve given them when you agreed to their terms and services - especially when they stand to make a ton of money doing so - is wild to me.

These companies do not get the benefit of the doubt. I do not need proof to assume they are selling us to the highest bidder when they explicitly outline it in their terms and services and have done it time and time again. Experience has shown us that more often than not they will.

I also didn’t say Nissan stole or broke into anything. My example is appropriate.

Has Nissan sold this data time and again?

Or are you again presenting an assumption as fact.

I think assuming a company is selling your data is a completely fair one. But it’s also completely fair to ask that people don’t use language that implies factual knowledge to represent those assumptions.

If only to make your argument better you might evaluate your comments and see how your language is weakening it.

At some point you’re just coming off as either way too trusting or playing the steel man. We clearly don’t see eye to eye here. My skepticism of the car manufacturers - especially the ones listed in this very damning report which includes Nissan - is warranted whether you agree or not. Feel free to sign on the dotted line. I won’t be convinced to agree to that nonsense.

Agreed. The false analogy just reduces the likelihood that a real dialogue starts because it’s faux boogie men.

It’s not a faux boogie man. We are literally having a discussion spurred by an extensive report on this exact issue.

On the other hand, do we have any means of finding out whether they did? It's one thing if you can say "No, they definitely don't, here's what's actually sent and here's how it's used and here's the contracts limiting what's gathered". Otherwise we're all just speculating.

But in the absence of solid proof, I think the history of the last several decades of surveillance shows that it's completely reasonable to assume the absolute worst. Snowden showed that the scope of government data collection was far beyond even the wildest assume-the-worst theories floated in tech media prior to the revelations, and Doubleclick (wearing its Google façade) makes the NSA look lazy.

The reason these assumptions are reasonable, is that there's incentive for them to be true. Someone's willing to pay for that data. Maybe not very much, but if it costs almost nothing to collect, then it works out.

The way some manager sees it, Nissan would be "leaving money on the table" if they didn't spy on their customers to the absolute maximum permitted by their EULA. This gets brought up in every internal meeting about telemetry features, I can assure you. (I've been in those meetings for a number of automakers, though not Nissan specifically, the whole industry is on board. It turns the stomach. My voice was not heard.)

Yeah at this point in my life I just immediately assume if I give a company a right to do something, they’re going to do it. It’s an assumption everyone should operate under.

It's different. The leaf blower thing is something everyone has a right to do, and if it actually bothered enough people the municipality would put some restrictions on it regardless, and they didn't have to intentionally seek it out in legal scripture, and anyone can verify that they are using the leaf blower.

With the cars, they went out of their way to get the right to do so, implying they want to do it, otherwise it would be a waste of money. Nobody can really verify whether they are or are not doing so, as that's confidential company information and it's not illegal (since they have to right to do so) so nobody can subpoena them to find out. So maybe they are doing it and just lying about not doing it.

> Have I told you about my neighbor who uses a leaf blower nonstop from 7am until 8pm? Well, he doesn’t actually, be he has a right to

While I think it’s reasonable to split hairs about whether or not they were actually collecting the data, I think this is a really problematic analogy for a number of reasons.

I think a better comparison would go something like this: “My neighbor told me he might record everything that happens in my back yard”.

Your neighbor having the right to run his leaf blower constantly isn’t analogous to your neighbor directly claiming they might do something that impacts your privacy. Even if they never actually record anything, coming out and saying they might is more newsworthy than an unstated “right to be annoying” that never occurs.

It’s still worth distinguishing between “my neighbor said he might” and “my neighbor is actually doing this”, but just the claim on its own is still worth paying attention to if you care about your privacy.

Yes. It comes down to intention.

The charitable read is that they are notifying you of the possibility that the car’s data collection may unintentionally include sexual activity. E.g. your car was recorded as having a rocking motion while parked.

The other read is that they are intentionally collecting sexual activity data for nefarious purposes.

The first is the lawyer drafting the release being overcautious. The second is a corporation being evil.

I’m not in love with either, but the claim was that Nissan was actively collecting data about sexual activity, when there is no proof of that. The only thing there is proof of is that they put a notice in their terms of service.

> The first is the lawyer drafting the release being overcautious. The second is a corporation being evil.

How was the hypothetical overcautious lawyer able to independently come up with such a specific scenario, which would require intimate technical knowledge?

I believe your are missing a third option, which is a synthesis of both. This is that the engineers reported that their sensor data could be used to collect sexual activity. However, in response to that, the corporation preferred to cover themselves legally rather than making any technical effort to address the risk on their customers' privacy.

The lawyer is not being overcautious, but simply displaying the corporation's priorities. The corporation is not being evil, it is just being psychopathic.

Seems more likely that a lawyer simply made it up without engineering justification

It’s not the job of the lawyer to trust what the technical people are saying, it’s to protect the company. The lawyer will want to protect/cover anything even remotely plausible and/or has been seen to be a problem in similar situations.

I’ve been in conversations many times where lawyers chose language about a product that the product couldn’t do and there would be no reasonable way to do it technically.

The language is usually in response to specific precedents or jurisdictions where surprises happened to someone else.

Personally I don’t need proof.

Over the past couple decades I’ve been giving companies and our government the benefit of the doubt. And I’ve been burned every time.

Not only am I wrong, always, I’m extremely wrong. In fact the conspiracy theorists are often wrong too - they’re too lenient.

After Snowden, we should all understand that whatever the worst case scenario is, it’s probably worse than that. If you can think it, it’s probably happening. If they allude to it happening, it’s definitely happening.

How people can see headlines like this - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driv... - and go "well we haven't seen proof they do it so stop being so alarmist" is beyond me.

I don't trust a single one of them. It's not even just they haven't earned it, it's that we have every reason not to. The public trust in these companies should be completely and irreparably shattered at this point.

YES!!!!!

there's plenty of REAL privacy matters to address than to invent demons and then undermine genuine issues with 'boy who cried wolf'!!!

NO!!!!!

We can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time, and frankly I’m not going to wait to find out I got screwed. When it comes to privacy you have to be proactive, you can’t claw it back.

>We can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time

Is the bubble gum bought with the unlimited resources known as "other people's money"?

Political will is zero sum or close to it. It is wasteful to rile people up over hypotheticals when there is no shortage of non-hypotheticals that are just as odious which simply have not been publicized.

To handwave this away as a simple hypothetical when this whole discussion is spurred by a thorough analysis by the Mozilla foundation showing this exact issue is, frankly, dishonest. I don’t really know how else to respond. We are having this debate because of a report with credible evidence and accusations. The burden is on you and Nissan et al to convince me to trust them with my biometrics and other info/activity (mostly needlessly) tracked by the car.

This is a very strange hill to die on - in defense of car manufacturers against our privacy rights. Once I buy a car what I do with it is none of their damn business and they sure as hell shouldn’t be _selling_ that info.

You don't syrike me as open minded awoo

I’m sorry you feel that way.

Are you?

Are you surprised I responded flippantly to a personal dig?

We’re well beyond the point of productivity. Have a good one.

So you admit you were flippant, and assert my observation was a personal dig.

Reveals much about your ability to handle discourse

BolexNOLA did a fine job trying to focus the conversation on published facts and the sensible position that the onus is on the automakers to prove their trustworthiness after they betrayed public trust. This was not something you or potato3732842 really engaged with beyond an uncritical dismissal. If you want discourse, you have to bring something to the table.

IMO if the privacy policy allows it, you should always assume it is happening.

The reason is with most of this stuff it’s impossible to verify. Even if you wanted to know what data is collected and how’s it’s used - you literally can’t.

Even opting out is based on trust. I mean, it’s all done in software. Nothing is physically removed and most of the time the data is still transmitted. You’re just hoping they don’t use it.

> IMO if the privacy policy allows it, you should always assume it is happening.

Judging by the responses I’ve been getting this is apparently a controversial stance and we should all just give this stuff away to Nissan then wait to find out what happens.

FYI for anyone who owns a Subaru: you can opt out of 3rd-party data sharing here

https://www.subaru.com/support/consumer-privacy.html

If you don't live in one of the states mentioned in the first paragraph, expect this to take a very long time. For me it took 6 months.

You can also opt out of Ford too. They default enable sharing with third party for features, default disable for sharing with data brokers like LexisNexis. It requires you to put in your driver pin to enable that

Wait!

Lexisnexis has access to the GPS information?

Pretty sure anyone willing to pay for it has access.

Uh… Can you also opt out of first party data sharing? Or is Subaru still going to be spying you while pinky swearing to at least not share it with anybody else?

The only way to opt out of that is with a power drill.

The only opting out I would trust would be to take a screwdriver to the cellular modem and disable it. Of course this would probably bubble up various exceptions so best way to do it may be to isolate the antenna, though that may not be 100% reliable.

My bought-as-used Subaru has a 3G modem, and there's no 3G service anymore. Good enough.

I'm with you here. I have an 89 BMW (which is old enough to have an actual servo motor attached to the intake manifold for cruise control) and an 83 Land Cruiser (whose most advanced feature is that it controls its emissions using vacuum controlled pneumatic circuitry).

I'm very glad I've put in the time to learn how to work on cars because I have zero interest in the tech direction of modern vehicles.

> 89 BMW ... and an 83 Land Cruiser

I'm with you. Our daily drivers are 2011 Mitsu, 96 Toyota, 92 Buick and a 63 Dart. Also a 61 Sunliner for when it's not-summer.

The Mitsu is unfortunately drive-by-wire; I mostly avoid it.

How large is your family? Why do you need so many cars?

People who have many cars usually don't do it because of necessity, but because they love tinkering with the old automobiles.

At peak teenager/young adult time my family owned six cars. That's for two adults and three driving-age kids. The sixth car was something my dad, who was an old-school motor head of the sort who grew up using feeler gauges, just kept around for no obvious reason but to tinker now and then.

Bingo.

> How large is your family? Why do you need so many cars?

I live with my 5 adult sons.

We also buy cars when deals show up. The Toyota had 41k for $500 and the Buick had 31k for $1300.

We're working on a cheap 88 Dodge P/U; my son converted it to points and carburetor.

We also have a 69 XL that seriously needs to go away. It does 130 at what feels like high idle.

The Cybertruck is the only vehicle on the market that has drive-by wire. There was previously an Infiniti model that was partially drive by wire.

I'm guessing that car is "drive-by-wire" via the throttle, which has not been an actual cable in most cars for decades at this point. Steer-by-wire is indeed just the cybertruck at this point afaik.

electronic throttle body controls are extremely common, yes. but they don’t have any downside to driving feel, so i don’t think it would fit what the GP was referring to.

Parent nailed it. I feel lag every time I hit the pedal and it messes with me.

It's cables for me but I'll settle for linkage.

Almost every early electronic throttle like that drives like pure ass, and newer ones are hit or miss at best. Toyota seems have done a decent job with it, but everyone else kind of keeps pooching it.

That falls in with a lot of stuff that felt like it might have made sense on race cars that I don't understand why people keep asking for on street vehicles (drive by wire throttle, CVTs, huge wheels with rubber band tires, certain kinds of traction and stability control, viscous coupled or electronic "all wheel drive" (not 4WD), along with the Subaru boxer 4 people get Stockholm syndrome over); all I can figure is that people are just OK driving stuff that drives and behaves like total shit.

87 BMW here. I believe my servo is controlling the throttle cable itself. When the cruise control commands the vehicle to accelerate, the pedal physically moves.

It's not my daily driver, but I would absolutely love to one day get another one as a project car - one that's not in such good condition that I'd feel bad removing the engine - and drop an electric motor in it. That likely _would_ become my daily driver. The car's incredibly well made, and a joy to drive.

Yep, you explained it better than I did! It's a really charming setup.

Isn't this the standard way to implement cruise control in the decades before drive by wire throttles?

I'm not knocking anyone, but i bet there were people who showed the same level of scepticism to a electric motor being attached to the throttle cable as people do today to electric cars

This makes me wonder what the cost is to convert a vehicle over to biodiesel so it can be ran on used oil.

Still green, unlike gas, but restricts the surface area of issues related to modern cars

Most injection systems are rated for 20% bio aka b20 without voiding the warrantee. Bio beyond that doesn't have enough lubrication so you have to supplement it with a splash of something like 2-stroke oil. It can run for a long time like that without hurting the pump but manufacturers don't support it. Some gas stations sell b20. If you're talking straight veg you need a certain type of injection system for reliability, and even there you're decreasing the life of the pump. Old mechanical pumps work great, first gen cummins, vw 1.6, mercedes om617 machines can run on straight heated veg for a long time with no issues. Electronically controlled mechanical systems like the vw 1.9 tdi can run on it too but might be a bit more finicky about what you're injecting.

Assuming you want to make your own bio you'd have to set up a transesterification process where you convert the trans fats out of the oil, that process uses lye so it needs a decent container and is best automated. If you're trying to recover the solvent, which is probably methanol, you'd need a still as well, and decent ventilation. Fully automated with raspi or arduino components is a couple grand or more, prefab units run something like 10k.

If rather than bio you're talking straight grease, it is cheaper to clean but more expensive to set up the car. You'd need a second fuel tank, preferably heated depending on climate, some solenoid valves, and a heated fuel filter. And a pile of hoses and wires to connect it all. Maybe a grand or so to set it up depending on driving conditions, kits run 1-2, some are better designed than others.

Either way you'd also want some big drums for holding tanks at home where you can let the fluid layers separate and a pump to move them around. Most car washes give away polyethylene 50gal barrels.

Most expensive thing in my opinion, is your time and the cost of the oil. You can get something like 5-50gal per week per restaurant, tho most overuse the oil. Best places don't cook meats in there at all. Chain and large restaurants want a schedule. Cost of the oil varies, used to be paid to take it, somewhere around 2010 that inverted and now you pay for the oil.

Right there myself.

One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive.

Front wheel can remain gas with transmission. Add more generating current capacity, and have that dumped into the rear drive system batteries.

With my current car, the V6 gets very good economy at speed, and poor economy in town or in traffic.

An assist from the rear can tackle the poor economy cases nicely, leaving the rest to the gas engine.

Depending on battery capacity, I suppose it could do most in town driving at say 40 and below.

This is exactly how Toyota's AWD works in the Sienna these days.

It gets 35mpg city and highway, 1mpg less than the front wheel drive Sienna (which, to be fair, is also a hybrid)

Good to know. Does it have EV only range, or just assist?

> One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive. Front wheel can remain gas with transmission.

It can be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2agCqW6ntc

I love older cars and drove an early 80s Volvo until 2010 or so, but I also love side impact airbags, antilock brakes, and a car that mostly just “works”.

When I was younger I loved having an 84 Chevy Scottsdale. It was a cool looking truck and was easy to work on. I used to love getting under the hood to chase down problems and find solutions.

Now my knees hurt when it's cold outside, so crawling around on the ground to fix the fucking u-joint AGAIN isn't that fun, and I also like knowing that my children might survive if we get in a crash; something that's genuinely up for question in old vehicles.

I would pay a premium for a new car without an "infotainment" system, cameras (except backup camera), gps, or any form of touchscreen.

I was really hoping to see am EV startup go after the niche of barebones vehicles. I would absolutely have an EV if it was a safe chassis with good range, a powerful enough motor, and none of the infotainment bells and whistles.

I want to be able to diagnose my car if it has issues, but I don't want a system complex enough that it requires over the air updates.

My bet is, once the car companies fully understand the lifetime value of the data, there will be an option to opt out by paying that monetary value up front. My guess is it’ll be an expensive “executive” model used mostly by governments and criminals.

Unless some serious privacy examples get reported and it scares the politicians in California and California puts in place special laws to force “non tracking” to be a legal option.

One final weird option would be. I wonder if you could put children in your car and sue the car company in California because the car company is collecting data on minors without your consent? Do the car terms and condition handle data associated with minors correctly?

I had a Honda that I loved with a backup camera but no infotainment- it showed a little picture-in-picture on the left hand side of the backup mirror. It was pretty slick.

I do have one newer Toyota Tacoma for the purpose of "just working" and it does a great job of fulfilling that role, but includes a host of features and such that I really have no interest in. But if you have project cars, you really just need a very stable "normal" vehicle for day to day.

For Volvo, I know that the 850s were the first to have airbags built into the seats for side impact, and I think they had anti lock brakes in those as well.

I wonder if the Franework model will ever apply to cars with modern safety. Probably not but one can dream.

I want an electric car. I also wish it was feasible to work on it.

An electric vehicle and "feasible to work on" (presumably in a home garage and/or driveway) do seem mutually exclusive.

The Volvo 940 had all of those modern safety features, but was still more or less the same car as the older RWD 740.

Mercedes also had that stuff early- I had a 1987 Mercedes diesel that had front air bags, ABS, and was basically modern car reliable.

> Anyway, I'm staying with my old gas Honda until it dies which is probably never with proper maintenance and eventually restoration.

I would have stuck with my 2003 Honda Accord too, except that some woman, probably talking or texting on her cell, slammed into me while I was stopped at a light, totaling my car and damaging 3 others. I got $8K for my car after arguing with the insurance company, and paid $28K for a 3 y/o replacement.

The fine for texting while driving in Kentucky is $25.

What is the relevance of your anecdote? I’m genuinely confused.

That other drivers determine whether or not you get a new car just as much (if not more than) you do.

That whole system looks like what we install on police patrol cars. Left switch allows you to keep car running even when keys are removed (but you can’t drive it will kill the ignition).

GPS is for obvious reasons tracking. But these don’t look like patrol cars so it’s out of my wheel house.

> but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars

All. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECall:

“eCall (an abbreviation of "emergency call") is an initiative by the European Union, intended to bring rapid assistance to motorists involved in a collision anywhere within the European Union. The aim is for all new cars to incorporate a system that automatically contacts the emergency services in the event of a serious accident, sending location and sensor information. eCall was made mandatory in all new cars approved for manufacture within the European Union as of April 2018.”

It's crazy the EU passed this and collecting someone's IP address or assigning them a random UUID is considered a GDPR violation.

Assuming the tech is not abused, it makes perfect sense (GDPR Art. 6(1)(d)). And, in fact, abusing the tech would be a GDPR violation. You might consider it foolish, but it's not inconsistent.

Quite the opposite! Since people can have faith that they are protected by GDPR, they can have machines that actually work to help them, instead of hobbling them out of fear of being exploited.

Except for those car machines

How so? A manufacturer who's found to use this information for any purpose other than calling emergency services when you crash will go bankrupt because of the GDPR. This is a strong incentive not to.

Information can be sold or leaked, abused by a single employee for personal reasons, or used en mass for surveillance, regardless of what's written in the paper. Faith is actually an accurate term for this level of trust in government. I for one reject the notion of being tacked at all times by law.

Do you have a phone?

Interestingly, everyone is actually scrambling to get the legislation changed or a replacement for eCall that works over 4G/5G before 2027 because 2G/3G is or is being shut down all over the place. Otherwise, technically, driving these cars could become illegal in the EU.

This is a huge reason why I won't buy more modern vehicles.

Safety features and fuel economy are night and day when comparing a 5 year old car and a 30 year old one, but between the privacy issues and inability to diagnose or fix a new car I just can't do it.

I bought an 80s model truck that sat in a garage for over a decade and has 50k original miles on it. I'm still chasing down a couple gremlins in the system, but its nice to be able to work on it myself. Bonus that it may not be driving perfectly right now but its happy keep on chugging, even if a sensor is bad or I get an occasional code for running lean.

Isn’t the gas mileage really really bad though?

Everyone chooses their own balance of bills. Personally (I'm not who you're replying to) I'm happy to pay more in rent and utilities if it means I can ride my bicycle most places instead of, say, being a 10-minute drive from the nearest crosswalk. In the end, my emissions are probably much lower than someone who can't imagine leaving their house without their car keys even though I drive an ICE.

Makes sense. The other issue that is mentioned would be the safety features. Air bags and side impact systems are massive jumps forward in safety. Most people aren’t concerned enough with privacy to trade those for it.

Safety is definitely a tricky tradeoff for me. If I couldn't work on the vehicle myself either way I'd have something newer, the combo of privacy and maintenance tip the scales for me (definitely an outlier though).

FWIW I'm the same, definitely sketched out by the thin pillars and lack of side airbags though. But I absolutely hate the GPS and presumably-always-on front- and rear-facing cameras.

I'm always keeping an eye out for an old Volvo, they've been ahead of the game on safety for decades.

I don't know when they first introduced side airbags, but in general I'd be very happy with a late 80s or 90s Volvo sedan or wagon, especially a diesel (mainly for reliability and ease of working on).

We don't drive very much honestly, and the cost of maintenance has tended to even out.

Our truck probably gets around 16 or 18 around town, up to 20 if the conditions are right. Not great compared to a modern truck with a 4 cylinder turbo, but I really don't think I go through more than a tank of gas in a month (albeit a larger 20 gallon tank)

What does any of that have to do with a car being electric?

Let's find a list of electric cars without some form of network connection!

Found it:

You jest, but I have one: It's an Opel Ampera-E (in the states that's a Chevy Bolt), it's a 2018 model with all the connected features but first it was disconnected from OnStar with Opel being sold to PSA and later it was fully disconnected because it uses a 3G modem for communication but the 3G network was switched off (in most of Europe anyway...)

Coda EV

Rav 4 EV

Nissan Leaf

Fiat 500e

Smart Fortwo electric drive

...

There's probably a dozen or so first-generation (well for this century) electric vehicles that are just regular cars that happen to have an electric power plant.

The upside is that you can buy them used, for a couple grand. The downside is that they were manufactured with a 100 mile range, and your lucky if you can find one that still retains half that.

If aftermarket batteries become common, they'd be perfect around-town vehicles.

I'm currently contemplating upgrading my 2013 Leaf battery to a 62Kwh (and much longer range). It's a substantial cost but that would extend the cars life another 15 years. (un)Fortunately I've taken decent care of the original 24Kwh which is at 80.6 SoH after 11 years. Its use case is daily commuter under 45 miles - that's over 11k miles/year (or 18k km/year). At 2% loss on the SoH, that's another 5 years before it hit's 70% and has a noticeable drop in range.

I once saw a business proposing at a town hall near me that they would open a used ev/hybrid lot, the town was very reserved about approving the business and in the end it fell through. I love cars and tinkering with them, in my experience you can get a lot of miles out of an old car, newer technology can be daunting for old wrenches. I'm somewhere in between with my technical background. The idea of a 'kill switch' in a car is disconcerting for me, but this list gives me hope! Thanks!

Pretty sure my 2018 Leaf doesn’t.

Not sure when this will end, but through 2024 the S and SV models (ie, the two lowest trims) for all Nissans do not have network connectivity. This is one the reasons I bought a 2024 Nissan Frontier over some other vehicle.

Electric cars are essentially black boxes. When you take it apart, you have largely no idea what any of the chips do, even if you chase down what they're connected to. Is this the infotainment system or is it the infotainment system and a data gathering system that sends all my data off seas? There's no way to know. Old cars don't have that problem. Here's an engine, here's a gearbox, add a radio if you'd like, but by and large it's possible to grok what's in your car. With newer vehicles in general, and electric cars especially, it's near impossible to tell.

But that's not a gas vs. electric distinction, but rather an old vs. new one. Modern ICE cars have all of those problems too.

Yes but the point is, this technology is a blocker for people who might otherwise be interested in an electric powertrain vehicle.

If you want an old car without all this crap, you can get one. But it pretty much has to be an ICE.

You can convert any ice car to an ev. I takes time but is straight forward

For various definitions of "you." That's far beyond the reach of the average consumer.

So pay someone to do it for you. The free market has a solution.

It's odd how anti-hack Hacker News has become.

Time, money, and lots of knowledge and skill. Actually, lots of time and money too.

It’s really not a practical thing for at least 99% of the population. Probably more like 4 or 5 nines.

Sure. Other than being extremely expensive unless you've got the skills and facilities to do all the work yourself, and have the time and money to get all the engineering certifications required to make it road legal.

If you can do it all yourself, it's only moderately expensive.

In the us at least homebuilt cars slide through a lot of loopholes. And since you are coverting a car you automatically get many things that made the car road legal.

Bild your own electric in an old style body? Fun, if nothing else.

Also time and expense.

Probably not a good idea as the battery weight wouldn't have been figured into the original chassis/brakes design.

Right, you need to do that engineering yourself. And ICE engines are heavy, so it typically is reasonable to work out as the lighter engine compensates for the battery weight. It is a design task, not a project killer.

If modern EVs are anything to go by, the battery weight will be substantially more than the weight of an ICE engine plus gearbox etc. But yes, it'd be for the hobbyist to figure out the details and whether it is safe enough to drive.

The EV version of the Hyundai Ioniq is only about 60 kg heavier than the hybrid version and at about 1 500 kg is not much over the average for cars of its class.

EVs really are not a great deal heavier than the ICE versions of the same or similar vehicles.

The Jaguar I-Pace EV is lighter than some variants of the F-Pace ICE.

Hyundai offers an EV version of the Casper: it's 1335kg vs 985kg for the petrol variant. Surely that's a great deal heavier? The Aygo finds an all-electric competitor in the Renault Zoë whose battery pack alone weighs 300kg, a hefty increase compared to the 70kg engine of the aygo. Volkswagen's up! comes in at 929kg; the e-up! registers at 1229kg.

Regarding the I-pace vs the F-pace I was unable to find more than a single version with a greater weight than the I-pace, though I admit I haven't analyzed the specs of all 108 editions. That single example weighing more was, of course, a hybrid.

EV versions are, primarily due to the weight of their battery packs, significantly heavier than their ICE counterparts and that's fine.

I'm not sure modern EVs are anything to go by. They are trying to meet the needs of a broad audience whereas you know exactly what you need out of a vehicle. For example, if you only need a 50 mile range, not 250, that is 80% of the weight down. No major manufacturer would put that out, but most drivers do less than 50 miles a day.

There are all kinds of design choices that can be made to fit completely within the original specs of the chassis.

I’m honestly amazed there are not more conversion kits. Pull the IC powertrain and gas tank, replace with battery and electric motor. It’s obviously way harder than it seems or I think a lot of folks would be doing it.

They actually even make cars exactly like that. They’re pretty compromised cars though. An E-Golf for instance is just what it sounds like: they took the existing Golf and made it an EV.

I think the main issue is that it takes a lot of engineering from the ground up to make an electric car with good range and performance. Maybe if batteries get significantly better, then conversions will get more popular.

> this technology is a blocker for people who might otherwise be interested in an electric powertrain vehicle.

This surely isn’t a large group.

Maybe in a decade or two, your assertion will evaluate closer to true.

I think legacy auto did a good job promoting this tho

Yeah, its the same stuff that I've been told for decades now. TBH, it is probably less true with a lot of EVs than it was with the gas cars. ECUs are pretty strict and sometimes hard to hack.

Meanwhile, third party motor controllers for Tesla motors exist, and the batteries aren't exactly magic.

There's really nothing about electric drivetrains that makes anything vastly more locked down.

Yeah if the world went in the direction that prepper types seem to get wet dreams about petrol ICE cars would only be usable for a year or so - petrol has a shelf life, and you ain't running your own refinery.

A lot of diesels can run off of any vaguely fuel-like liquid you decide to put in them, so I'm sure sufficiently knowledgable people would keep those running, machining parts for them etc.

But electric vehicles are by far simpler than both of those, and generating electricity is easier than producing fuel you can shove in a diesel engine.

petrol ICE cars would only be usable for a year or so

The Internet really overstates this. Fuel injected systems are sealed. Carbureted systems are open to outside air, so the fuel is constantly evaporating, leaving residue behind, and absorbing moisture from the atmosphere.

Gasoline in a sealed container remains usable for far longer than people on the Internet say it will.

Anyway, the final state of an apocalypse car would be running on wood gas. North Korea runs some or all of their military trucks on it (this may have changed as they've increased relations with Russia). An episode of Car Talk explained how it was used by German civilians during WWII:

https://www.cartalk.com/radio/show/1201-20-miles-wood-chip

You can make an ICE run on wood gas which is arguably more apocalypse proof than electric.

Generators can run on that to charge an ev that is also chargeable by solar panels, wind mills and water mills.

All combustion engines, generators included require maintenance. Having n+1 requirements doesen't sound like a benefit to an apocalypse. In general consumer cars really don't fare well without well-mainained roads though, so they'd not be that useful to begin with.

>But electric vehicles are by far simpler than both of those

Electric engines might be, but battery tech for sure isn't. Building a combustion engine + fuel vs. building an EV battery is a whole different game.

Problem with gathering data off cars is that it's really not that effective vs your phone. A car realistically just sits around doing nothing 80% of the time, while a phone is with you 24/7, likely powered 24/7, and already has telemetry mechanisms built in. An old car with someone using a phone probably still collects the same data as you assert.

And an EV without smarts is legitimately just a golf cart.

In theory I can disable most if not all of the telemetry coming out of my phone, though. I can also choose to leave my phone at home, knowing that it's likely there's still something on it that's collecting data on my movements, even if I've been careful about disabling and uninstalling things.

But the car is largely a black box when it comes to its electronics, and if I need to drive the car somewhere, I can't leave the black boxes at home; they come with me wherever I go.

> And an EV without smarts is legitimately just a golf cart.

Sounds fine to me.

> A car realistically just sits around doing nothing 80% of the time

A bit besides the point, but isn't it wild how inherently wasteful personal cars are? Every time the thought crosses my mind to get another one, if I don't stop at the cost, I stop at the fact that I'll have this giant chunk of metal sitting idle on the street or somewhere else nearly all the time. It'd be useful in an extreme minority of cases (for me), but I/we pay for it all the time by allocating quite a lot of space and money to them. The tires, the insurance, taxes, fuel, charging stations, driveways, parking garages, natural resources, air quality, ambient noise, senseless deaths, it's crazy. Granted, some aren't a result of idle existence, but c'mon.

Renting an arbitrary car periodically ends up being the most tolerable option. A small temporary expense when it's really needed or desired, and it's enough to remind me of the good and bad bits.

Depends where you live, and how much of a hassle it is to get a rental car.

If you live somewhere with decent public transportation and good car sharing infrastructure (eg. walk to a nearby car share and unlock the doors with an app or a card vs Uber to Hertz and wait for an hour to sign paperwork), then yes that's a viable option. For many places in the US and Canada, that's not viable unfortunately.

True, and that really does constrain where I'm willing to live these days. There's some threshold probably where I could deal with owning one in exchange for some hypothetical benefit of living in the boonies or something, but for the foreseeable future I get too much personal value out of living on the west coast.

It's not always suitable mind you. Extremely short random day trips are the trickiest, which might tip me at some point if I'm making decent money again, but it's so hard to get to a point where I could rationalize that as an occasional leisure luxury instead of a burden.

I wouldn't move to another city though for any reason that would require me to own a car just for getting around. If they ain't investing in viable transit, they won't get my income tax.

Selfdriving taxis solves much of the 98% unused car problem.

They also create problems in terms of extra journeys as a private car will go from A to B, whereas a taxi goes from C to A to B to C.

It's quite amusing as people try to come up with more efficient use of cars and typically end up reinventing public transport (e.g. buses, trains etc).

Bro just platoon the autonomous taxis into a convoy, give them separated lanes, and get rid of the rubber wheels and add steel wheels and steel lane guides for maximum efficiency. It's obviously new and revolutionary!

Those extra journeys can be minimized with decent routing software. Even if it's as simple as ending up at B, then going directly to the nearest customer waiting for a ride.

And fwiw, if Tesla gets their robotaxi stuff working, their 22-passenger "robovan" is basically a bus anyway, just without a driver.

Their demo event showed a 14-passenger vehicle, but anyway.

I doubt that's a big factor.

The big thing they do is to make a huge number of parking spots obsolete!

There will also be far fewer cars doing the same transportation work.

Sounds like maybe you don't need a car. That's good for you, and I truly mean that. But that doesn't mean it's the case for everyone. It's a big, diverse world out there.

Um the fact that some people in some (less developed?) places need cars is not an argument against cars being wasteful...

Unless your idea of "diverse world" is confined to (suburban) North America, the need to own a car is the exception, not the rule.

Rural southern England here. Public transport is non existant where I live. You need a car if you want a life.

I lost my driving license for medical reasons and have spent two years without driving. I am really conscious of what a car means in terms of having a social life, working, etc. If I was younger, I would have had to relocate

Tell that to the Amish.

Car dependency is something that we've learned, not the natural state of things.

> Car dependency is something that we've learned, not the natural state of things.

Yes, it is not the natural state of things but for many people it is the actual state of things. I absolutely hate the fact that I live in a car focussed society but that is where I do actually live. And because of my investment in my house and garden I don't want to move

> Tell that to the Amish.

I had to count to 10 before responding here.

Perhaps you didn't notice the bit where I said I have spent two years without a car. It is something I have thought about a LOT. And have been impacted by. I don't have a convenient Amish community nearby to help me put up barns in my backyard, or even to lend me a horse to ride to the local B&Q when I need to buy a new tool of some sort. I deeply wish there was better public transport - I am not a petrolhead - but there isn't and won't be for the foreseeable future.

None of what you said here makes sense in the context of what you replied to.

> Tell that to the Amish.

The Amish have large populations in the northeast US, not rural southern England.

> Car dependency is something that we've learned, not the natural state of things.

What does this have to do with the fact someone was unable to drive due to medical reasons and learned first-hand how much society was set up to need a car?

Internet dependency is something we've learned, not the natural state of things.

So, try to go about your existence without Internet of any sort and please report back at any difficulties it may cause for you.

This is not about usage. I am not saying we should live without cars. I am saying that there is a very bad systemic issue if people simply can not live without owning a car.

If you want to make a comparison with utilities: The fact that people in Flint are getting bottled water delivered from distant cities (and the fact that some people prefer to drink bottled water anyway) does not mean that this is not a serious crisis.

I am not saying "other people can live without cars, so just suck it up". I am saying "if you are living in a place where you can not function without a car, this is a serious issue and you should be getting the pitchforks to hunt down the responsible authorities that brought this to you."

The Flint water crisis has been over for a very long time.

You understand this pedantry does not take anything away from the point being made, right?

I think a modern life is better than farming with draft animals and handiwork. Especially if I were a woman.

The Amish ride in horse-drawn buggies and hire private car drivers for longer trips.

I'd rather not go back to the days of horses as the primary means of transportation though.

That's not true. Most of the world (by land area) exists outside cities, and outside a city you will usually need to own a car.

80+% of people live in urban areas.

That depends doesn't it?

I keep my cars for a long time. 200k miles is the usual, and that has held true buying used a little ways north of 100k miles already on the board.

If we designed for very long car life, the waste equation would look different.

Toyota does, and there are a small number of people planning on half a million miles. Recently there is evidence Toyota is either struggling on this metric. Quality problems or deliberate design intent change?

> Recently there is evidence Toyota is either struggling on this metric. Quality problems or deliberate design intent change?

I'm hoping they fix this. There's almost no other reason to buy a Toyota other than this reliability reputation.

It seems like the way to go now is a naturally-aspirated Subaru, which I ended up after all the Toyota dealers near me treated me like a chump (which apparently is common; Toyota doesn't have as much "say" over their dealers as other similar companies afaik). Subies have basically been iterations on the same engine for a decade (the FB series), and the brand cannot afford to do much goofy R&D. They're also still dealing with the head gasket reputation despite that being >10 years old at this point (almost 20).

Yeah, a friend has a Suburu and we just had this same chat.

My most recent buy was a golden era Toyota and the difference is notable when I look at current models.

Subaru CVTs are not famous for their longevity.

I mean don't expect to beat on them, under-maintain them, etc, like one can a lot of older Toyota gear, but used within parameters, they have lasted my family (almost all of whom drive CVT Subies) well over 1m miles at this point without any big failure.

Key thing is to change the CVT fluid at least at the 60k interval (some countries say to do it every 30k, but that seems excessive). The "it's a lifetime fluid" thing is a total lie; it's the "lifetime of the CVT", so when it grenades itself, that's its lifetime ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Honda is similar without the Toyota attitude. I’d never buy a Toyota, ever.

All of the newer safety doo-dads are less reliable. Where I live, the road salt effectively caps effective lifespan of a car to 180-220k miles. The exhaust and suspension maintenance started to approach or exceed the cars value.

I recently did a Toyota to Honda and back to Toyota cycle.

I liked the overall performance of the Honda. Little things like slightly more aggressive gear ratios, steering and such were superior on the Honda. Economy was almost a push, but the edge goes to Toyota.

The Honda got my attention for service and repair more than the Toyota cars have. And Honda had the advantage overall. My Toyota was older than the Honda, both similar mileage, but the Honda failed earlier. Transmission. :(

I came back to Toyota, but wanting some of the creature comforts offered by Honda, I chose Camry this time. Excellent car. It's a serious, understated, very unassuming vehicle. It performs, feels better than a Corolla did, and still lacks the subtle things like gear ratios that are a bit more fun.

I live where one can put a half mil on a car, if it's up for it. Damn near did that on a Ford Expedition 2000's era vehicle. Guzzled gas, but man! I loved that one for a ton of reasons. Being an active family at the time, the Expy made sense.

For me having the thing just go when I do the maintenance properly matters more than the other aspects do. So, Toyota it is!

*I buy used, 10 to 20 years back, moderate to low mile cars, under $5k. No new vehicles for me. They simply do not make sense.

Now, current Toyota might be a turn-off for me too. The quality issues playing out right now seem worrisome. I hope they get past that.

I'm driving 2000 era vehicles because that was the sweet spot for people like me who will do their own work a majority of the time. I enjoy that, and I know it's done right. It's gone south a few times with shops and I really hate having to navigate that BS.

2000 to 2010, Toyota has me, but Honda is damn close.

So tell me about the Attitude please. Super curious about that. What's the big turn-off? And are you sensing a newer thing, or is this long term, basic?

No judgement or battle here. Just genuine curiosity.

The dealer thing varies by region. I’ve run into stuff with relatives like:

- Difficult basic activities. Like you can’t talk to anyone without an appointment. When you need to talk about something they aren’t interested in talking about, they get busy.

- Aggressive & deceptive upsell on service, as in service advisor demanding an unnecessary $750 repair as a condition to honor a battery warranty.

- Trying to steal deposits for unfilled car orders. “Sorry, we can’t get the car you put a $1000 deposit on, and we don’t do refunds.”

- Ridiculous up charges, scammy deal accessories, ripoff financing and market adjustments. My sister was trying to buy a Grand Highlander, which was a hot car. I think Toyota punishes dealers by putting on allocation for hot cars, so they try to pump every nickel possible.

In my sisters case, it was so insane I was able to find her a better deal for an equivalent Lexus. Whatever contract the Toyota dealers have, they don’t allow the manufacturer to effectively manage the brand.

My experience with Honda is you get the usual car dealer fluff, but they aren’t aggressive. There’s also more dealers, at least in places that I live in, so there’s more competitive juices at work on the sales side.

Ah, I see. It is the dealers attitude you were writing about.

Oh yeah. Some of those ring true for me too. Now, I basically quit buying new, and the shitty dealer experience is a significant part of why. The other part is a lot of cars are being made that I just don't want to buy!

The dealer here presented some of those items. So did a Ford dealer, for what that is worth.

Thanks for sharing. Appreciated

On a separate topic, is there anything to be done about the salt?

I feel for people living where they do that. I like long term car ownership and that seems like a curse right out the gate!

Can the car be treated, washed? Hmmm, our move to negative ground makes the salt worse. Positive ground cars would help a lot with corrosion, but we don't make those anymore. I never learned why that is.

I've been of a similar opinion for many years. I have public transport and my office commute is about two hours and half in each direction, but I only need to go to the office once per week, so it's somehow acceptable.

But I'm getting old. I've decided I want to use my remaining years of any strength to do more hiking, kayaking and camping, and for that I need a car every weekend. Rentals would be slightly more expensive than owning a second hand one. But I do wish car ownership were cheaper and more painless.

> likely powered 24/7,

This is a weird thing to call out. I'd suggest a car is powered as much as a phone. I'm trying to decide for people that have a car and a phone which is more infuriating to not have power.

Kill switches across the battery aren't terribly uncommon

That’s your retort? Do you have numbers of them being anything more than a rounding error? More and more cars need something reset when the battery is disconnected. I can only assume that this will become even more prevalent as a “security feature”. I had after market head unit that used that as an anti-theft deterrent.

On the other hand, cars are much less limited in terms of sensor size (allowing you to determine location and acceleration more precisely, for example), power and permissions. In theory, root permission on your phone would be better, but a normal app won't have this amount of far-reaching permissions, but the manufacturerers have full control over hardware and software on your car.

To me, that makes it their car.

> And an EV without smarts is legitimately just a golf cart.

Not really no.

There’s a gulf of difference between a car and a golf buggy.

And we can prove that by turning your argument the other way and saying: if that were true then ICE vehicles would just be petrol-powered golf carts.

Clearly that isn’t even a remotely accurate way of describing your average car

I mean, besides shape and speed, what is the difference that most people are concerned about. I wasn't aware that golf carts are all electric. I just thought of a golf cart as a car used specifically to traverse golf courses and resorts.

Shape, speed, comfort (better seating), body work, windscreen, lights, gears, radio, air conditioning… I could go on

If people just wanted to drive around in vehicles that were equivalent to golf carts then everyone would own a quad bike instead of a car.

Cars have been around for more than a hundreds years so it’s astonishing to me that some people cannot imagine what a car would look like without the “smart” features

And luddites been criticising cara for being too modern for hundreds of years too.

The Luddites haven't been criticizing cars for anything, given how they came and went 50 years before a first proper car was built.

And, if anything, the Luddites were not anti-technology, they were anti-being fucked over by capitalists. The problem they rose up against wasn't the automatic looms, it was the way they were deployed - to replace skilled workers instead of augmenting them, depressing salaries and eliminating jobs across the industry. The Luddites weren't fighting progress, they were fighting to keep themselves and their descendants from destitution.

Alas, since technology was involved and technology is magic, the misconception about the Luddites has spread wide and persists to date, conveniently distracting everyone from what the actual problem was. Compare with everyone today whining about "tech bros" and the supposed folly of "solving social problems with technology", which is both wrong and entirely missing the real problem, which is the same as the ones Luddites fought and lost to.

Yup, the parallel is the dream of a lot of the AI companies "Hey look, this LLM can maybe come in and do 80% of the work, so maybe you don't need 80% of your staff? Certainly you don't need the most expensive members".

That's effectively the scenario that Luddites found themselves in. Looms came in and decimated previously well paying jobs and the owners of the looms basically told the skilled workers to pound sand.

The luddites were smart.

I listen to the dev guys at work gush about how they are like 40% productive with LLMs, and look at their budget asks. Hmm.

Calling someone a Luddite doesn't mean you're saying they're a textile worker organized by Ned Ludd.

So it doesn't matter what the historic Luddites were or were not, because it's not a statement about them at all.

You know this perfectly well, and are merely pretending to misunderstand what's meant.

> I wasn't aware that golf carts are all electric.

They aren't. Many have gasoline engines.

But "glorified golf cart" was a common dismissal of early (generally pre-Tesla) EV efforts.

Not necessarily. Cars are a great proxy for human behavior.

Long term, cars will be leased based on driving behavior, and more critically, will be taxed based in driving distance and style.

They’re not black boxes, you’re just not an electrical engineer. They’re actually way simpler than ICE in a bunch of ways that really improve reliability. We just need to develop a collective understanding of how electric drivetrains work, the kind of understanding that we had developed in previous generations for ICE cars

LOL, you should give it a try IRL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41970406

Yeah I read that thread, it sounds like great progress! Really makes me think about the hardware I put out into the world professionally, and if I could realistically have reversed engineered it with no prior knowledge.

Cryptography is probably the real game changer here, secure boot, attestation, message authentication. Can’t exactly blame automakers for wanting those features, given the stakes, but that would make reverse engineering fairly impossible.

This is a funny comment because that's almost exactly what I have a degree in. The point here isn't the engine though, even though those are also a separate beast, but rather that all of these vehicles are packed to the brim with a bunch of chips with internet access and you have no idea what's really running on them. With electric cars we're seeing even more of this than with ICEs.

Sorry, a quip in bad faith. Collectively, _we_ (would-be car maintenance people) are not well enough versed in how these types of systems are designed. This is a collective failure, lack of documentation.

Unless you have the complete source code available to you, this is a patently false statement.

Yes, reverse engineering is labor intensive.

Expensive too. Your test harness is likely the car!

Cut the antenna on the modem?

I think the antenna(s) is in the little shark's fin on the car's roof. Could a Faraday cage be made to cover that?

I'm fairly sure that yes, though you could also cut the cable. Access might be tricky.

On a modern Ford, just pull the fuse for the TCU. Everything else keeps working as it always did.

The average electric car is a nightmare kludge.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41970406

That's not "the average electric car," it's just a Leaf. It doesn't necessarily imply anything about a modern Tesla, Lucid, or BYD.

For what it’s worth a lot of the transmitters for in car connectivity are in the headliner lighting unit. A lot of electronics end up there like front facing cameras for driver assists. You can in my current Porsche, my past Camaro, and a couple other cars I’ve looked at just unplug the module there. Sometimes you lose your Homelink garage door transmitter.

If you lookup the repair procedure for the cellular unit you will have found the way to disable it.

> Most people would have probably driven around for years with a foreign GPS tracker.

So basically everyone with a smartphone? I'm not sure if it's really worse if the car has its own GPS and cell connectivity. How many people turn off their phone or leave it at home? And you can buy other people's location data, so...

You can turn off your phone or go into airplane mode. Can you do that with your car? Even if most people don't use that option on a daily basis, doesn't mean it's fine.

So you put it in airplane mode while in a car and then disable airplane mode when you get to your destination? What's the point of that?

>then disable airplane mode when you get to your destination?

Why would I need to disable it? If you're not using the built-in navigation (which probably costs money anyways) and are using carplay/android auto instead, you should be able to leave it in airplane mode indefinitely. What critical functionality would I be missing out on?

Well... for most people... everything.

It sounds like you use a dumb phone. Anyone who takes this stuff seriously enough to use a dumb phone will be buying a dumb car.

OP isnt talking about putting the car in airplane mode, but the phone.

The point is that you are already tracked via your phone (which is likely kit in airplane mode), so there’s not a massive gain to preventing car tracking.

>The point is that you are already tracked via your phone (which is likely kit in airplane mode), so there’s not a massive gain to preventing car tracking.

That's like arguing "you're already plastering your face on social media, why are you hand wringing about corporations/governments building a facial recognition database?". The difference is that the former is consensual/optional, whereas the latter isn't. Moreover, just because most people aren't exercising their privacy rights, doesn't mean it's okay for those rights to be trampled on for everyone. Most people aren't activists or journalists who need free speech protections, but that doesn't mean we can trample on the first amendment. Saying you don't need privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't need freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.

> So basically everyone with a smartphone

Tbh considering the accuracy of modern triangulation technology... anyone with a cellphone, period.

The difference is in intent. People dislike intended tracking by a third party, that’s it. You cellphone company, your google, your govt can have it. Others can not. Even when they can, people actively don’t want that. What’s wrong with it?

The longevity of our car not only on how good you drive, but how bad others drive.

While not false, careful defensive driving makes a big difference. But most people hate someone cutting in front of them and so won't maintain large follow ng distances

And maintaining that proper distance can be worse!

I try, and often succeed and generally see risks all around.

Too close, and often with few or no escape paths means maintaining best case attention and response times for the whole drive. That is tiring and usually just not enough.

Too far back means people dropping into the gap non-stop! This too is tiring.

I really hate how this aspect of driving.

I have learned to ignore those driving into the gap. In fact one reason for the gap is to leave room for those who need to switch lanes.

in reality not many jump into the gap.

True.

I do hate it less these days. Perhaps I am headed your way on this.

I'm not in that much of a hurry, a couple minutes later won't make a difference. I have a friend though, twice in the last year she was rear ended sitting at a red light. Both time the car was totaled. Terrible luck on her part, but not much defensive driving could do for her.

I know your comment is just the traditional HN karma grab, but rejecting technological advancement in vehicles based on privacy concerns means missing out on significant improvements in safety, efficiency, and comfort. Would you also reject modern healthcare because hospitals use connected devices?

One is likely an emergency of a necessary system (body) and the other is not an emergency of a much less necessary system (car).

Not sure your analogy fits.

More Americans live without healthcare than without cars

What is the nature of karma grab?

The "I'm a tech guy so I shoot my printer if it makes a weird noise" meme essentially.

Since I'm going to buy a new car in the following years, wondering which cars don't have those? I don't mind old gas cars but I don't have the knowledge to tell whether the car contains those eSIMs.

These days, the better question is in which cars can you disable the esim.

Some have a fuse you can pull for the modem, without disabling anything else. Others you can pull the antenna, and add a resistor instead.

In some disconnecting the antenna isn't enough, it just reduces the range of the modem. Another option is if the modem can be physically removed.

e.g. http://sandsprite.com/blogs/index.php?uid=7&pid=462&year=201.... I think this head unit is shared amongst Chrysler vehicles, so Chrysler is an option (but then you'll have two problems).

A Lexus forum member went through several attempts to physically disconnect from the Toyota cloud and ultimately had to compromise on this, as the hands-free Bluetooth also went through the data communications module and they weren't willing to give that up.

The interesting part is that even though the antennas were disconnected, there was enough RF making it's way through the plastic sides of the module to give him 2-bars of signal strength. Wrapping it in grounded aluminum foil still allowed enough signal strength for transmission when they were very close to a cell tower. GPS signals were also being routed to the communications module over the car's network from the entertainment module (not sure why the entertainment module needs a GPS antenna or location data).

Ultimately they opted-out from data collection using the Lexus app and will rely on legal protections - in addition to disconnecting the antennas.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gx-2nd-gen-2010-2023/983214...

That's why I said, add a resistor. It turns the energy into heat instead.

Subarus don't precisely fit this criteria, but you can opt out of 3rd-party data sharing in all 50 states.

There should not be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive

Then leave the US.

Ideally, I'd like that everywhere else too.

Why do you think you should not have an expectation of privacy when driving?

Do you not consider reasonable to have an expectation of innocence when going about your business?

> Some other good ones: there should not be an expectation of privacy when performing surgery. There should not be an expectation of privacy when performing the monopoly on the legal use of force.

There should be an expectation of privacy when travelling on foot, bike, or any vehicle that doesn't require a license to operate, though.

We're not talking about monitoring traffic on roads there, but about an embedded spying device that is enabled even when you're in your own garage and is also being used commercially to monetize your private life.

This argument doesn't really make sense. The "expectation of privacy" in public doesn't refer to losing all your rights and letting anyone peek into anything when they want to. Vehicles can also be used on private roads or property, so the privacy invading tech would need to account for that (which I'm sure it doesn't, and there isn't a straightforward solution)

There's the way my e-bike works ; The electric assistance is supposed to be limited to 25km/h, you can opt to disable this through clicking a few buttons in an app for most brands, and use your vehicle on private roads only.

Then it relies on enforcement to catch you operating an illegal vehicle on a public road

Unlike e-bikes, your vehicle has a plate, so needless to say, if you get caught speeding on a public road by a camera and your vehicle was registered as having had the thing turned off at the time in the database (i.e. it shouldn't be on a public road), you could imagine getting an additional charge similar to operating a vehicle without a license plate or operating something that's not road-legal.

It makes total sense to me

>There SHOULD NOT be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive

let's say somebody else said "There SHOULD be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive"

Is there some reason I should side with you over them, or just your opinion? If the courts decided that there was an expectation of privacy on public roads, would you agitate to change the law so there wasn't?

>Is there some reason I should side with you over them, or just your opinion? If the courts decided that there was an expectation of privacy on public roads, would you agitate to change the law so there wasn't?

Sure! It would make infringing on road safety much more difficult thus reduce your chances of getting run over by people who are speeding, running red lights etc. And if you're driving, I think everyone would enjoy less maniacs on the road.

at this rate you might as well parade yourself naked around town or city, and advertise your medical history so that you can clearly demonstrate to the world your sanity.

Hello

Motor vehicles killed 3566 people every month in 2022, that's the death toll of the 9/11 attacks every 25 days.

While there is no expectation of privacy when one is out and about on the city streets, it generally means "you can take a photo of a fountain on the city square without getting every tourist that was caught in the photo to sign a release", not "you can rummage through everybody's bags"

Some other good ones: there should not be an expectation of privacy when performing surgery. There should not be an expectation of privacy when performing the monopoly on the legal use of force.

There was just an incident in my area that involved OnStar shutting down a hijacked car at the police’s behest and the guy got out and shot and killed another driver in the attempt to carjack him.

So, any car with OnStar apparently already has a remote kill switch. Perhaps they needed the owner’s permission first?

I understand your position (and it's one I'm absolutely swayed by to a degree and sympathize with), but I can't help but think that you are assigning unreasonable weights to privacy vs. safety/convenience. (Or, perhaps more honestly, I have to remind myself to be reasonable about these weights in my life.)

Do you think preserving your privacy in this one aspect of your life will have a greater net benefit to your life than driving a safer car (under the assumption that newer cars are safer)? Especially given that presumably there's still data being collected on you even in an old car (cameras on the road, other people's cars, your phone, etc).

By analogy, what's the marginal benefit of not eating any food in packaged in plastic if your water supply is full of (unavoidable, for the sake of argument) microplastics? Is doing so worth the cost (no food for you, buddy!)?

I guess this is just another round of being principled duking it out with pragmatism.

Privacy is a safety concern. If some government agency can control your car remotely, chances are that others also will find a way to do that.

This is especially true if you keep a car for decades. My car is a 2001 and I've had it since 2008. It's possible that a manufacturer could provide security updates for a comparable period, but that seems like an extraordinary claim.

> GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled.

I believe the name of that module is DCM

You can disable some models, but I have my doubts.

In rentals you can forget about it.

Even without the privacy aspect it’s a problem. Last weekend I was driving home in my ICE car guzzling on those dead dinosaurs, and maps on my CarPlay unit went haywire, first I was slightly off to the east by say 50 metres, but this got worse and at one point I was 10 miles away.

Unplugging my phone and the location snapped back to he correct place. Seems that in CarPlay an iPhone will believe what the car says about position, and when it’s wrong, tough.

> Modern cars [...] and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.

I take it that you need a car (which is true for many) and also need a computer (also true for many).

What precautions do you take in computing given that you use a computer that is connected to the Internet ?

The former (i.e. computer) has an unknowable supply chain with blobs of code that you don't vet yourself, and the latter (the Internet) has overtly become a surveillance system.

I just picked up a low mile, garage kept Toyota sedan. V6 sedan, my favorite combo! This one has plenty of power, looks totally unassuming, and can get great economy when I drive modestly.

I plan on driving it a very long time. Same reasons.

It also predates the big infotainment systems. I really dislike the big screen and many functions turned into touch controls dangerous to use in motion.

Finally, it is easy to service. I will do that myself as long as I am able.

I'm sure there will be kits to swap the ice engine to eletricfor most popular cars eventually. Then you will have more control about what features is added.

I've seen people do this but I think it's unlikely. The weight on an ICE car is slung much differently from an EV and placing a battery bank where your engine used to be is not a great idea.

I may be daft but it seems like a great idea. Same weight and everything. In France you get a decent subsidy if you convert your ICE to EV.

Your engine is part of your crumple zone. You do not want your battery to be. Same reason the fuel tank is usually in the back of the vehicle.

Engines do not crumple, and a proper electric conversion will retain appropriate space.

Fuel tanks are not "in the back" for good (see: ford pinto) reasons.

Fuel tanks are in the back for solid reasons. But they are placed before the second wheel axis. In case of crash that area will protect the tank. Pinto had it after the rear tires, so totally unprotected.

A big battery in the place of the motor will turn you into a BBQ in case of collision because fire will fall directly towards the driver. Lithium batteries start burning when hit with some force, and can't be stopped once they start burning.

Government overreach is the big thing that I'm worried about. All of the overreactions to adas is really heavily driving it. At some point, they will have to realize that the same attention systems used for adas could be used all of the time.

Given that there are hundreds of deaths each year due to inattention, it'd be almost irresponsible not to look into it.

But a lot of people won't like where that leads.

What is "adas"?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_s...

The more serious preppers I know (e.g. the people prepping/worried about realistic scenarios as opposed to the civil war LARPers) pretty early on make sure they have access to a fully mechanical vehicle - to the extent that's even possible - and have the skills to maintain it.

> Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch.

You're selectively quoting in a way that misrepresents the article.

The post the article quotes:

> “Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026,” read several posts shared widely on Twitter and Facebook.

The actual functionality:

> In either case, if a driver is found to be impaired [by automated monitoring within the car], the car might employ a warning message, block the driver from operating the vehicle, or if the vehicle is already in motion, direct it to a safe stop or automated ride home.

> None of the technologies currently in development would notify law enforcement of the data collected inside vehicles or give government agencies remote control of vehicles, according to Jeffrey Michael, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Injury Research and Policy.

The car has an automatic system which can prevent the driver from operating it, but no one outside the car can trigger that system, which is clearly what the "kill switch" posts were claiming.

If it’s not air gapped the company could be compelled to activate it remotely.

So, it is a kill switch.

Just not the sort of kill switch that someone (who?) sometime (when?) described, and such description is one that you've neither quoted or given.

You and afh1 seem to be reading both the article and my comment as focused on whether it's appropriate to characterize a device that prevents a car from starting as a "kill switch".

I didn't say anything at all about that term in my comment, and while the article says it's hyperbolic, arguing about that term is clearly not the focus of the article.

Just going to quote the whole opener here - it's about the claim that the law enables cops to monitor you and shut down your car, which is clearly false.

---------------

[Headline] Posts distort infrastructure law’s rule on impaired driving technology

CLAIM: President Joe Biden signed a bill that will give law enforcement access to a “kill switch” that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. While the bipartisan infrastructure bill Biden signed last year requires advanced drunk and impaired driving technology to become standard equipment in new cars, experts say that technology doesn’t amount to a “kill switch,” and nothing in the bill gives law enforcement access to those systems.

THE FACTS: In November 2021, Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, ushering into law a $1 trillion bipartisan deal to maintain and upgrade the country’s roads, bridges, ports and more.

One provision in the legislation aims to prevent drunk driving deaths by requiring all new vehicles to soon include “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” as “standard equipment.”

However, in the months since the law passed, some social media users have misrepresented the provision online, falsely claiming it will give police access to data collected by the technology or allow the government to shut down cars remotely.

“Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026,” read several posts shared widely on Twitter and Facebook.

> Just going to quote the whole opener here - it's about the claim that the law enables cops to monitor you and shut down your car, which is clearly false.

That's just the straw man the article is using to claim that it isn't a kill switch. They want the claim to be false so they adopt a version of the claim with a flaw in order to knock it down.

The obvious problem being that the actual implementation is at least as bad. Now you have the law mandating that the car activate the kill switch by itself, with no human in the loop you can even try to reason with.

What happens when you're driving erratically because you're on some dangerous ice road and trigger a false positive that strands you in the wilderness? What happens when you're actually impaired and then turn around to discover a wildfire approaching your location, in which case "don't die in a fire" should override "don't drive impaired" and you should immediately evacuate, but your car won't let you?

It's an ill-conceived and dangerous law and its critics are in the right. The operator should always be able to override the computer.

As I said in a sibling comment, the fact that there are real concerns about something doesn't justify ignoring the truth value of inflammatory claims about that thing.

If one person is criticizing Big Pharma because they use shoddy trial methodology when they can get away with it and heavily market minor variations on existing drugs, and another person is criticizing Big Pharma because they're poisoning our blood with fluoride in service to the Illuminati, it's not appropriate to lump them together and say "Big Pharma's critics are in the right."

(Also, I think the idea that they deliberately adopted a weak version of the criticism to argue against is rather conspiratorial - dumb unfounded nonsense gets very popular on the internet all the time! Valuable criticism that requires nuance is memetically disfavored by comparison!)

> If one person is criticizing Big Pharma because they use shoddy trial methodology when they can get away with it and heavily market minor variations on existing drugs, and another person is criticizing Big Pharma because they're poisoning our blood with fluoride in service to the Illuminati, it's not appropriate to lump them together and say "Big Pharma's critics are in the right."

But it's also not appropriate to lump them together and say "Big Pharma's critics are in the wrong."

> Also, I think the idea that they deliberately adopted a weak version of the criticism to argue against is rather conspiratorial - dumb unfounded nonsense gets very popular on the internet all the time!

It's hardly a conspiracy to suppose that media outlets choose which claims to fact check based on how they want to influence readers.

> But it's also not appropriate to lump them together and say "Big Pharma's critics are in the wrong."

And accordingly, I didn't ever say that this was a good bill or all its critics were in the wrong. A lot of people in this thread seem to be reading that into my comments, but all I did was take issue with a misrepresentation of an article that argued against a specific negative claim about the bill.

Which I think is representative - it's very hard to make a narrow point about specific arguments without people assuming that you're taking a firm stance on one side or the other of a general issue.

> And accordingly, I didn't ever say that this was a good bill or all its critics were in the wrong. A lot of people in this thread seem to be reading that into my comments, but all I did was take issue with a misrepresentation of an article that argued against a specific negative claim about the bill.

You were responding to a criticism of the article. The technology is a kill switch, which critics rightly oppose, whether or not it's a law enforcement kill switch. Here's the specific false claim from the article being criticized:

> experts say that technology doesn’t amount to a “kill switch,”

The authors are laundering the false claim through the mouths of "experts" (by which they apparently mean "proponents of the bill"), but 'that technology doesn't amount to a "kill switch"' is false. The authors then go on to knock down the narrower claim that it's a law enforcement kill switch, which is the straw man.

The article you're defending is doing the thing you're criticizing, i.e. using the narrow point (not a "law enforcement" kill switch) to malign the general point (it's a kill switch). If they were actually trying to be nuanced they'd be admitting that it's a kill switch and only distinguishing what kind of kill switch it is.

> The car has an automatic system which can prevent the driver from operating it, but no one outside the car can trigger that system, which is clearly what the "kill switch" posts were claiming.

That assumes that the feature is implemented securely, which is hardly guaranteed. Would you bet a large sum that it wasn't exploitable? I wouldn't.

No. But "new cars will have mandatory automated controls to prevent drunk driving, which may be implemented insecurely in a way that creates major vulnerabilities" (very reasonable) is not the same claim as "Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars" (blatantly false).

The fact that there are real concerns about something doesn't justify ignoring the truth value of inflammatory claims about that thing.

I think the greatest concern is that the cops don't seem to care about personal privacy at all. They'll do anything that's physically possible to do to prove guilt of a person, they have the Power of The State behind them. They're going to get access to this technology and they will use it to stop vehicles, it's simply a matter of time. Police in the US only ever get more powerful, more militaristic, more immune to consequences. There's an easily visible path from where we were before the bill to where the poster (incorrectly) claims we're at. Just because they don't currently have the power doesn't mean we should be taking every affordable step towards giving it to them.

Why are kill switches in cars bad?

It's a vehicle that can easily kill other people. It often does. It's reasonable to require drivers to be in good enough shape before trusting them with lives of random innocent people.

I'm not against enhancing safety, but I have serious concerns about whether auto manufacturers can implement such a feature securely, reliably, and without leaving it vulnerable to misuse by third parties. That said, I would support mandatory breathalyzers in all new cars. While this idea is likely too controversial and complex to become reality, I believe it could significantly reduce fatalities.

I am new to the car/data show, is an eSim really installed on cars around the world? Or is it an Amrican thing? Thinking for example on Europe data regulations.

If so, this is a good fit for a class action.

I have a '98 Honda with 324K miles on it. I'm awful at maintenance but I've had it for ten years and it refuses to die.

Self driving + conversation monitoring => lock the doors and drive you to the nearest reeducation camp for uttering wrongspeak.

> Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point.

Complete with non-replaceable batteries.

tech which was called a "kill switch". Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch.

It's not a kill switch, the link you provided explains that it's not a kill switch, yet you still call it a kill switch.

If you were paying any attention, then you know that idiots online were portraying this as the cops being able to remotely disable your car at their will.

In fact, the requirement is for the vehicle to pull safely to the side of the road when it detects an impaired driver (DUI or medical emergency). There is no external initiation, it's entirely self-contained.

It's not a kill switch. It's not remotely like a kill switch.

Having personally been within minutes of crashes involving a drunk driver who blew a stop sign and smashed into a fire hydrant, and another driver experiencing a health emergency who crashed through an intersection at 80mph in a 25mph zone, I say bring it on. Ignore the Rogan-sphere FUD peddlers.

> There was a bill announced in the US for all new cars to be equipped with "driver impairment" tech which was called a "kill switch".

In addition to de-banking, they can also de-car you.

> Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point, and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.

Exactly. I saw a clip of an elon musk interview where he was asked if tesla would ever build a smartphone. I had to chuckle and think to myself, they already do. It just doesn't fit in your pocket, has wheels and actually tries to kill you physically.

> a kill switch

The funny thing is that's what cars do to other people because we don't have enough monitoring.

My e-bike is limited to 20 because "safety". Your car should be to.

Your e-bike shouldn't be limited. You should get on that.

> Your e-bike shouldn't be limited. You should get on that.

Absolutely. It's the first thing we fix on our 2-wheel transpos.

You're right. Because my e-bike is of negligible danger to others.

But cars kill tens of thousands every year. Speed limits and red lights being on the honor system isn't working. Luckily technology, like the little GPS tracker in the article, can fix it.

Most things that transfer power from individuals to future governments is a clear no from me.

I am happy with our current government.

But reading history I have realized that the scariest thing that is is powerful governments.

Honor and trust work extremely well: anyone of us can create enormous caos if we want to but most of us don't so it doesn't happen.

I don't like that my kids can no longer cross the street we live on because people have stopped obeying traffic lights and cops no longer enforce the law. The honor system isn't working and people are dying because of it.

Now what are your specific fears about speed limiters on cars?

> I don't like that my kids can no longer cross the street we live on because people have stopped obeying traffic lights and cops no longer enforce the law.

The best solution to living in a place with bad people in it, if you can't get them to leave, is to move. There are plenty of places to live where people do obey traffic laws and cops do enforce the law.

What I don't like is people trying to punish me, a law-abiding responsible adult, for the misdeeds of others who are not.

How about non-specific fears about limiter devices generally, such as chains.

Pity about the downsides of the technologies you mention though. :(

What downside?

You're not supposed to run red lights or exceed the speed limit. This should be enforced electronically. The machines are unbiased and more accurate than cops. Cheaper too.

> You're not supposed to run red lights

Even if it's an empty intersection and I can clearly see that there is no traffic coming, and the stupid light is staying red for way too long simply because the local government can't be bothered to put in a smarter one?

> or exceed the speed limit.

Even if it's an empty limited access highway and the speed limit is set too low because whatever government runs the road can't be bothered to update it to reflect the current circumstances?

Sure, if a cop catches me (or a monitoring camera does) doing these things, I get a ticket and have to pay a fine. But that just reinforces the point that traffic laws are way more about revenue for municipalities than they are about actual safety. If they were about actual safety, then I wouldn't get a ticket for violating the letter of a traffic law when there was negligible risk of actual harm.

You seem to believe that just because some people put a law in place, it must be the best possible tradeoff among various competing factors. All human history shows that such a belief is false.

There’s a big difference between being punished appropriately for doing something, and being able to present your mitigating circumstances, and being prevented from doing something.

By all means fine me for going through the red light, then allow me to explain to the judge the mitigating reasons (carrying a heart attack patient etc)

An e-bike going 40mph (or even slower) can easily kill you or someone else.

A car hitting a pedestrian at 30 mph is 80 % chance of death. At 20 mph the chance is only 20 %.

So the outrage and over-reactive legislation put on electric bicycles or electric scooters is quite insane in comparison. Max 15 mph on an electric bike, no limits on a car in the city..

> Speed limits and red lights being on the honor system isn't working.

Speak for yourself. I don't need a nanny monitor in my car to drive safely. Nor do the vast majority of drivers. There are about 150 billion cars in the world. Only a very tiny fraction of them kill people. And punishing all the people who do drive responsibly because of the mistakes of the tiny fraction of drivers who don't is getting things backwards. The consequences should be on the people who do kill others with their cars, not on the people who don't.

> There are about 150 billion cars in the world.

This is wrong by ~100x.

"There are about 1.475 billion vehicles on Earth in 2024.": https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2021/06/how-many-cars-are-the...

Even with the smaller number, there are still only a tiny fraction that kill people.

Electric motorized bicycles exist, they're just called motorcycles or mopeds. The whole point of an e-bike is the limiter, and size restrictions.

One requires a licensed operator. One doesn’t. One requires liability insurance. One doesn’t.

Complain about power wheels, because you’re comparing two things that have nothing to do with each other.

Your ebike is limited because it can legally be operated by anybody (including a child) without needing any kind of license. If you want to legally operate a faster electric two-wheeled vehicle, take the test to get a motorbike license.

Is that why?

I get up to multiples of that on a push bike every day. The kids that rip past me do too.

It's not why. That's just a talking point that gets repeated all too much. In most places you don't need a license to operate a boat and they go as fast as you can afford.

Despite what the other poster is saying, there's no law of physics that says speed can only be unlocked by licensing.

I dunno about "most places". I definitely had to get a boating license, though for some reason the law had an exception for people born before 1978. A cursory search show most states have some sort of legislation regarding it. Many other countries have different legislation based on engine horsepower and age, but it's definitely regulated to some degree most places I've seen. I don't suppose you'd be able to paddle hard enough to cause serious damage

Oregon resolves that by regulating -on motor" only speeds to something a little under 30 and less than a kilowatt.

Everything else is simply a pedal assisted ride.

And a vehicle needs to offer pedal power to qualify for unlicensed use as an e-bike. Otherwise, it becomes a motorcycle and requires registration,

I used to as a kid myself. The norms were generally slower overall, limited by muscle fatigue mostly.

Media people obviously thought that kill switch meant something that can kill the driver and rushed to reassure the public that no that was not the case.

They're good people at heart. Don't misunderstand them.

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