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Comment by gladiatr72 | Hacker News Reader

Well, sure. EV'S are smart phones on wheels. Are you going to grab your Samsung 5s in 2030, power it back up and use it to store your most sensitive personal data? Even the lowest-end varieties are always-on, internet-conected devices. Their safety and function is on the same tier as today's phone models. Expensive today, junk in 5 years.

Thanks, but I'm hanging in to my old Subaru.

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As someone who is half in the market for a new vehicle, this is exactly where my thoughts went to. If I buy a car, I'm expecting that to be a 10-20 year purchase. Whereas the surveillance industry's churn culture considers five years of software support for a cell phone as some kind of amazing thing. And since more of an EV has been newly designed around software control (including the chief wear part, the battery), I would expect them to be much more wed to that disposability culture overall. Am I going to be able to get a new battery for a 20 year old EV at a market-competitive (with other cell packs) price?

Most non-Tesla EVs aren't notably different from a software/surveillance perspective than the comparable ICE car.

I think the most accurate part of your analogy is how fast the technology changes and renders yesterday’s product obsolete.

Just saw the Audi etron gt has amazing deals on used cars. Then I saw a new model coming out with better battery, more power, better range, and more features. Suddenly last year’s model is way less compelling.

True. At this point in time I'd only lease an EV. That being said, given that 100% of cars on the road won't be EV by 2030 as some have tried to convince us, I suspect the rate of innovation in EV land to slow as EV investment is greatly curtailed by the car companies.

Heh. Obsolete? More like Deprecated.

Trying to compare an EV to a smartphone is self-serving, you wanted to convince yourself that your already-made decision was the right one. Reality wouldn't be so kind.

No, it isn't. It doesn't have to be this way. The original Volt comes to mind. Electric-hybrid, somewhat affordable with the bonus that it wasn't remotely hackable. The non-electric bit was a 1-cylender motor that only kicked in when the battery was low. Oh, and don't forget its use of buttons and switches vs a dash-bolted touchscreen.

And, you know, there were these flip phones that worked pretty much everywhere that held a useful charge up to a couple weeks that you could use to call AAA in a pinch. They stood in quite handily in place of the integrated spyware present today.

To quote Corey Doctrow: Investors love the sound of a “software-based car” because they understand that a gadget that is connected to the cloud is ripe for rent-extraction, because with software comes a bundle of “IP rights” that let the company control its customers, critics and competitors:

A “software-based car” gets to mobilize the state to enforce its “IP,” which allows it to force its customers to use authorized mechanics (who can, in turn, be price-gouged for licensing and diagnostic tools). “IP” can be used to shut down manufacturers of third party parts. “IP” allows manufacturers to revoke features that came with your car and charge you a monthly subscription fee for them.

and then there are situations like: https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chap...

or the recent fiasco with e-Jeeps disabled by the side of the road by a freaking entertainment system update.

Sounds like you have more of a problem with Tesla's software style than anything else to do with EVs. Most modern EVs that are not made by Tesla are just like the contemporary ICE equivalents (for better or worse). Computer integration into cars has been ongoing for the last 30 plus years.

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