> “There’s just massive amounts of data being collected, and if you want the service, you have to agree to it. And people do agree to it, and they have relatively little control over things,” Scassa says.
I'm curious what this will do to the used car market in 10-15 years. Say the original owner consented to all this data tracking. They go to sell the car to buy a new one, and the 2nd owner does not agree to the tracking. Is there a vendor-provided way to shut this off? Or is the vehicle always stuck in a "data collecting mode" regardless of who it is sold to?
Furthermore, if a customer changes the car to stop data upload, that could be seen as tampering with a vehicle. This could lead to legal consequences, but I'm not a lawyer so I can't dwell on the specifics.
This is not legal advice, and you should consult an attorney if you believe that an OEM may come after you for tampering with your own vehicle.
That said, I believe that there is very limited legal recourse for a vehicle OEM who wants to prevent an end user from changing the data collection and upload features of their vehicles. The worst thing would be potentially voiding the warranty, but for 10-15 year old used vehicles, that's not an issue.
I work as an in-house counsel at a vehicle OEM (likely not one you've heard of). Our end customers are generally large companies, so it may be different for personal passenger vehicles, but we actively plan for the contingencies where our end users switch out their telematics module, or request to have the telematics data stream be directed to another service provider. Further, in our market, the idea that the customer wouldn't want telematics at all is not really likely, but we also plan for that possibility.
So, I don't believe the used market isn't as big of a deal as you may think. The real concern for personal vehicles is losing essential warranty or service options for new vehicles by turning off the data collection.
Seems to me answering those questions will be part of a greater process to balance power and interests between manufacturers and consumers/users.
E.g., Tesla already seems to try and decide the questions in the way manufacturers would likely have them, i.e. suppressing data transmission is tampering and the problem of car reselling doesn't apply as cars cannot be resold anymore without manufacturer involvement.
I think it's up to consumers to offer a different perspective here.
> Is there a vendor-provided way to shut this off?
In the Tesla Model 3 and Nissan Leaf there are menu settings to disable it. Additionally in the Leaf it prompts you at interval (every 2000 miles?) to notify you about it.
>Furthermore, if a customer changes the car to stop data upload, that could be seen as tampering with a vehicle. This could lead to legal consequences, but I'm not a lawyer so I can't dwell on the specifics.
Where are you getting this crazy idea? If it's your car, you can tamper with it all you want, as long as you don't violate emissions laws and stuff like that. There's no law preventing you from tampering with your car's data collection or transmission, or most other things for that matter. How do you think the entire aftermarket parts industry exists?
I think the used car market will get destroyed. In a few years buying a used car older than a few years will probably be a quaint memory. That is unless manufacturers will get forced to open up their systems by law.
Swings and roundabouts in the EU: GDPR should clobber all the nonconsensual data collection, but there is also the "eCall" mandate that will require your car to phone in location to the emergency services in the event of a crash.
(What happens when an EU national drives one of the American surveillancemobiles? Sounds like a straightforward GDPR violation to me, although good luck getting that resolved)
Anecdotally, I can tell you my 6 year old Nissan Leaf asks me every time I start up the car if it can send data back to Nissan. The 2g radio doesn't actually have a network to connect to, so it's kind of a moot point.
I imagine it'll be like any useful service, once you turn off the data collection, it suddenly loses a bunch of useful features
>I'm curious what this will do to the used car market in 10-15 years.
Depends on LEO. If it is easier to deal with trackable cars, then untrackable cars will be hotter than black tinted windows and radar detectors.
It already is, to some extent; why can I not gut my catalytic converter & change some programming so my car says the outputs are fine? Because the state wants me to get rid of my old functional car to support the economy of newer more expensive vehicles.
Not too long ago I owned a motorcycle from the 70s. I realized at one point that it was probably EMP-proof: no fuel injection, no fuel pump, certainly no OBD anything, and a (literal) kickstarter. The most complicated thing in the wiring harness was the key cylinder and the relay for the turn signals and headlights.
There is an urban fantasy series called "The Rivers of London" series after the first book (or "Peter Grant"-series after the main character) and magic interferes with (in the sense of completely fries) more complicated electronics there, so his master (the last fully qualified wizard of Great Britain) also drives an old Jaguar that is all-mechanical and therefore magic-proof. Very entertaining series with lots of references to current pop culture.
I had a diesel car that I once drove with no alternator and no battery: started off a jump and drove to the auto parts store. Radio, windows, and lights were dead, but the car drove fine.
> I realized at one point that it was probably EMP-proof
Different kind of bike, but I used to feel that way about my bicycles. However, sometime last year I was parking at the office and realised even that world is on its way out.
The No-True-Scotsman actual cyclists have largely moved to electronic shifting and such, and the utility bikes are quickly moving to e-bikes.
I love those motorcycles. Sometime back I wanted to build my own from parts. Started some research only to find out that some states (in the US) make it very difficult to register a custom built m/c. The assembly seemed easier in comparison.
One of my major requirements when I was shopping for my last car was that it not have a cell modem to enable connected car features. It's too difficult for them to monetize your data if they can't get it off your car in near-real time. I also reckon it's a bit more secure.
The car salesmen have no idea about whether the cars they're selling have modems or not, so I found you have to ask about them indirectly in terms of features. I has success with this line of questioning: 1) Does this car have connected car features? 2) If it does, and I decide to get them later, can you enable them from your computer without me having to bring my car in? If the answer is yes to both questions, the car has a modem.
Unfortunately, my wife wanted a car that failed that test. However, my research had indicated that those features seem to be implemented by a module that's separate from the entertainment system. Hopefully I can physically disconnect it without the car nagging about it being missing, but that's a project for another day.
>Hopefully I can physically disconnect it without the car nagging about it being missing
Don't count on it. Physically locating it and disconnecting it might be very difficult. Worse, since the module in networked via CAN, you literally have no idea how the rest of your car will react. It could switch to limp mode, for example.
One thing that's interesting to me is, modern cars know (relatively accurately) whether you're speeding or not. They have GPS and a database of speed limits.
Also depending on what's in the car, they may know who was driving it.
How long before a speed safety campaign starts arguing that car manufacturers should be handing over information about people breaking the law in their cars to law enforcement...
The information is still not even remotely accurate enough for this to work without ridiculously high levels of false positives.
An obvious example would be in Germany. The autobahn for example has sections that are unrestricted, but those same sections are 130kmh (or sometimes lower) if it's between certain times or raining or whatever.
Half of the time my car interprets that as just being 130.
Outside of that; there are countless instances of my car thinking I'm in an 80kmh zone when it's actually 100, 120, whatever. I can override that because I know what the actual speed limit is. Would the car be constantly reporting back that I'm doing a bad?
Ultimately I reckon perfect enforcement of this would just stop me bothering. I'll get someone else to drive me around like an Uber and they can take the endless tickets instead.
I rented a van last year from a company I don't ordinarily use and had to phone them up about the constant beeping that I couldn't figure the source of.
Little did I realise that was a direct admission I'd been speeding on my way back to the studio!
- ed
(It wasn't even bad speeding (mostly) - I'm in London after all - it kicked in every time I went a mile an hour over whatever limit I was subject to. Very [very] annoying)
I also suspect that in the near future insurance companies will demand higher premiums from drivers who commute on more "dangerous" roads (i.e. roads on which statistically speaking more accidents happen). The companies already have easy-enough access to most of the drivers' GPS data, they certainly do know the GPS locations of most of today's accidents (via Waze-like services), I'm surprised why they haven't already started implementing this.
That is already here for motor carriers. New York, Kentucky and Tennessee have been piloting different technologies for a few years for truck and bus inspections.
Cars are required to have certain telemetry capabilities starting in 2020 or 2021 as well. We’ll have automatic inspections and taxation by the end of the decade.
Law enforcement already has fairly pervasive networks of fixed and mobile LPR. You cannot leave most cities without a record of it, and if you attract federal attention, passage through many interstate corridors is captured with LPR and photos of occupants.
IMO, it's more likely that humans will be mostly priced out of driving, via insurance, once the data show that self-driving vehicles are safer. It still isn't settled exactly how insurance will work on a car without a steering wheel. Will the manufacturer insure its entire fleet or will the customer insure their personal vehicle? Or will there be something entirely new, like a government approved industry standard that shifts liability to the public?
Whatever happens, insurers will make it more and more expensive for a human to drive a car once it becomes clear that it's safer for a computer to do the driving.
I wouldn't mind an automated governor that picks up speed limits from RFIDs in the road. If it could make residential roads safe for kids again it would be worth it 10x over. Although automated fines for passing the speed limit is kinda stupid when you can just limit the car in the first place.
At least in my 2019 Subaru, that DB is already badly out of date for my area. Amusingly, it's all on the high side - 80 for a 75 zone, and 45 for a 35 zone. It's also usually late in registering the switches, by a good quarter mile in some cases.
Talk to automotive guys and you will learn that the most current map with this kind of information is in minimum 6 month old. But most of the time this information is 2 to 3 years behind.
>How long before a speed safety campaign starts arguing that car manufacturers should be handing over information about people breaking the law in their cars to law enforcement...
Probably sometime after we have speed limits reasonable enough that the overwhelming majority people do not routinely exceed them and/or the politicians who write the laws stop driving.
That’s take a long time for this to come full circle and for most people to want such a thing (and being willing to pay for it). Meanwhile, what may become available would be the “Apple Car” or something similar that collects data for processing locally in the vehicle and has measures to not send it “to the cloud”. We’d have another one of those “What happens in your car stays in your car” marketing campaigns!
> A car camera for Affectiva, a company that is developing technology for measuring driver emotions, in Boston, on Oct. 6, 2018.
No. Just no.
Why would anyone allow collecting this kind of information? There is no way it can't (so, won't) be used against you. Everyone gets angry from time to time.
I'm proud to say that my vehicle has zero tracking, is user serviceable, and my purchase of it had zero carbon impact.
It's also 32 years old, gets 14-15mpg, and drives like a truck. It's a 1988 Chevy Suburban. I bought it a few years ago, for $1450 and really haven't put much into it overall. It runs reasonable well (still some things to figure out) and is comfortable. If I had some money I'd fix some of the things wrong with it and update the interior with seats out of a newer model, but overall, it just works.
And that's what I see going UP in value over time. To think I could own a car that could tell some corporate partner where I went for lunch is just unfathomable. I can't afford to own a car that "cool" and I'm glad for it.
I used to work for a British car manufacturer which is currently in the process of monetizing all the telemetry they get out of their vehicles, some examples:
* Pothole tracking --> sell to local goverments
* Tyre wear --> sell customer data to target adverts for them / promotions
* Hybrid battery charge levels --> sell data to EV charge point companies.
What was even more concerning was that this data is being collected by another company (who supplied the hardware), who had first dibs on the data.
Will the impersonal multinational corporations that control the software in you car be looking out for your best interests?
Will the data collected about you and your behavior be used in ways that never go against your best interests?
Can individual software developers and teams working for these corporations do much about this if they disagree with it?
The answer to these and many other related questions is probably not.
Little by little, we human beings are gradually building a panopticon monitored by machines under the control of corporate organisms whose behavior is beyond the control of most human beings. As an example, think about about all the people at Google who have tried, mostly without success, to prevent it from acting like every other impersonal corporation. There's nothing preventing it.
Yeah, my last car purchase was an exercise in locating a vehicle without any "smart" technologies. Car manufacturers are the last corporate group I'd trust with anything they are not heavily regulated to provide, such as basic safety measures such as the seat belts they fought for years not to provide.
I plan on this being a car I nurse forever, as it is going to be a generation of extremely intrusive data collection, and extremely poor security on these vehicles. I'm staying away for a complete generation, if possible.
As long as self-driving a car will be allowed (and I predict this will become quickly impossible the moment self-driven cars will share the space with autonomous vehicles) I will refrain buying any car collecting AND transmitting data without my consent.
Yes that means in ten years or so I will be riding a used shabby old car.
Toyota is also doing this now, they began collecting data all 2020 models with TSS 2.0. They started insurance offerings to generate $$ off of this data, toyotaims.com.
[+] [-] SamuelAdams|6 years ago|reply
I'm curious what this will do to the used car market in 10-15 years. Say the original owner consented to all this data tracking. They go to sell the car to buy a new one, and the 2nd owner does not agree to the tracking. Is there a vendor-provided way to shut this off? Or is the vehicle always stuck in a "data collecting mode" regardless of who it is sold to?
Furthermore, if a customer changes the car to stop data upload, that could be seen as tampering with a vehicle. This could lead to legal consequences, but I'm not a lawyer so I can't dwell on the specifics.
[+] [-] clucas|6 years ago|reply
That said, I believe that there is very limited legal recourse for a vehicle OEM who wants to prevent an end user from changing the data collection and upload features of their vehicles. The worst thing would be potentially voiding the warranty, but for 10-15 year old used vehicles, that's not an issue.
I work as an in-house counsel at a vehicle OEM (likely not one you've heard of). Our end customers are generally large companies, so it may be different for personal passenger vehicles, but we actively plan for the contingencies where our end users switch out their telematics module, or request to have the telematics data stream be directed to another service provider. Further, in our market, the idea that the customer wouldn't want telematics at all is not really likely, but we also plan for that possibility.
So, I don't believe the used market isn't as big of a deal as you may think. The real concern for personal vehicles is losing essential warranty or service options for new vehicles by turning off the data collection.
[+] [-] xg15|6 years ago|reply
E.g., Tesla already seems to try and decide the questions in the way manufacturers would likely have them, i.e. suppressing data transmission is tampering and the problem of car reselling doesn't apply as cars cannot be resold anymore without manufacturer involvement.
I think it's up to consumers to offer a different perspective here.
[+] [-] mfer|6 years ago|reply
I wonder if anyone will jump at the market for cars that don't track you. I wonder who would fund that.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21971545
[+] [-] cptskippy|6 years ago|reply
In the Tesla Model 3 and Nissan Leaf there are menu settings to disable it. Additionally in the Leaf it prompts you at interval (every 2000 miles?) to notify you about it.
[+] [-] magduf|6 years ago|reply
Where are you getting this crazy idea? If it's your car, you can tamper with it all you want, as long as you don't violate emissions laws and stuff like that. There's no law preventing you from tampering with your car's data collection or transmission, or most other things for that matter. How do you think the entire aftermarket parts industry exists?
[+] [-] Ididntdothis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|6 years ago|reply
(What happens when an EU national drives one of the American surveillancemobiles? Sounds like a straightforward GDPR violation to me, although good luck getting that resolved)
[+] [-] sircastor|6 years ago|reply
I imagine it'll be like any useful service, once you turn off the data collection, it suddenly loses a bunch of useful features
[+] [-] chopin|6 years ago|reply
In Europe there needs to be due to GDPR. It will be interesting to see how this works out as this has not been challenged as far as I know.
[+] [-] throwawayhhakdl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Psyladine|6 years ago|reply
Depends on LEO. If it is easier to deal with trackable cars, then untrackable cars will be hotter than black tinted windows and radar detectors.
It already is, to some extent; why can I not gut my catalytic converter & change some programming so my car says the outputs are fine? Because the state wants me to get rid of my old functional car to support the economy of newer more expensive vehicles.
[+] [-] hprotagonist|6 years ago|reply
I miss that bike sometimes.
[+] [-] _Microft|6 years ago|reply
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_Mark_2#Portrayal_in_med...
[+] [-] LeonM|6 years ago|reply
The ignition coil will probably not survive an EMP event, so the bike will not run.
However, it should be pretty straight forward to wind a new ignition coil if you ever find yourself in a post-nuclear situation.
[+] [-] i_am_proteus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JNRowe|6 years ago|reply
Different kind of bike, but I used to feel that way about my bicycles. However, sometime last year I was parking at the office and realised even that world is on its way out.
The No-True-Scotsman actual cyclists have largely moved to electronic shifting and such, and the utility bikes are quickly moving to e-bikes.
[+] [-] pthreads|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eikon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Seenso|6 years ago|reply
The car salesmen have no idea about whether the cars they're selling have modems or not, so I found you have to ask about them indirectly in terms of features. I has success with this line of questioning: 1) Does this car have connected car features? 2) If it does, and I decide to get them later, can you enable them from your computer without me having to bring my car in? If the answer is yes to both questions, the car has a modem.
Unfortunately, my wife wanted a car that failed that test. However, my research had indicated that those features seem to be implemented by a module that's separate from the entertainment system. Hopefully I can physically disconnect it without the car nagging about it being missing, but that's a project for another day.
[+] [-] gambler|6 years ago|reply
Don't count on it. Physically locating it and disconnecting it might be very difficult. Worse, since the module in networked via CAN, you literally have no idea how the rest of your car will react. It could switch to limp mode, for example.
[+] [-] throw0101a|6 years ago|reply
The EU's eCall would like to have a word:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECall
[+] [-] raesene9|6 years ago|reply
Also depending on what's in the car, they may know who was driving it.
How long before a speed safety campaign starts arguing that car manufacturers should be handing over information about people breaking the law in their cars to law enforcement...
[+] [-] esotericn|6 years ago|reply
An obvious example would be in Germany. The autobahn for example has sections that are unrestricted, but those same sections are 130kmh (or sometimes lower) if it's between certain times or raining or whatever.
Half of the time my car interprets that as just being 130.
Outside of that; there are countless instances of my car thinking I'm in an 80kmh zone when it's actually 100, 120, whatever. I can override that because I know what the actual speed limit is. Would the car be constantly reporting back that I'm doing a bad?
Ultimately I reckon perfect enforcement of this would just stop me bothering. I'll get someone else to drive me around like an Uber and they can take the endless tickets instead.
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|6 years ago|reply
You won't be allowed to break the law. The petrol heads will complain but they will lose because "think of the children".
[+] [-] detritus|6 years ago|reply
Little did I realise that was a direct admission I'd been speeding on my way back to the studio!
- ed
(It wasn't even bad speeding (mostly) - I'm in London after all - it kicked in every time I went a mile an hour over whatever limit I was subject to. Very [very] annoying)
[+] [-] paganel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|6 years ago|reply
Cars are required to have certain telemetry capabilities starting in 2020 or 2021 as well. We’ll have automatic inspections and taxation by the end of the decade.
Law enforcement already has fairly pervasive networks of fixed and mobile LPR. You cannot leave most cities without a record of it, and if you attract federal attention, passage through many interstate corridors is captured with LPR and photos of occupants.
[+] [-] mhb|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 34679|6 years ago|reply
Whatever happens, insurers will make it more and more expensive for a human to drive a car once it becomes clear that it's safer for a computer to do the driving.
[+] [-] foxyv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falcolas|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PinguTS|6 years ago|reply
This is true for all current map providers.
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|6 years ago|reply
Probably sometime after we have speed limits reasonable enough that the overwhelming majority people do not routinely exceed them and/or the politicians who write the laws stop driving.
[+] [-] avip|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] no_flags|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kgwxd|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newscracker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zaphod12|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmlnr|6 years ago|reply
No. Just no. Why would anyone allow collecting this kind of information? There is no way it can't (so, won't) be used against you. Everyone gets angry from time to time.
[+] [-] geocrasher|6 years ago|reply
It's also 32 years old, gets 14-15mpg, and drives like a truck. It's a 1988 Chevy Suburban. I bought it a few years ago, for $1450 and really haven't put much into it overall. It runs reasonable well (still some things to figure out) and is comfortable. If I had some money I'd fix some of the things wrong with it and update the interior with seats out of a newer model, but overall, it just works.
And that's what I see going UP in value over time. To think I could own a car that could tell some corporate partner where I went for lunch is just unfathomable. I can't afford to own a car that "cool" and I'm glad for it.
[+] [-] mothsonasloth|6 years ago|reply
* Pothole tracking --> sell to local goverments
* Tyre wear --> sell customer data to target adverts for them / promotions
* Hybrid battery charge levels --> sell data to EV charge point companies.
What was even more concerning was that this data is being collected by another company (who supplied the hardware), who had first dibs on the data.
[+] [-] cs702|6 years ago|reply
Will the data collected about you and your behavior be used in ways that never go against your best interests?
Can individual software developers and teams working for these corporations do much about this if they disagree with it?
The answer to these and many other related questions is probably not.
Little by little, we human beings are gradually building a panopticon monitored by machines under the control of corporate organisms whose behavior is beyond the control of most human beings. As an example, think about about all the people at Google who have tried, mostly without success, to prevent it from acting like every other impersonal corporation. There's nothing preventing it.
[+] [-] imposterr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avip|6 years ago|reply
Assuming good faith here, this is one of the best privacy statements I've read.
https://www.waze.com/legal/privacy
[+] [-] bsenftner|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhoechtl|6 years ago|reply
Yes that means in ten years or so I will be riding a used shabby old car.
[+] [-] djanogo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moretai|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] st8675309|6 years ago|reply