[Lramseyer]

> But owners sometimes complained that it was tricky to get their vehicles serviced or repaired, because there weren’t enough certified Fisker repairers and technicians

I would bet money that most of the "certification" process for technicians (aside from high voltage electrical safety, which is common to ALL EVs) is an NDA that grants access to unnecessarily proprietary diagnostic software. All this fancy talk about certification is just an excuse to charge consumers more for maintenance by adding an illusion of complexity.

This sort of crap is exactly why we need stronger Right to Repair protection. If a company [that sells consumer products] goes under, the specs, schematics, drawings, and source code, etc should go into the public domain. It can be the owners' job to parse through it all and figure out what to do about making/procuring replacement parts and finding mechanics to service the technology, but that data should at least be available.

[TheNewsIsHere]

There is also a certification and vetting process for electronic lock rekeying, for obvious reasons. But that is a nitpick.

Speaking to your comment more generally — I’ve long been concerned about these newer manufacturers and DRM. Even if the source code is released, there’s no guarantee or requirement to release keying material that might be used to enforce firmware checks/attest to firmware integrity. That might (or not) be arguably okay as long as the manufacturer remains in business, but certainly not when they’re no longer around.

That problem will only get worse and serves to devalue cars and unnecessarily junk them, which is hard on the environment and a waste of societal resources.

[necovek]

But that is usually the only "asset" worth anything to anyone for it to be just released.

And any debts will be covered by whatever assets can return.

Now, ideally, I agree, but then again, I am a free software proponent, and I'd like my car to come with open source code even while it's still supported. It's ok if you lose warranty when you modify your engine parameters.

[tarasglek]

Yes, there needs to be some legal mechanism to release specs and diagnostics if manuf can't provide service...eg cos they went bankrupt or where all licensed technicians are 6mo backlogged. Some sort of a legal documentation escrow where the info is released every time the manuf isn't living up to commitment