I got an OBDeleven for my 2015 GTI so I could unlock stuff and customize. Enabled rolling down the windows with the key fob, being able to display the engine oil temp in the dash and also setting the accelerator pedal curve to linear.
Kinda depends on the car. Volkswagen cars are pretty “hackable” with OBDeleven which is a wireless interface for the hilariously named “VAGCOM” protocol.
Audi had been doing this for years and they even disable stuff if you sell your car to another private person. One of my friends bought a used Audi and everything was disabled so he installed a cracked version of the infotainment software and now the only thing that doesn’t work is the fingerprint unlock.
For now they have customer goodwill to win back after nearly a decade of building cars that practically fell apart in a year or 2 in the late 00s and early 10s.
They’ll catch up to the others in anti-consumer practices soon, but for now they’re a good choice if you don’t particularly care for performance or ride quality.
Tesla got rid of the heater subscription bullshit in 2021. Now, the only thing locked behind a paywall is internet related stuff (sentry over mobile, streaming media access, etc.), the performance boost, and FSD.
More like, until the Chinese weasel their way into the US market with cheaper-than-used cars to undercut the legacy auto makers. 10 years or so, it’ll happen. And the big 3 will be begging for bailouts again. That is unless they smarten up and remember what made Ford what it is today.
They’re already doing that in some parts of the world. Then when they get sizeable market share, they emulated what the previous car makers do. It’s just not an improvement. It’s more of the same, only the manufacturer is different.
Basically we move back to a feudalism world where you don’t own anything anymore and you have to pay recurring rents. And as you don’t own it they can fuck you over by increasing rents or disable features when you can’t pay.
I’m okay with being charged a monthly subscription for something that has an ongoing cost, like mobile data. So long as I can still hotspot my phone and access ‘premium connectivity’ features over wifi, that is.
Yeah about those ‘premium connectivity features’… one of them is warning you that the road you’re about to drive on has a traffic jam. And no, you can’t have it use your phone’s internet connection and you also can’t do CarPlay or Android Auto.
For me real time traffic isn’t a premium feature or an ad on. It’s table stakes. And it should be free. Worse, not having it already almost makes your car hard to sell secondhand. Imagine what it’ll be like several years ago when people start selling Rivians?
There is surveillance everywhere outside, even having your own car doesn’t protect you from having your privacy encroached. That’s why I never go outside.
There are fundamental differences between physical and digital surveillance, namely when you are in a public space there is no expectation of privacy because there are other people there looking at you. When there are other people there that can actually see you, a camera also watching doesn’t make much of a difference.
If you’re talking about standard security cameras usually the footage will get completely overwritten after afeew days unless there was an incident to prompt review of the footage-- and even then it usually gets deleted at some point. Its not like with social media data gathering where they’re collecting all that information in order to build a personal profile of everyone-- security cameras just exist to review incidents that happen in the public realm and there’s no real incentive for a public transit agency to track every single person that appears on their cameras.
By ‘surveillance,’ do you mean a bus security camera to make sure no one is stabbing the driver? Because I’m pretty sure most of us don’t have much of a problem with that. It’s comprehensive government surveillance that is the problem.
Unfortunately, “camera to make sure no one stabs the driver” is the exact tool used by “comprehensive government surveillance”. It’s something we’re forced to accept.
There’s cameras everywhere watching the road too if you really care that much and you better believe your car model and license plate is a much more reliable form of identifying information than a blurry face on a bus security camera.
When does “you should minimize your physical footprint so that you are harder to profile by bad people” suddenly become “just stay inside at all times and never go out”?
Even with digital privacy, nothing is 100% effective.
Sure there will, always. Fix it yourself jalopies aren’t going away. Get yourself a cheap-o used junker and mod it to be electric, if you can’t or won’t use ICE. DIY isn’t just 3d printers and FOSS. Or get a bicycle and mod it into an e-bike.
If all electric cars are just going to be subscription bullshit, I’m sorry, I won’t be driving electric.
Even ICE manufacturers have been including hardware that software disabled for a while
I got an OBDeleven for my 2015 GTI so I could unlock stuff and customize. Enabled rolling down the windows with the key fob, being able to display the engine oil temp in the dash and also setting the accelerator pedal curve to linear.
What I didn’t even know that was stuff you could even do
Kinda depends on the car. Volkswagen cars are pretty “hackable” with OBDeleven which is a wireless interface for the hilariously named “VAGCOM” protocol.
Hang on, have I being saying this wrong for years? I thought it was OBDII or OBD2 ?
It is OBD2, OBDeleven is a Bluetooth dongle you plug into it
Subscribe to enable your BMW seat heater! They definitely require periodic software updates and is absolutely NOT a blatant money grab
Audi had been doing this for years and they even disable stuff if you sell your car to another private person. One of my friends bought a used Audi and everything was disabled so he installed a cracked version of the infotainment software and now the only thing that doesn’t work is the fingerprint unlock.
A fingerprint unlock on a car? I’ve never heard of that, is it to unlock the doors?
Don’t know: there is a fingerprint reader on the handle of the car but it doesn’t work
Probably used for user profiles for the seats and stuff and Aircon. Mercedes does it too
There are some manufacturers that do not do this garbage, or at least not often. I’ve heard good things about Hyundai specifically.
For now they have customer goodwill to win back after nearly a decade of building cars that practically fell apart in a year or 2 in the late 00s and early 10s.
They’ll catch up to the others in anti-consumer practices soon, but for now they’re a good choice if you don’t particularly care for performance or ride quality.
Tesla got rid of the heater subscription bullshit in 2021. Now, the only thing locked behind a paywall is internet related stuff (sentry over mobile, streaming media access, etc.), the performance boost, and FSD.
But if the car is completely capable of habe that performance, why should people pay for it.
Oh I’m just correcting the article. Facts are better than fiction for conversations about reality.
It won’t just be electric cars, it’ll be all new model cars from manufacturing companies. At least until ICE is phased out.
More like, until the Chinese weasel their way into the US market with cheaper-than-used cars to undercut the legacy auto makers. 10 years or so, it’ll happen. And the big 3 will be begging for bailouts again. That is unless they smarten up and remember what made Ford what it is today.
They’re already doing that in some parts of the world. Then when they get sizeable market share, they emulated what the previous car makers do. It’s just not an improvement. It’s more of the same, only the manufacturer is different.
Cory Doctorow has written a great article about this phenomenon a few days ago: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon
Basically we move back to a feudalism world where you don’t own anything anymore and you have to pay recurring rents. And as you don’t own it they can fuck you over by increasing rents or disable features when you can’t pay.
Yeah that’s true. I wonder if the market for older cars has been going up yet.
I have a Rivian and it works great with no subscription. The only thing you can add via Sub is a hotspot, which seems reasonable to me.
I’m okay with being charged a monthly subscription for something that has an ongoing cost, like mobile data. So long as I can still hotspot my phone and access ‘premium connectivity’ features over wifi, that is.
Yeah about those ‘premium connectivity features’… one of them is warning you that the road you’re about to drive on has a traffic jam. And no, you can’t have it use your phone’s internet connection and you also can’t do CarPlay or Android Auto.
For me real time traffic isn’t a premium feature or an ad on. It’s table stakes. And it should be free. Worse, not having it already almost makes your car hard to sell secondhand. Imagine what it’ll be like several years ago when people start selling Rivians?
At some point, there will be practically nothing else to drive…
All the more reason to support public transportation.
The average lemming:
There is surveillance everywhere outside, even having your own car doesn’t protect you from having your privacy encroached. That’s why I never go outside.
There are fundamental differences between physical and digital surveillance, namely when you are in a public space there is no expectation of privacy because there are other people there looking at you. When there are other people there that can actually see you, a camera also watching doesn’t make much of a difference.
it does
people usually doesn’t remember you unless you do some weird shit but once recorded, it will stay for the rest of eternity
If you’re talking about standard security cameras usually the footage will get completely overwritten after afeew days unless there was an incident to prompt review of the footage-- and even then it usually gets deleted at some point. Its not like with social media data gathering where they’re collecting all that information in order to build a personal profile of everyone-- security cameras just exist to review incidents that happen in the public realm and there’s no real incentive for a public transit agency to track every single person that appears on their cameras.
By ‘surveillance,’ do you mean a bus security camera to make sure no one is stabbing the driver? Because I’m pretty sure most of us don’t have much of a problem with that. It’s comprehensive government surveillance that is the problem.
Unfortunately, “camera to make sure no one stabs the driver” is the exact tool used by “comprehensive government surveillance”. It’s something we’re forced to accept.
There’s cameras everywhere watching the road too if you really care that much and you better believe your car model and license plate is a much more reliable form of identifying information than a blurry face on a bus security camera.
I hope you don’t go outside at all, with that mentality.
When does “you should minimize your physical footprint so that you are harder to profile by bad people” suddenly become “just stay inside at all times and never go out”?
Even with digital privacy, nothing is 100% effective.
When you made an ignorant comment about public transportation.
Obviously nothing is 100%. That’s a given.
Sure there will, always. Fix it yourself jalopies aren’t going away. Get yourself a cheap-o used junker and mod it to be electric, if you can’t or won’t use ICE. DIY isn’t just 3d printers and FOSS. Or get a bicycle and mod it into an e-bike.