I think preventing your car from being stolen is an extremely basic issue - it's a risk that exists at the back of your mind constantly when you drive an expensive vehicle, so yeah, I'm glad the car does this.
The situation in here is more like "haha, ok, we just need to tow this thing out of the garage and try again" - no big deal.
> The situation in here is more like "haha, ok, we just need to tow this thing out of the garage and try again" - no big deal.
No big deal when the reason you can't get a signal is that you're in a parking garage. Rather more of a life-threatening defect when the reason you can't get a signal is that you're driving through an unpopulated desert where there are no cell towers or other people.
Look, I don't disagree with you, it's a problem - but I can guarantee that more Ferrari customers are affected by someone trying to steal their car than there are Ferrari customers driving through an unpopulated desert with no phone signal(and trying to do roadside repair). It's just a question of probabilities, and the first issue seems more important to solve.
Besides, I think there's a certain fundamental misunderstanding here - the car disabled itself because it "thought" it was being stolen. It's no different than triggering a car alarm in any car made in the last 30 years - most systems will kill the ignition until you reset the alarm.
The difference here is that Ferrari can unblock the car remotely for you - but I'm certain it's also possible in-person with some kind of key/button input or some diagnostic device.
It's no different than what 1990s volkswagens used to do, if you removed the battery the radio would be locked until you entered a special pin code, but of course the dealership wouldn't give you the pincode, you had to take it to them and pay them some money. The only difference here is that Ferrari can now do this remotely(if you have signal).
Well, I'm guessing that what's happening isn't "the car doesn't have a mobile connection so Ferrari can't talk to it " - it has literally broken down in some way. Maybe there's even a second side to this story - they severed a wire when installing the seats or something like that.
Failure modes and effect analysis [1] or let me do a computer security analogy: threat model.
A desert should be considered for a Toyota Landcruiser, for a Ferrari it would be a low probability cell of the matrix. Stuck in a tunnel underground? More likely to happen.
In a concrete building with people tampering the car? Even more likely.
"Deserted desert" doesn't make much sense for a failure mode for a Ferrari, but off the top of my head I can think of half-a-dozen locations where it would both be super-fun to drive a Ferrari and that don't get cell coverage. All of these less than an hours drive from a major city.
But then you also have to consider the consequence of the failure. Failure of anti-theft, car is stolen and owner files insurance claim. Failure of vehicle in desolate area, high probability of fatality for driver and occupants.
Ok, but again, that applies to literally any anti-theft system. Like for instance ignition lockout is extremely common on fancier cars, if that system fails for any reason you can't start the car. If you're stuck in a middle of a glacier in your fancy Ferrari then you're screwed. Again, remember that this was triggered when they were taking the seats out of the car,like, come on, that's a "huh, interesting" case , not "huh, someone needs to do something about this" case.
Or just driving the Nullarbor or any other number of very large stretches of road, where someone can experience a high performance car, that tend to be remote and have pretty poor signal.
And before you say that's insane... You'll find plenty of video evidence on Youtube and places like it that this happens. In fact, McLaren sent a car themselves.
And yes, the Nullarbor can be very dangerous if you break down, and there are vast swathes of it with no phone signal, because maintaining anything out there is a losing battle.
Having driven it a couple of times in the last few years I can confirm that the sections without signal are actually very limited. For the vast majority of the crossing you have reception (as long as you are with Telstra).
Maybe, but what do you say when they put the same anti-theft system in a Land Rover, or just the regular cars that the people who live or work in sparsely populated deserts drive?
>> people who live in sparsely populated deserts drive?
Well, by the very definition, there can't be that many people there - so unfortunately they will have to buy something else, or discuss it with their dealership before they purchase the car. When I got my current car(2020 Volvo XC60) the dealership did warn me that if I don't have signal many features in the vehicle won't be available(no idea if it would "brick" itself if I tried repairing it in the middle of a desert, but I'm not interested in finding out).
If one can afford a Ferrari, one can afford a satellite phone/communicator. If one can afford a Ferrari, one also knows that it is far more likely the thing will break the old-fashioned way rather than lock you out via software. Hell, I don't care who made it, cars still get flat tires.
> Rather more of a life-threatening defect when the reason you can't get a signal is that you're driving through an unpopulated desert where there are no cell towers or other people.
Which wouldn't happen. This is an anti-theft system. So are you saying that the anti-theft system would engage while the car is being driven for a while by the correct owner ? If that were the case, that would be an egregious defect that should be corrected.
The car is not disabling itself just because there's no signal, that would be terrible. It disabled itself because it thought it was being tampered with. The fact that not even a Ferrari tech was able to get it going is actually a major endorsement for the system.
> So are you saying that the anti-theft system would engage while the car is being driven for a while by the correct owner ?
If it can happen during a car seat installation then it can happen six hours after a car seat installation when the plug comes loose, or makes proper contact for the first time since the seat was installed, or when you hear something rattle and pull over to try to fix it.
And even if it won't shut down while the vehicle is already in motion, if it does it the first time you stop to stretch your legs, you're still stranded.
> Rather more of a life-threatening defect when the reason you can't get a signal is that you're driving through an unpopulated desert where there are no cell towers or other people.
What happens if your car breaks down for run-of-the-mill mechanical reasons when you're driving through an unpopulated desert with no cell towers or people?
How likely is this failure mode, compared to mechanical failures?
I agree with gambiting. Yeah, it sucks, but just tow your car outside and turn it on again. These things exist for a reason. If it had really been stolen, and there was the work around of 'oh, there's no signal so we'll let the car start and drive off' - then a thief could permanently jam that signal, or remove the electronic device responsible for receiving that signal.
Don't know about the mass of this particular car, but I once started an Integra with a dead battery by "skateboarding" it: pushing with the driver's door open and then scooting in to throw it into third once I had enough momentum.
I once came across a couple of people trying to do that with their car on my way home from the pub. Problem was neither of them had any clue how to do it properly. I jumped into the drivers seat and had it running a few moments later.
Only a little while later did it occur to me that what I did was probably illegal in at least 3 different ways.
If it makes you feel any better, a strange woman talked me into climbing into her van at 2AM through an open window to open the door because she had locked the keys inside.
In my defense, I did ask the gas station attendant if he thought it was her car...
Just tow your car outside sounds like a recipe for losing half a day trying to organise that.
Additionally, even average cars these days tend to have removable towing eyes with easily damaged plastic blanking plugs. The chance of damaging an expensive car doing this seems very high. Especially trying to drag it out of an underground car park. If I owned a towing company I'd take a hard pass on that job.
Exotics are towed all the time. Many exotic rental companies prefer to tow the car for every delivery and pickup. Many owners tow their cars to shows and rallies. (This all seems stupid to me, but I don't own an exotic, so maybe they know something I don't.)
That's how they're winched onto the flatbed though anytime they're broken. The manufacturer provides that eyelet to prevent damage to suspension parts from using straps on a "bad" spot.
Like I said in another comment - this just seems like a standard auto alarm trigger, most alarms will disable the car until they are reset. The only thing that makes it stand out here is that normally thanks to the mobile link Ferrari can reset it remotely. If it didn't have that the car would be equally "bricked" and it wouldn't be a story at all.
> it's a risk that exists at the back of your mind constantly when you drive an expensive vehicle
Perhaps due to poor risk analysis or value.
Statistically the Honda Civic and Toyota Camry are much more likely to be stolen; stealing an expensive vehicle is problematic in 1) Security Features 2) Conspicuous to drive 3) Conspicuous to fence 4) Insurance spends more money to find it 5) (in some cases) difficulty to drive.
Bayes strikes again. Just because the Civic and Camry are the most stolen vehicles doesn't mean that they are more likely to get stolen than an exotic car.
From the original thread [1], which people should probably read:
> The fact it had no signal at the time of the tamper safeguard being triggered meant that remote recovery wasn't an option, even when we moved it into the open. Idk, an extra layer of theft protection I suppose.
Yeah, I imagine their security team would have a very unique perspective on this. I imagine it was implemented this way as a response to thefts they saw in the past/envisioned.
Exactly what I wanted to say. In addition, it's like adding a trailer coupling to it - sure, you can do it and it has the power, but that's really not what this car is intended to do.
Not necessarily. Let's consider this for a second.
Having some kind of backup would probably be easier than breaking whatever encryption they're using, and something like this would be a "weakest link" scenario, so anything you put would probably decrease in security.
Besides that, don't really want something a technician can just bring to you, because anything like that can be stolen or sold, so you were probably gonna have to tow it anyways.
I have no clue if that's anywhere close to the actual decisions, but it's not super hard to come up with a thought process that leads to the conclusion that the possible inconvenience of being even more stuck than usual when your car is stolen in a place where you don't have cell service is better than the security reduction of having a backup anti-anti-theft mechanism
Can you write software of medium scale that is 100% bug free?
Edit: My point is - We shouldn't be making smart cars and TVs because there are always going to be bugs that are not forceable and can cause your device to brick. I wouldn't want a smart microwave or coffee maker.
