Why can't we have something like a 1980s small Toyota truck with a Tesla motor drivetrain and no onboard computers other than simple microcontrollers for the various systems (charging, etc.), no streaming wifi / GPS data collection, and no need for software updates because everything was properly designed to work with the hardware before the vehicle was sold?
Such a setup would likely be cheaper to manufacture as well. The only way to get anything like that now is to pay a custom mechanic to put a Tesla motor into an old vehicle, which is kind of ridiculous.
It has become illegal to make and sell cars with the electronics feature set of 1980.
E.g. every new car now will have to have reversing camera, event data recorder, drowsiness and distraction detection, lane-keeping assist and advanced emergency braking.
I'm not sure if it's practical to do that with "no onboard computers other than simple microcontrollers" - of course there are some microcontrollers that rival the computers I grew up with, but the complexity of the involved software is inherent in the required functionality.
And since you have to pack the car with all these sensors, cameras and compute power anyway for safety reasons, all the privacy-invasive features don't require much if any extra hardware cost.
>It has become illegal to make and sell cars with the electronics feature set of 1980.
Where are you that this holds true? That it's illegal to not include those things?
I very recently bought a brand new car (within 2022) and while it does have a reverse camera, it does not have drowsiness/distraction detection, nor lane-assist, or any advanced braking tech (outside of ABS), etc.
DDAW ‘means a system that assesses the driver’s alertness through vehicle systems analysis and warns the driver if needed’
So the primary purpose of the system is to alert the driver when they are drowsy.
Data not accessible, or available to 3rd party. Only held long enough for
assessing drowsiness and during activation/deactivation cycle
They are mandating that data is only held for as long as it takes to activate the alarm (?). But I can see such data being a very very juicy target for insurers and police: wouldn't it be quite useful to pin the cause of an expensive accident on driver drowsiness? It's not likely we will have such protections in the US.
I really don't like this. Why is it useful if your car beeps at you when you doze off? You're either going to recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and decide to power through. If you're the type to pull over, you're not really going to be helped by a machine telling you you're tired; if not, you're probably going to drive anyway, because you have to be somewhere.
I guess under the best possible case, your car makes it annoying for you to drive drowsy, which might deter that behavior a bit. But in the worst case, every car accident will be financially catastrophic for all parties, because the insurance company will deny any claim -- arguing that you were impaired. You'll have little recourse, because you were probably "very alert" instead of "extremely alert" according to this system.
> You're either going to recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and decide to power through
You can totally start falling asleep without noticing, because the drowsiness messes with your critical thinking. The beeping will startle you and make you snap out of it for a bit.
" It's not likely we will have such protections in the US."
It is generally safe in the US to assume consumer protections don't exist until an incident forces an industry change, or a regulatory event materializes.
The US generally does not care about consumers at all, except in terms of keeping or upping the rate of consumption.
I like how this was down-voted, even when the evidence is staggeringly in its favor. We consistently wait for hazard to materialize before we implement post-event safeguards, instead of putting up health parameters and expect commercial entities to meet them consistently.
We laugh at the regulatory frameworks of places like Europe and Japan, yet they consistently get fewer food recalls, or stories about pink-goo as a food source, let alone the disparity in what they will allow in their food supply.
We nearly had a civil uprising about mandating seat belts. Elsewhere? Some griping and little else. Etc.
In particular, California pushes a lot of proactive vehicle safety measures. There are many states which wouldn't require these measures, but California is a big enough market that many manufactures simply implement them nationally.
"stories about pink-goo as a food source"
This is a non-story. The EU didn't ban pink goo (aka LFTB), they simply require that citric acid is used for sterilization rather than ammonia gas.
Furthermore - there's nothing at all wrong with eating all parts of an animal, as long as it's safe. What country do you know of that doesn't eat tripe?
It is fairly true (yeah, it's more complicated than a simple flat comparison, but in general, yes the EU and elsewhere does a better job and takes a more proactive approach). Also, nice throwaway account.
California is not the US (and frankly much of the US balks at California attempts to push things from gas mileage standards to any environmental quality standard to privacy, etc), and since the tail end of the Reagan years the US has largely given up its affirmative regulatory concerns to the EU. We're great at providing space for for-profit middlemen, but categorically mediocre or worse on preventative concerns.
The irony of you saying I'm cherry picking, then doing it yourself looking for an out isn't lost on me. Given you picked the one area where the US started it's agency as an actual consumer-safety oriented one (a rarity), and a centralized one, is a good topic to look at:
"The FDA historically developed as a consumer protection agency, whereas the regulations from the European Commission arose out of a need to harmonize inter-state commercial interests while preserving national “autonomy.” Thus, whereas the FDA has the advantages of centralization and common rules, the European Union regulates medical drug and device approvals through a network of centralized and decentralized agencies throughout its member states." - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452302X1...
Congrats, you cherry picked the outlier. And I'd argue based on the fact that we actually allow endless Pharma advertising and doctor lobbying, and the EU generally forbids it, that we still come up short comparatively.
> I really don't like this. Why is it useful if your car beeps at you when you doze off? You're either going to recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and decide to power through.
I fell asleep once while driving without recognizing that I was falling asleep. I only know I fell asleep while driving because that is the only plausible explanation for waking up while driving.
>In the EU, drowsiness/distraction detection becomes mandatory this year.
Fascinating, thanks. I was unaware. Do you know if there is any sort of standard that they follow? Or do manufacturers decide for themselves on what counts as drowsy/distracted behavior?
I am unaware of the specifics, but the law says " Since DDAW systems assess the physical state of the driver through indirect means, it is not possible to fully test those systems through a set of defined tests or with a programmable machine, which reproduces human behaviour.
..
The vehicle manufacturer carries out validation tests with human participants, either in a simulated environment or in a test vehicle, and present to the approval authorities"
So it sounds like they left it vague enough for manufactures to do their own thing.
So many replies to this without a single person mentioning that cars are extremely dangerous and kill lots of people every year. However, over the past 40 years cars have gotten much safer and kill far fewer people. A lot of these safety improvements are structural, but also a lot of them are due to the fancy onboard computers which are doing traction control and blind spot monitoring and deciding which airbags to deploy and emergency braking and on and on.
When a person driving a automobile runs through a crosswalk and hits and kills an innocent child crossing the street with their bike, an accident that could and should have been avoided by automatic emergency braking, a great cost has been inflicting on society as a whole so a person could save $500 on their car.
The price of each individual car needs to be calibrated with the price to society of all the bad things cars do. And this isn't a hypothetical situation where cars might kills tens of thousands of drivers and thousands of pedestrians every year --- they already do. Mandating safer cars, even if this will increase manufacturing costs and bring up all these new data privacy issues, has a huge positive impact on the rest of the people that happen to share the world with those cars.
This is a pretty good point I hadn't considered, although I do wonder why there are so many poor drivers. Staring at their cell phone GPS or built-in media centers probably has a lot to do with the distraction component. That's also an argument for more completely automated transport means.
Personally I'm all for banning cars from city centers and tearing down the suburbia commuter model, and just using cars and trucks for long-distance travel and/or hauling needs, but that's probably not very likely anytime soon.
A 1980s small toyota pickup would do very poorly in modern crash tests.
We have added way more airbags and much stronger roof pillars and side reinforcement which dramatically improves safety in a crash but also steals interior space, making vehicles inch larger to keep the same interior room.
Also if you want a battery electric vehicle with good range, you need a big battery. That's easier to fit into a larger vehicle (ie Tesla Model X) than a small vehicle, and the extra energy usage of the larger vehicle doesn't scale as fast as the larger battery capacity that can fit within.
I think the US could use something like Japan's Kei-car classification. Vehicles that are meant to use around town <= 45mph without going on the highway or needing to handle a 75mph rollover crash. This could be incentivized by cities with parking costs for larger vehicles. But it's difficult to sell when you might still get T-boned at 45mph by a 6,000lb Chevy Tahoe.
Edit: Another big reason for the tech and data connection on EVs is navigation. If you want to travel outside of your home charging radius, you're going to want to know what charging stations are along your route, what speeds they deliver, and what their current availability is.
A lot of Tesla's secret sauce is the "Just type your destination into the nav screen" where the car figures out your energy usage and charging stops to get wherever you want to go.
> Why can't we have something like a 1980s small Toyota truck with
"Software eats the world".
Consider something like fueling (I know this isn't in your Tesla drive train, but it's apples to apples). Your 1980s Toyota truck had a carburettor, a physical linkage direct to the gas pedal, and pretty simple exhaust. Very simple air intake.
The carbs were fiddly and expensive to build, but didn't really wear out or need much service (unless you let gas rot in them). They were also very inefficient across most of their range, as there is only so much you can do with a throttle body and venturi.
Compare "same" light duty truck now. Fuel injection with a control system: "smart" ECU, a far more complex exhaust - and sensors all along the way. The burn is far more efficient and controlled, partially because the exhaust has to be so much cleaner.
There is a lot of software in there. For the most part the only way anyone (e.g. NASA) knows how to make software anywhere close to as bulletproof ans that mechanical carb and linkage is to absolutely pour effort into it from design through to final test. Assume a 5x-10x cost on the software development, and pass that on the consumers.
If you assume the same lack of safety functionality as the 1980s truck, you can cut a chunk of that out, but I don't see that happening.
> no need for software updates because everything was properly designed to work with the hardware before the vehicle was sold.
I think there's your answer. That's hard to do, and software mistakes cost a lot of $$$ and time to fix. You have to go into a dealership/service area to get any updates.
Also, the vast majority of Tesla's customers are attracted to the idea that their car will continuously update itself and get better over time.
> I think there's your answer. That's hard to do, and software mistakes cost a lot of $$$ and time to fix. You have to go into a dealership/service area to get any updates.
Do current BEVs require frequent updates to maintain off-the-lot functionality and drive-worthiness? Like in practice, if I bought a BMW BEV and ripped out any internet connectivity / only drove around in a faraday cage, would it break after 3mo (or 3yr) unless I took it into the dealership for a software update?
>Also, the vast majority of Tesla's customers are attracted to the idea that their car will continuously update itself and get better over time.
Yes, I think this is a selling point too. However it need not be a requirement for all BEVs. If switching to this model is prohibitive then it shouldn't be a roadblock.
I didn't update my Tesla for about a year and half.
It eventually complained with a custom message that I would completely lose cell access in the car (which powers navigation, etc) if I didn't run the v11 update.
I reluctantly updated because I know, and by that point they had fixed most of the UX issues that I had complaints about. The UI team at Tesla at least seems to listen to feedback from customers, which is more to say for bugs in any infotainment system that I've ever had in any other car I've owned.
Once AT&T 3G shuts down, chances are it won't be able to connect to the network due to how it logs on. While the AT&T site[0] says "will decommission our 3G networks on February 22, 2022", but it's actually been pretty slow with 3G still lingering in many places and others getting it turned off around the time they're working on 5G deployments utilizing the now-free spectrum[1,2]. They probably could've fixed this by updating V10 with only the modem changes but they want people on V11 more.
Connected navigation is a pretty big feature for EVs, ie trip navigation that plans your charging stops based on up-to-date list of charger locations and their current availability.
So you can get by without this using your phone nav etc. but you'll likely be missing some key info like how many chargers are in-use vs available, and triggering the car to precondition the battery for fast charging before arrival.
> Also, the vast majority of Tesla's customers are attracted to the idea that their car will continuously update itself and get better over time.
For how long though? I have since long realized that for me autoupdates is a anti-feuture that just makes it possible for the cooperations to mess with me.
We have the story of the Tesla owner that got his battery software limited due to a workshop messup two owners earlier.
My car had no sentry mode aka security cam feature (it blinks lights and records a few mins of video locally to my external ssd if something is happening near it) when it came out, but thanks to the update it now does. Same for being able to access live camera feed from my car remotely on my phone, if i want to check on it. Oh, and another update later made it so that I can review the recorded security footage on the car screen directly (only when the car is parked), without having to unplug the SSD and reviewing videos on my laptop/phone.
Those features above was never mentioned or promised when I was buying the car, because they simply didn't exist or weren't even planned at the time. Other updates improved the UI/UX in some major ways. All in all, I have no complaints about that experience at all.
Also, none of those are auto-updates. Tesla will notify you if the update is available, but it won't be downloading them usung the built-in cell connection, only using wifi connection.
> it blinks lights and records a few mins of video locally to my external ssd if something is happening near it
Interesting. Yesterday I showed my 2yo a parked Tesla and it blinked when we got a meter away and I didn't understand what it did. Notably, CCTV of public spaces is illegal where I live without authority approval.
I am not opposed to updates, just auto-updates that can't be turned off by the user. Also there need to be a way to revert to an older version if a new one you manually approve messes things up.
I suspect it's the same reason why Microsoft just doesn't sell a version of Windows without telemetry for a flat rate: there is just too much money on the table for tracking and selling your private data over the lifetime of the vehicle (or computer).
For any consumer electronics/software product, if you can make $X just selling the standalone product, you can generally make $X + $Y selling the same product and collecting data or presenting some advertising. I don't see how this math changes without legislation. People don't have the expertise or time to evaluate the risk of each vendor's privacy policies and the negative consequences of this kind of data collection are rarely immediate enough to cause a negative consumer reaction.
Right. The easier computers get to use, the lower the skill level of the average user. If Windows 95 had spied on the user like Windows 11 does an angry mob would've descended on Redmond with torches and pitchforks.
"Smart" TVs seem to fall into the same category. Manufacturers realized they can make much more money and hit a (much) lower price point by packaging telemetry and using/selling the data. Nowadays "dumb" TVs either aren't available or come at a premium.
> I suspect it's the same reason why Microsoft just doesn't sell a version of Windows without telemetry for a flat rate: there is just too much money on the table for tracking and selling your private data over the lifetime of the vehicle (or computer).
Do Windows Enterprise and Windows Server machines include telemetry? I would assume "no", in which case there you go.
I think stuff like emergency breaking is going to be mandatory (or already is) on new cars in EU.
But there's stuff like : https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en/new/e-up.html which basically has a phone holder where the dash would usually be. Maybe other budget manufacturers will bring out something like this.
I would prefer to have the phone taking over the navigation/entertainment system the way Android Auto and Apple's CarPlay do. In this car, unfortunately, the entertainment system screen is tiny and most likely unsuitable for this.
If you build a car with a non-standard slot for an entertainment system, the least you can do is to make it smarter.
Yes, I don't know what kind of masochist prefers to navigate using an infotainment screen aimed at their back seat instead of a phone pointed directly at the driver.
My 2010 BMW has a cell phone holder in the center armrest. It was designed for the phones of the time. So when the iPhone 5 came out it became impossible to use because BMW never anticipated a phone being that large.
The built-in infotainment system is still lightyears beyond anything on a cell phone. On a road trip if the car gets to 1/8 of a tank of gas it will offer to set a destination to the nearest gas station. This requires one button press to accept. If there’s a navigation destination it will insert a stop to get gas.
> Such a setup would likely be cheaper to manufacture as well.
This is false only because costs tend to go down with scale - if you have an entire line making ten $10k BOM (bill of materials) cars in one shift it's going to be a loss-leader compared to a line making 300 cars a shift with a $12k BOM even if both cars sell at the same MSRP.
If even a small fraction of the people saying they want this actually put their money where your mouth was there would be a decent conversion industry by now (there is, but it's so small it's basically nonexistent and it's all one off builds).
Also, rose colored glasses are a thing. When was the last time you (the average dolt reading this, not you personally) rode in a vehicle from the 80s let alone slogged out a commute in one? The venn diagram of "people for whom it is fashionable to want an 80s Toyota pickup" and "people who would commute in any 80s vehicle" is two circles. Sure you can "fix" the driving experience by upgrading stuff but unless you produce them at scale the cost of doing each of these upgrades will be much greater per unit and the total price will quickly eclipse that of just buying new vehicles.
It would be really neat for some company to produce kits to replace ICE's with electric motors and battery packs for modern-ish cars like a Corolla/Civic/Fiesta. No need for fancy LCD screens, auto-driving, etc. just replace ICE with EV parts and get 100+mi range and you'd replace most commuter/2nd car use cases.
I envision it to be like PC parts. It would be awesome for standards to develop for EV's like there are for ICE. I'm sure its much more complicated and deals with high voltage so likely to need some education to not fry yourself.
When I posed this to an engineer friend working in the automotive space his comment was that weight distribution and handling / safety (and liability) would be huge issues in retrofitting ICE cars en masse.
The fact is, you'll never be able to recreate a truck from the 1980s because crash safety measures are much, much stricter than they used to be so the form factor of that era is not going to return.
The dirty secret is that infotainment additions have an outsized impact on consumer demand (better, fancier infotainment is a huge plus) for the cost paid. Due to all the new things needed to comply with current regulations, you'll have little uptake on the super low end model with no infotainment or fancy features if the price difference to the fancy screen version is commiserate with the price paid by the manufacturer. Also, as already mentioned in other posts, it may be at cost-parity due to the higher demand of the fancier trim model.
>Such a setup would likely be cheaper to manufacture as well.
It would only be cheaper to manufacture at scale; and that assumes that market wants a "1980s small Toyota truck with a Tesla motor". I imagine a car like that wouldn't sell very well; so it would either be incredibly expensive to either build in small batches or to make up for the unsold inventory
The Toyota Hi-Lux, which used to be their compact truck, is the second best selling truck in the world. Older versions are somewhat legendary for their indestructibility - https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/The_Indestructible_Hilux
Of course they are different. The compact version lasted until ‘97 and is still one of the best selling trucks of all time. The Ford Maverick fits into the compact, inexpensive pickup slot and is doing very well. I’m not saying it would have to be Hilux branded but fill the gap for a compact, economical, bombproof pickup.
Your original comment was that it wouldn’t sell well. Ford Maverick sales indicate that would not be the case.
>no onboard computers other than simple microcontrollers for the various systems (charging, etc.), no streaming wifi / GPS data collection, and no need for software updates
You are talking about a vehicle with no onboard SATNAV, no Carplay/Android Auto, no telematic roadside assistance. The Ford Maverick has all these things. My claim isn't that small trucks don't sell, my claim is that a car that doesn't even support Bluetooth audio wouldn't sell.
Owns by the highest bidder, be it measured by monetary value or political power.
IEEE should have done this piece way earlier, not after BMWs heating seat already grabbed people's attention.
>If they want to opt out of data collection completely, they can ask Tesla to disable the vehicle’s connectivity altogether. However, this would mean losing features such as remote services, Internet radio, voice commands, and Web browser functionality, and even safety-related over-the-air updates.
Fairly cheap price to pay if they really allow a full opt-out though
I think any car company is toast, if it sells users' private data. Including Tesla. I really doubt any data is being sold.
Most companies do actually collect data for a very simple reason: they want to genuinely improve their products and services. (Although some companies, like Google, Samsung and Facebook collect it also to help other companies sell more crap to you.)
Please provide details if you have any evidence that Tesla (or any other automotive company) is selling users' data.
>I think any car company is toast, if it sells users' private data. Including Tesla. I really doubt any data is being sold.
Any car company whose parent owner has multi-billion dollar contracts with the US government is toast if it doesn't sell its data, at least to the NSA.
What about policy(ies) relating to providing data to law enforcement, and whether a warrant is required?
I know this is moving the goalposts from selling data - but I don't think folks concerned with data privacy are strictly and exclusively concerned about the sale of such data.
Warrants are easy to come by even in supposed democracies like the US or Germany. Alternatively, the US government has repeatedly shown it does not give a fuck about laws and simply compels providers to accept whatever they are doing (Room 614A), or outright hacks the company in question (e.g. Google got their datacenter fiber connections spliced).
Even if it's not sold, the car's behavior may expose some user data to external services - navigation systems enriching maps with local data (restaurants, gas stations, charger occupancy, parking spaces, hotels) may connect to services that allow an external entity to identify a car or the person driving it. I don't know Tesla's software enough to make any further observations, but the possibility exists.
For a brief time, Ford tried to rebrand as a quasi-electronics company in some circles. Ford has been on the record saying they would be in a position to create “customer experiences” and “ownership offers based on connected vehicle data.” It’s all a bit cryptic but you can look up the Team Upshift project.
Updates are rolled out over time by HQ, and there is no way to force an update for your car if you're stuck on a specific version but you keep hearing about a newer version that people are using (both of my Model 3's are on 2022.20.7, while there is a 2022.20.8 bugfix update as well as 2022.24.1 which adds features[0]).
Rolling out updates in this way provides a major advantage In terms of QA testing: they can start a new software update out on employee cars, then move to maybe a few thousand owners to get initial thoughts on the update and make sure an update works on multiple model years of cars with different hardware and module configurations (since they're constantly changing out parts to increase assembly efficiency and work through supply shortages). This is especially important given the update system in the car isn't limited to just the infotainment, pretty much every software system in the car can be updated during an OTA update, including the battery management system, ABS, safety systems[1], etc.
> Rolling out updates in this way provides a major advantage In terms of QA testing: they can start a new software update out on employee cars, then move to maybe a few thousand owners to get initial thoughts on the update
Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I believe in doing the QA before you ship the code. Especially for safety critical code. "Move fast and break things" was cute when it was just for some upstart entertainment company, but is straight up professional malpractice for any product that is expected to be reliable.
Lack of centralizing connectivity was actually a beneficial constraint for most contexts. If a car model's software is found to have a safety critical bug that needs fixing, the recall process of making cars go back to the dealer should be regarded as a small price compared to the gravity of the mistake.
The Tesla Model 3/y infotainment system that's often updated by over the air updates isn't "safety critical" code. You can drive the car without the infotainment system and screen even on. There is a completely separate system that goes through a much more rigorous process.
And Tesla has incredible reliability for how complex the software is (in my opinion). They actually fix bugs. I had weird issues with Bluetooth and the radio on my Honda that were never fixed the entire time I've owned the car.
I've seen newer Mustang Mach-Es and Volkswagen iD cars that have really severe issues in their UI.
The comment I responded to was talking about safety critical systems:
> This is especially important given the update system in the car isn't limited to just the infotainment, pretty much every software system in the car can be updated during an OTA update, including the battery management system, ABS, safety systems
Also, I'd say that even the entertainment system is still safety relevant. Arbitrarily changing the UI on something that is meant to be used while driving is a terrible idea. At the very least, whether and when those changes are applied should be under control of the owner and able to be rolled back. Surprises like needing to figure out how to turn on the defrost kill a driver's OODA loop.
> license plate on that car showed that it was registered to ... Steer EV ... Agents served a subpoena on Steer EV for the renter’s billing and contact details. Steer EV provided those—and also voluntarily supplied historical GPS data for the vehicle ... In this case, the GPS data likely came from a device Steer EV itself installed in the vehicle
> according to researchers, Tesla is potentially in a position to provide similar GPS tracks
For Teslas built since mid-2017, “every time you drive, it records the whole track of where you drive, the GPS coordinates and certain other metrics for every mile driven"
That's a quote from greentheonly, FWIW. And it's absolutely true, you can pull up your Tesla app (or one of a plethora of community-authored tools) and see where your car is at all times (it even works for Turo rentals as long as you have an existing app and account). It's actually a really great feature, and one of the things that make Teslas Teslas and not just another car.
The question is whether or not the history is stored, and how. And if your read farther down, it's clear there is what certainly looks like a good faith attempt to anonymize this data before storage. It seems that green then went into some detail about how a malicious insider might be able reverse engineer that scheme given enough access, but all that survived into the article is some impact quotes, so it's hard to tell what the vulnerability is.
But no, Tesla isn't storing our driving history. At least not deliberately, and certainly with no intent to use it or provide it.
(It's worth pointing out the level of double standard here: Tesla's location history storage is actually much more limited in practice than what you get on iOS or Android, yet... no front page articles on HN about those?)
Worth noting that other manufacturers have clued in to how a good mobile app can be a selling point of a car or a package on that car - FordPass does location tracking[0], Chevy has tracking and life360-esque notifications where your family can know when it enters or leaves an area[1], and of course Rivian and Lucid have it or plan for it[2,3].
> Tesla's location history storage is actually much more limited in practice than what you get on iOS or Android, yet... no front page articles on HN about those?
On iOS at least, your location history never leaves your phone. And you can also turn it off without losing access to anything unrelated.
* Only if you go to Privacy and Security -> Location Services -> Systems Services (at the bottom) -> turn off iPhone Analytics, Routing & Traffic, and Improve Maps. Apple's anonymization algorithm for these significant location services is probably better than Tesla's, but it can probably still be correlated to which house or neighborhood you start sending location from.
And that's just the built-in location data exfiltration. As soon as someone installs a top app that requests 'always' location access it's gone, eg. Life360 (100M+ downloads on Android, you can expect similar numbers on iOS), Google Maps, Snapchat.
Of course, this should all be in the purview that people tend to have an individualized risk tolerance for their location data. Some people are fine with contributing to traffic data by allowing Google Maps, Apple, and Tesla (if they have a Tesla)/their car manufacturer to track their location while moving, but would react harshly if TikTok asked for persistent access to their location data. Some people are even fine with Snapchat and Google asking them if they can log and associate location history with their account [0,1], assuming they trust them not to sell or leak that location data.
This is only true for a very small percentage of users. Most apple users share location with family or one of many other apps that post location history to the cloud.
>But no, Tesla isn't storing our driving history. At least not deliberately, and certainly with no intent to use it or provide it.
Is this opt-in? Can you chose not to send telemtry to Tesla?>
>It's worth pointing out the level of double standard here: Tesla's location history storage is actually much more limited in practice than what you get on iOS or Android, yet... no front page articles on HN about those?)
There is no double standard, how many HNers will complain about Microsoft telemetry in Windows or VS Code, or the telemetry in Google Chrome? Probably Apple fans are fine with Apple knowing what apps they open and at what time and tons of other telemetry.
Out of the box, Tesla sends anonymized location data (the anonymization can't be perfect as the article points out) for traffic data reporting. Otherwise, pretty much every system in the car like the headlights, CAN bus, ABS, door and window microcontrollers, HVAC, battery management system, etc. are both updated during OTA updates, and send tons of telemetry to the main computer for processing and streaming to HQ, allowing Tesla to do extreme optimization and analysis on how well their parts are working and how efficient they are, with the ability to get cars in for service long before a problem turns into a catastrophic failure or makes the vehicle undriveable.
When I had to implement similar stuff in a program I created the user was Always prompted and the user had an easy way to check the data that was sent and they could deny sending the report.
I assume the car has enough computing power to self diagnose any component issue and you don't need to send your logs to the cloud for a super computer to see that your battery is broken. My guess is like all telemetry, it is done for the company benefit not the user.
>(It's worth pointing out the level of double standard here: Tesla's location history storage is actually much more limited in practice than what you get on iOS or Android, yet... no front page articles on HN about those?)
What double-standard? Those very iOS/Android storage practices have been frontpage fodder innumerable times (and will continue to be), and they're routinely brought up in the comments of tangentially-related threads, such as this one with your comment. That they're not on the front page at the exact same time as this piece doesn't mean that there's a double-standard.
I dont like the idea that somebody could see what places I visited with rent car or that my husband could track my routes.
Constant tracking is just bad idea.
Meanwhile, ISPs and mobile data providers sell your cell phone data to 3rd parties all the time to make money. More people keep phones on them than they do cars. Remember when NYT bought data in DC region and could track down secret security guards just by doing simple polygon selections around the WH?
DC for example also pays TENS of millions of dollars to Raytheon for the speed cameras they install only for them to be utterly useless.
If, god forbid, I ever have to buy a newer car the first thing I will be doing is yanking the damn cellular modem out of it. It's my car - not one I'm sharing with the manufacturer and who knows who else. With luck I'll be able to be buried with my current "dumb" vehicles.
Good luck trying to figure out how. I desperately want to do this in my new vehicle but I can't find information on where they are or how to get to them. Also it would void my warranty (although I'd do it anyway if I could).
I've told this story here before, but a while back mine malfunctioned while it was at a body shop and started calling the SOS service repeatedly. After the police called me (and came by my house the next day) I contacted the dealership and they actually sent me instructions for unplugging it. I haven't gotten around to plugging it back in, and now if I pick "customer service" in the car's menu it just gives me a 1-800 number to call. It did complain profusely the first two or three times I started the car afterwards, but it eventually gave up.
No. For automobiles especially, your car's warranties aren't voided unless your modifications contributed/create a problem in the car. For Tesla, perhaps they could argue that removing the modem means they can't diagnose effectively because it's offline and not reporting any errors, but if a motor died they'd still have to fix it despite the modem being ripped out.
IANAL, but my understanding is that the DMCA makes it illegal to distribute information or devices that would let you break HDMI encryption. But it's not illegal to "tamper" with your own device.
For automobile manufacturers to use the DMCA in this way they would have to make a case for some kind of copyright infringement that would be possible if the cellular modem was removed. Not impossible, but it would be a stretch for now.
A few manufacturers have tried using the DMCA in an attempt to quash non OEM parts for repairs and modifications, with John Deere being something of a poster child. I believe it's been at least partially quashed for the consumer market, but we'll see how long that lasts.
It shouldn't be illegal, but I don't doubt for a second that data-grubbing DRM-pushing auto manufacturers would conjure up a "think of the children" argument and have it made illegal if this ever became a widespread workaround.
Well, what data? Date and location of sale of the VIN? That's Tesla's data. Location of the the vehicle last Tuesday at noon? That's my data and why is Tesla even collecting it?
Why do you think that is "your" data? There is no expectation of privacy in public places, therefore the location of your car is rarely if ever private.
There is a scale and pervasiveness of monitoring at which a lack of expectation of privacy becomes a certainty of the absence of privacy and I don't think that should be the expectation. Regardless, there are, as you say, locations where the expectation of privacy does have legal force but GPS monitoring doesn't care.
“you could probably match everything to a single person if you wanted to.”
You could probably match it to a single car owner but I'll bet you'd have a hard time matching it to a single person purely using data without some research, and people let other people borrow cars more frequently than mobile phones. Though you probably could fingerprint someone's driving style based on starts/stop cadence, turn velocity, routes, destinations, etc. and some insurance companies may already do it. They use this data to modify their clients rates automatically, already. That's why I opted to not use my housing insurer, Lemonade, to insure my car. I don't need surveillance capitalism invading yet another part of my existence.
In the case of red light cameras (https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/01/18093/), I think the legal consequences are so comparatively minor that nobody bats an eye when this gets flubbed. When it comes down to this being used as evidence in a major crime, that will probably be harder and surely defense attorneys will be all over it. From a commercial data privacy perspective, it's probably enough of an edge case that their customers wouldn't care much.
I think civil cases may be the more interesting venue for this inconsistency. I don't know if it's still true, but in file sharing cases, folks often didn't question the idea that an IP address could be mapped to a specific person. I'd guess this wouldn't be that much different than having a series of witnesses spotting a license plate without getting a clear view of the driver?
> Safety Event camera recordings are automatically captured only if a serious safety event occurs such as a vehicle collision or airbag deployment. These short clips are up to 30 seconds and associated with your VIN in order to aid in providing emergency services, vehicle evaluation, and Roadside Assistance (and such recordings may include timestamp and location metadata).
For the inside of the car:
> Cabin Camera: Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, and 2021 or newer Model S and Model X vehicles are equipped with a Cabin Camera that is located above the rear-view mirror. For eligible vehicles, the cabin camera can determine driver inattentiveness and provide you with audible alerts, to remind you to keep your eyes on the road when Autopilot is engaged. To protect your privacy, camera images do not leave the vehicle itself and are not transmitted to anyone, including Tesla, unless you enable data sharing. Even in the event of a safety concern like a collision, only a log of the alerts displayed to the driver may be transmitted to Tesla, excluding camera data. If you choose to enable data sharing, in the occurrence of a serious safety risk or a safety event like a collision, it allows the vehicle to share short video clips with Tesla to help us further develop future safety features and software enhancements such as collision avoidance updates and more. To adjust your data sharing preferences, use your vehicle’s touchscreen to tap Controls > Software > Data Sharing > Allow Cabin Camera Analytics. To protect your privacy, this data is not linked to your VIN, and used to continuously improve the intelligence of features that rely on Cabin Camera. You may change this setting at any time.
In short, once you hand your data over to someone else, Third Party Doctrine applies and you lose MOST of your protections around privacy, warrants, etc. This applies to banking, communications, library records, etc, etc. Almost anything done in public does not have the "assumption of privacy" and therefore gets even fewer protections (usually none).*
If we want to roll back the surveillance society, we MUST abolish Third Party Doctrine and enact data ownership rules. Unfortunately, there are a LOT of dollars flowing because those rules are minimal and weak at best.
* Not a lawyer but have followed and researched this one extensively.
But if you had coincidentally parked near a bank while the robbery was happening law enforcement can easily pin it on you if there is lack of a better suspect. In other words you have less leverage in your legal defense
The bank robbery anecdote is particularly weird here since the location history in question wasn't via Tesla at all, it was the fleet tracking system run by the owner of the rental car!
TFA says we don't know for sure, but is at least honest enough to note up front that it likely came from Steer.
I don't think the fact that redundant systems were actively sharing car data negates the point of the example, though. We know Tesla is collecting this information, and https://www.tesla.com/legal/privacy makes it clear that Tesla will share this data with not only law enforcement but "service providers, business partners and affiliates".
A pretty interesting read. I didn't find anything alerting except that they share data with the law enforcement. That might not be desirable under some jurisdictions!
It also says for example this:
"We limit how, and with who, we share your personal data. Examples of when we may share your information include, payment processing, order fulfillment, product installation, customer service, marketing, financing, service or repair, and other similar services.
We do not sell your personal data to anyone for any purpose, period. The table below illustrates who Tesla may share your personal data with depending on your interactions with us or purchases you make."
[A table follows with examples.]
[More precise details follow]
...
"Law enforcement and government authorities.
Description: Disclosure of information as required by law, or when otherwise appropriate
Reason: To comply with applicable laws based on our legal obligation or legitimate interests"
...
"Other third party business partners to the extent that they are involved in the purchase, lease, or service of your Tesla products."
I agree that it's incumbent on everyone who owns or is considering a Tesla to click on "Show More" under "Sharing Your Information" at https://www.tesla.com/legal/privacy.
"Service providers, business partners and affiliates" is so vague that Tesla can share any data with almost anyone without revising this notice. If they ever do want to sell the data instead of giving it away, they can change the notice at any time.
> "Service providers, business partners and affiliates" is so vague that Tesla can share any data with almost anyone without revising this notice.
Only if you assume bad faith and don't read the surrounding text. They say explicitly that that category is there to allow them to outsource actions they would otherwise do internally. I mean, sure, you can imagine that being twisted in the future. But what exactly do you want them to say? This is a very typical privacy notice, and I don't see any red flags at all.
I mean, if you don't trust Tesla, don't buy one I guess. But trying to argue that they're somehow a unique privacy risk seems to be really strained logic.
Such a setup would likely be cheaper to manufacture as well. The only way to get anything like that now is to pay a custom mechanic to put a Tesla motor into an old vehicle, which is kind of ridiculous.