The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled.
Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new cars to be equipped with "driver impairment" tech which was called a "kill switch". Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-402773429497
Anyway, I'm staying with my old gas Honda until it dies which is probably never with proper maintenance and eventually restoration. I'll never go electric. Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point, and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.
> “can I get free data from the SIM card embedded in the device that I now technically own?”
That seems like the next-most-interesting question now that you've determined what the device is. Possibly followed closely by "can I use that free-to-me data in a fun way that might teach the people who installed the SIM to deactivate their devices when they sell them?"
i.e. Could you send and receive enough on the connection using that SIM to cost them enough money that they'd notice it?
If the people who made it know much about telecoms, then no, the will not work. When your mobile device connects to the Internet, the connection tunnels through the mobile network to a gateway specified by the "APN" (access point name). This is usually set up automatically these days, but you can dig the setting out of your phone. That's for an Internet connection - however a company can pay for a "private APN". This is still a gateway, but they control what it connects to. This is often done for machine to machine connections, e.g. for utility smart meters - so a SIM for a gas meter will not be provisioned for the normal Internet APN, and if you were able to get that SIM out (difficult as they are not usually in card format) you would not be able to connect to the Internet. Typically the equipment company will negotiate a cheaper data price than for Internet access, since the data usage will be low and predictable.
Now it could be that the people who built this tracking device are too small scale to negotiate a deal, or just don't know this, but my guess is that (a) the SIM is not in a physical format which can be removed and fitted in a different device; and (b) it is connected to a private APN which is not connected to the Internet.
BTW, if you look up the Wikipedia article, bear in mind that it is a bit inaccurate - for instance it refers to an APN as being a gateway to the Internet, which is not always true. I'll correct it some time.
Cars now have cell modems that you can hook up to select telecom providers to turn your car into a hotspot, so those cell modems/SIMs do have an APN for internet data
It’s surprisingly common for SIMs in IoT devices to not be locked down. If the data usage spikes enough above the noise it’ll probably be detected & deactivated.
Here’s an example from a few years ago: https://scootertalk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1370
Nice. Thought this was going to be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22085089
I'm reminded of a sim card installed in tracker for wildlife, that was then used by someone for their cellphone.
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I've experience working on a team for one GPS fleet management solution. Our SIMs were usually provided in a bulk PO from a top tier wireless provider and were all locked down to a certain very small (on the order of 5mb/mo) bandwidth plan. This cuts cost and risk.
I work at a place with LTE GPS trackers on fleet vehicles. Tracking boxes get moved from old -> new vehicles when possible. Otherwise the cell and tracking services are deactivated ASAP to avoid paying a monthly fee on an unused tracker.
I'd personally be equal parts creeped out and curious about the hardware if that showed up on a car I bought. If it's a former fleet vehicle, its probably deactivated.
The particular sound described makes me think of older pre-lte stuff, which in my part of the world was abandoned and became useless a couple years ago.
That was also what the sound made me think of, but I don't think the sound would've happened with deactivated hardware. (?)
But you're right, I don't think I've heard my phone cause that sound since I switched to an LTE phone.
I work for a company that uses sensors with some kind of 4G connection. I don't know the details but I did ask our sensor guys what would happen if someone removed the SIM card (or whatever it is) and started using data. My recollection is that locking down those SIM cards is the responsibility of the sensor maker. We have an agreement to pay for all legitimate traffic at a contractual rate, but the device manufacturer actually owns the connection and pays for the data themselves.
So you're probably using the connection in violation of the wishes of the responsible party, but it was not clear to me exactly how illegal that would be? Like I'm sure they could charge you with a crime but I have no idea what it would be.
> they could charge you with a crime
Doubt it. You'd be using a device you bought and now own, that didn't come with any kind of agreement/contract/etc to limit your usage. :)
I suspect that computer misuse / hacking laws could apply. I’m also certain that there will be small print if you bought it from a dealer.
The situation they're describing is it coming with the house they bought.
Our water company switched our meters from RF to cellular a while back, I'm not curious enough to mess with it, but I suspect you could repurpose the sim card from one of them.
Even though the SIM was part of the car they bought, the SIM's contract is not in their name which means using the contract would be theft.
This can be difficult to grasp.
I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed.
I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time.
My patience was running out so I threatened the security company with removing the cameras installed in the house I owned, but I was told that they owned them even if they were inside my house.
At that point, you could point out that you have no contract with them, and that they’ve abandoned their property on your place.
The last time I checked, US property rights made it clear that you cannot just store stuff on other people’s land without permission, and then complain when they throw it away.
They could try to argue that whatever contract the previous owner signed still applies, but for that to be the case, they would have had to amend the deed to the property, and that should have been noticed by your title agency.
Regardless I would have carefully taken these down and put them in a box on the day I moved in. And then called them (or better, written to them) and given them a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple months) to collect their property, making it clear that I would dispose of it after that time expired.
They own the cameras. You can still take them down and give them back if requested.
Maybe you could just cut the wires. Surely the former tenant's contract does not oblige you to provide electricity and connectivity to those devices.
I can’t believe this is true. How can you have so little care over the privacy of your family? They have microphones too.
Dude, that sounds stressful, but you seem to be agreeing to live a prisoners life and leaving your family within it. I'm am legitimately sad to hear about your situation.
I had a similar situation with an (active) alarm and monitoring system in the last house I purchased. One of the first things I did was clip the wires, remove everything and throw it in the trash with a few other things the previous owner had left behind. You are under no obligation to store or keep active property abandoned after a sale (at least here in the US).
> I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense.
No, that's how ownership of internet accounts works. Ownership of real estate is based on completely different principles; there is no earthly reason you'd need the previous owner to be involved. Who owns what real estate is a matter of public record.
> they owned them
Doesn't mean they need to be kept in their current location though. You're entirely within your rights to remove them and leave them in a safe place for them to retrieve at their leisure.
I think the sheriff's practice of putting stuff in the street during an eviction would be a possible course of action there.
So you uninstalled them and FedExed them to the company along with a bill for the deinstallation work, right?
Do you still have the cameras or did you remove them?
They were able to contact the previous owner in a matter of days and now the contract is with me, not him.
Sorry. But I have to ask.
What the actual fuck?! Why would you have cameras inside your house to begin with, let alone ones that upload to “the cloud” and let alone ones that upload to users you don’t control?
I’m totally shocked by this.
This is a disturbingly common practice - I have seen videos on Reddit, YouTube and the like that show moments captured from cameras obviously mounted inside children’s bedrooms with a cloud service company’s logo on the feed.
The contract would likely say something to the effect of "I promise to pay for the data sent to or from this device" and nothing about the owner of the device. If anything was said about the owner, it would be that the responsibility of the original contract holder is to ensure the contract was terminated when the sale took place.
Is there case law on this? I don't see any way in which this is legally theft by the OP (admittedly my knowledge is more US-centric than Euro-centric). If I let someone tether a device to my cell phone (or loan my phone to them), are they committing theft?
The company on the contract voluntarily gave the SIM to OP.
You better believe if I buy a property in Germany which has security cameras inside the absolute first thing that’s happening is those are getting smashed to absolute bits and if anyone even tries to complain I’ll sue them.
I may even consider filing against the previous tenants for not removing them and so my being filmed destroying them was without my consent, it’s a clear crime to me to record someone on their private property without their permission ..
This is absolutely not normal anywhere.
Same thing in France and I don't understand some answers in this thread. My home -> my cameras, and you can be sure they will be removed and thrown away ASAP. It's at least a violation of my privacy and wouldn't be tolerated where I live.
IAALBNYL it’s not theft because they’ve been abandoned and are in the new owner’s possession. If the prior owner can’t be reached and the security company which claims to own them won’t take them, they’re probably fair game.
It’s property law 101 that possession and ownership are not the same thing.
Even if that were the law, you could disconnect the cameras or cover the lens.
Imagine it was a credit card found in the car, what are the material differences? Note the suggestion is to willfully use the device in a way.
Well, one is tied to a private bank account, the other is a privacy-violation device tied to no one.
This entire article is clickbait.
- Headline "My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch".
No, this is not a new car. This is a used car. Finding undocumented switches in a vehicle someone else owned is very common. People modify their cars all the time. Finding an undocumented switch in a new car would be wild.
- "And that’s how the search comes to an end. After a bit of perseverance I figured out what it is."
You literally took your car to a dealership, and the mechanic told you what it was. This ENTIRE ARTICLE boils down to this statement. You did the bare minimum to investigate what it was: took the panel off and confirmed that the wires went __somewhere__.
How does this get upvoted so heavily on Hacker News?
Maybe because "My new car" does not imply that the car itself has never been used?
Just that it's YOUR new car.
That's one thing I'm very curious about: is there a way in english to differentiate between "(my new) car" (a used car which is new to me) and "(my) new car" (a new car which is mine)?
Usually you'd say "brand new" to signal that it's from the factory. It is quite ambiguous otherwise.
Damn, you're cranky. The original article was a good read.
I have to say I agree fully and it's kind of disappointing how much chaff makes it to the HN front page. This is ostensibly an interesting article, but at second glance doesn't really hold up to any scrutiny as anything really novel... folks buying used cars for decades have been doing detective work on 3rd party aftermarket modifications that have been left in. Instead, show me a door chime that has been converted to Toto's Africa using an arduino or custom fab board with STM chip.
I love hardware mysteries.
I mostly drive old 90s enthusiast cars, and I have had my fair share of undocumented switches.
The most surprising to date was in a Nissan Silvia, from 1989. Sometimes it wouldn't crank off the key, given the solution chosen it must have been a wiring issue. Instead of fixing that wiring, the previous owner had directly wired power to the starter via a "missle switch" style switch, and instead of mounting it anywhere remotely useful, it was just spliced into the loom and sat on top of the rocker cover in the engine bay.
So if it wouldn't start, I had to leave the key at "on", hop out of the car, bump that switch and then it would start. Obviously standing in front of a manual car while starting it is the dumbest thing next to wiring your starter to a switch in the engine bay. Fortunately I never ran myself over.
Another one, I will keep short, a 97 Skyline would only light up ready to start 1/4 times. Seemingly randomly, on key bump. Turns out the flash memory for the fuel map had corrupted, and depending on the temperature and a bit of randomness from the sensors, it would only hit a corrupted cell occasionally. It got worse and worse as more of the table corrupted, until it would only start say 1/60 key bumps.
It was a dodgy power wire causing the corruption, and fixing that plus reflashing the tune fixed the issue.
At first glance this reminded me of some Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor models which had similar unlabeled buttons. One would disable all exterior lights, including brake lights, for going into stealth/surveillance mode. An adjacent button was used to be able to remove the key and keep the engine running, while preventing the car from being shifted out of park until the key was inserted again. I haven't seen either feature re-introduced in the newer Explorers or Fusions though.
Many modern ambulances have a similar shifter disable switch so that it can be left running and someone can't take off with your ambulance while you're off collecting your patient.
> … used to be able to remove the key and keep the engine running, while preventing the car from being shifted out of park …
I’m pretty sure (not 100%) that new cars with contactless keys have this feature by default. You can get out (with the key) and leave it running, but the shifter won’t work until you return with the key.
Contactless keys and fleet vehicles do not go well together.
I'll bite. Why not?
Seems like a solvable problem, the trivial solution is to have the dealership program multiple fobs identically.
I guess maybe not solved yet because:
- The trivial solution also means multiple cars respond to e.g. "unlock" if they are parked adjacent.
- Anything more complicated means custom electronics for a niche market.
By contrast every small town in the world has a fundi who can duplicate your physical key.
I think you're right, although I've noticed that there's a timeout where newer cars automatically turns off if the key fob doesn't come back within range after so many minutes. Probably a safety feature to avoid accidental walkaways, whereas the button required a deliberate two-step action (hold down while turning and removing the key) to activate the feature.
Mine didn't. My contactless key needs to be nearby when starting the car. The shifter is independent and does not need the key.
I was astonished to learn that Ford no longer sells sedans (Fusions) of any kind. Neither does GM. I dislike SUVs, and it seems the only choices for American sedans are a Cadillac or a Tesla. Hondas and Toyotas are selling like hot-cakes, but when they had to compete on quality American automakers just decided to walk away from the market.
So no need to worry about that feature on Fusions... they don't sell them anymore. Nor Chevies, Buicks, Oldsmobile is long gone, no more Dodges or Chryslers... nothing.
> I was astonished to learn that Ford no longer sells sedans (Fusions) of any kind
It has been a very long time for Ford now. I was heartbroken when they discontinued the Fiesta/Focus ST/RS trims in the US, those were peak car models for me.
Story: when I was buying my Fiesta ST I did all the usual dealership prep tactics to avoid getting overcharged. I researched the dealership cost and all that jazz, and told the salesperson I have that much + a few hundred bucks which seemed a fair offer. They immediately accepted it and got me out the door with that car within the hour; I got the sense they were not selling well even back then.
those CAFE standards, or the “not an EV mandate” have destroyed the US car market. Trucks come standard with 4 cylinder engines now and manufacturers are reducing their offerings to meet the aggressive climate goals.
Check Chevy and Dodge too. Chevy has one sedan and Dodge is still selling 2023 model years to avoid CAFE.
That must be an American thing. Ford, Holden (GMSV, Chevvy), Toyota and Honda all still sell sedans in Australia.
Steven Wright: "I have this switch in my house that doesn't seem to do anything. It's in a hallway, so every time I pass it, I flip it: up, down, up, down...up...down. A few months after I got the house, a guy from Indonesia called me on the phone and said...'stop it'"
??
It's all in the delivery
This is certainly true. Typing that I heard his voice in my head, and laughed. I'm sure someone who's never heard Steven Wright has a much more limited response.
So this was a gps tracker that was installed by a fleet and never removed. The larger issue is that most car companies in the US are reselling your data on newish vehicles (2016+) anyway. I am still amazed that this is not a larger issue.
>The larger issue is that most car companies in the US are reselling your data on newish vehicles (2016+) anyway.
A fun read related to this: "Privacy Nightmare on Wheels: Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla - Including Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota - Flunks Privacy Test"
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-...
Small excerpt:
>The very worst offender is Nissan. The Japanese car manufacturer admits in their privacy policy to collecting a wide range of information, including sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic data — but doesn’t specify how. They say they can share and sell consumers’ “preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes” to data brokers, law enforcement, and other third parties.
Why? It is quite clear that the mass populace just doesn't care. That's the bigger story. So many people are quite happy giving away data that they don't fully understand or even want to take time to try to understand as long as they get free/discounted service/fees and use the same equipment to keep up with the Jones. Another study should be why otherwise smart people cannot come to terms with this.
People care about privacy. But in our current telling its a hard problem to understand and the costs are too high. The costs are not talking to friends, or not driving a car. So as a coping mechanism people will convince themselves they dont care for privacy.
The phenomena you're describing isn't about caring.
You're describing a "trade" in the same way mobsters and conmen do.
What are you on about? Mobsters and conmen break laws. There are no laws being broken by these data hoarders/brokers. Maybe it's closer to Stockholm syndrome or abusive/toxic relationship or something where people are mentally accepting the unhealthy situation as if it were normal.
The costs of talking to friends endlessly about this boring privacy is having no friends. You're telling an addict what they are doing is not good for them, but they are not ready to hear it.
My 2024 Toyota GR Corolla has a fuse that, when pulled, disables the Data Communications Module (DCM). It also disables the in-car microphone. At first I was mildly annoyed at not being able to make phone calls over a Bluetooth connection between my phone and the car's computer because of that, but the more I thought about it, I realized I was actually okay with the car's microphone also being disabled.
I often put my phone into Airplane Mode when I'm not actively using it, and I prefer to avoid the distraction of a phone call while I'm driving because I'm a terrible multitasker. If it's too easy for me to receive an incoming phone call when I'm driving then I'm too likely to do it when I really shouldn't.
In general I want as little data collection and reporting capability built into my car as is reasonably possible. I wish more auto manufacturers would make it as easy as Toyota did with the GRC -- and a few other of models, as I've heard -- to disable telemetry.
Aftermarket GPS tracker, for those who just want the answer quickly
Title should be "…My used car has a mysterious and undocumented switch…". It would be a lot more interesting if some model of new car had an undocumented switch.
Whoever bought my old Honda Fit is asking the same question right now; I installed a button in about the same place. They'll have fun figuring that one out. Honda Fit's AC is designed a lot more for fuel efficiency than effectiveness. So I added a resistor parallel to AC temperature sensor (and the switch inline) which makes the system think it's warmer than it really is, so it cools more. But with the risk of allowing the coil to freeze up. I called it the "AC Boost Switch".
I'm not doubting your solution but at the same time would turning down the desired temperature in the car achieve the same goal?
Most automotive A/C compressors are either on or off, with the engine ECU commanding an overriding “off” under hard acceleration or when fuel economy or other situations require an interruption in cooling.
Some older temperature dials actually mixed the cold A/C air with the hot air from the heater core to make those in-between temperatures.
Most automotive A/C compressors are either on or off
All AC compressors are either on or off. The compressed gas is gradually released by the TXV. The drop in pressure as the gas exits the TXV is what makes it cold.
Some older temperature dials actually mixed the cold A/C air with the hot air from the heater
What vehicles don't do this?
Didn't help. With AC on maximum it'd still "turn off" early. Honda claimed working as designed.
As a former Fit owner, I wish I had thought of this! The AC was really bad. We did a lot of road trips and it really struggled out on the long desert highway stretches.
The switch is probably for tax reasons, to record whether you’re making a business vs personal trip. Personal trips go towards the 500 km allowance before the car is seen as indirect salary and should be taxed as such. Setting it to personal might also disable the tracking for privacy reasons.
Having seen setups like this before this is pretty likely indeed.
The metal thing looks like an ibutton / 1-wire reader, which matches the functional description given:
https://www.atrack.com.tw/en/product/1-wire-ibutton-tag-read...
If you have a flipper zero, maybe you could poke at it.
Soon as I saw the round thing I knew it was an iButton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Wire
I have seen them on Home Depot forklifts. Lift operators have the iButton key fob to allow the machine to stay operating. Years ago I was with a guy who though the could load our truck himself, started the lift, alarm goes off and it shuts down.
Used cars can have all sorts of crap in them from mods or whatever. And who knows what abuse a used car has seen but this car was fleet maintained and GPS monitored so likely a good used car.
As long as privacy-related misconducts are considered petty offenses, these things will just continue. Governments fail to see the implications because the virtual world is too difficult for them to understand. As long as there are no laws that actually get enforced, your privacy isn't worth anything.
The problem isn't with governments. It's with people.
Most people don't care about their privacy. Even if they do, the majority of that group don't care enough to give up the conveniences they get in exchange for it. This leaves a small group of people to fight for protecting their privacy, as well as of those who don't care about it. This is an uphill battle against trillion-dollar corporations and the governments they're in symbiosis with.
Some governments do make an effort, but it's too little, and too ineffective to matter in the grand scheme of things. I wouldn't expect this to improve, and can easily see it getting worse. I hope I'm just being pessimistic.
I've more recently found that "laypeople" really do care about their privacy and but are unaware about what data it's possible for corporations to collect. They do rightfully uncomfortable when they have their questions answered, but feel powerless to be able to do anything about it.
That hasn't been my experience. Maybe that was the case 10+ years ago, but most people these days understand what they're giving up when using these services. The argument then becomes "I have nothing to hide", "I only use it occasionally", "What's the worst that could happen?", etc. It all boils down to them valuing the experience they're getting over their privacy. I've had these conversations with both technical and nontechnical people, and in nearly all cases I've had to argue in favor of privacy. I've yet to convince anyone to change their habits.
I share and empathize with the feeling of powerlessness, but most people will choose convenience, user experience, etc. over privacy, even when there are reasonable alternatives. Hell, I will sacrifice my own privacy if a service is indispensable and there's no alternative. We can't expect people who value it less to do otherwise.
In my experience, trying to tell an average person the kinds of things that companies can do with their data, which the companies themselves have admitted to and written into privacy policies, just gets you labelled as a conspiracy theorist.
The things companies can, will and promise to do with your data are sometimes so far fetched that people assume they're impossible. At least this was the case 5 years ago, haven't tried persuading anyone in recent years.
Back around 2004 a friend of mine worked at a car dealership in the Bronx that sold high end used cars. They were putting GPS trackers in all of the cars they financed so they could repossess them when the customer didn't make their payment. This was/is (from my understanding, IANAL) very illegal. They never told the customers either. The financing was ridiculous and they preyed on the people who had just enough down and didn't care what they were signing so they had a large percentage of repossessions.
Made me wonder how many other shops were doing the same thing...even 20 years ago.
Dealerships in the US have become more brazen about that practice. They won't hide that they installed the device. Instead, they will upsell you on an anti-theft device.
One dealer tried to sell one to me to the tune of 600$/year. That told me that they were butchering the wiring on every brand new car that hit their lot. I walked out without a deal.
It's slightly more complicated than that.
In most cases, Dealers don't own the cars on their lot; they are financed either by a manufacturer's financing arm e.x. FMCC, Ally (sorta), NMAC, or an independent e.x. Santander.
Oftentimes, the Tracking device is part of the finance company's agreement, if not part of keeping insurance costs down.
Of course, dealers are more than happy to try to charge you for -not- removing it...
That told me that they were butchering the wiring on every brand new car that hit their lot.
There's no need for butchering. All that's needed is constant 12V. Maybe an aux 12V if you need to know when the car is on. At most, they may have installed a relay to cut the fuel pump or ignition, which is no more invasive than a standard alarm installation.
Most of those GPS trackers for corporate use require a data connection, which is probably costing someone $€£ 10/month for the line at least.
Usually when you stop paying for that subscription, the line gets deactivated.
So probably nobody is getting that GPS trace.
I work in this space, and I’ve seen advertised components (most likely SOCs) that had “lifetime” cell data included in the price, costing, on the order of, $50. It is becoming increasingly cheap to have low bandwidth cellular connectivity.
Can you post an example of one of these products?
I've been dabbling in this space and I'm having a hard time finding any data service under about $2 - $4 per month.
I'm having trouble finding what I remember seeing maybe 4 years ago. It was an all in one cellular component with an esim. This is the closest I can find to what I remember seeing. It may lead you to some other solutions.
https://1nce.com/en-us/1nce-connect/10-dollars-for-10-years
I remember seeing stupidly cheap prices for cellular chips, and when I looked into it, it looked like they had bought up a bunch of bulk bandwidth on some really old tech, like 2G. The offering wasn't a lot of data per period but certainly enough to wake up and upload a small amount of data regularly. Seemed like an obvious product, I know that if I'm doing a design, I don't want to have to rely on ongoing costs. I'm surprised I can't find more hits like this one. It's possible that peak IoT led to some crazy business models that had no chance of sustaining. I think they may have banking on the network dying before having to figure out how to purchase more bandwidth.
Digikey was no help. Googling "Lifetime Data Cellular Communication plan" did lead to some other potential interesting hits. chatgpt almost gave me interesting things to look for, but it mostly pointed me at consumer good. Good luck.
I hadn't seen that before. Thanks for taking the time!
Going by Hologram's public pricing, a GNSS "heartbeat" per-minute would cost $4/month on a PAYG model. With tiered contract pricing, I'd expect that to drop to $1/month for a mid/large-sized telematics organisation.
> Unlike the Peugeot, the Opel has gadgets - quite a few of them.
It is funny because that Opel IS a Peugeot.
Same group (Stellantis), and same mechanicals as the contemporary Peugeot 208 with only minor aesthetics and branding modifications.
And his old Peugeot (107) is also a Citroen (C1) and Toyota (1st gen Aygo).
Thankfully Toyota did most of the engineering, which I think is the main reason ours is still running after minimal maintenance with > 100,000 miles on it.
I thought Opel was a GM marque?
It used to be but it has been until 2017 when the Stellantis group, itself a merger of PSA and Fiat Chrysler, bought them.
I wonder if it’s a tracking off switch or a panic button? I used to work for a fleet tracking SaaS, and some customers with unionised workforces needed a way to disable tracking, and panic buttons were common too (although less so in Europe).
What would a panic button do in this context?
Signal to HQ "I'm being robbed" or something like this, I would guess.
Around here, such a button in this place would be for the 20 000 lumen extralights. Typically for cars with xenon headlights, like this Opel, the extralights are powered via a relay that takes control signal from a can-bus adapter that extracts the high beam signal, via a manual switch like this.
The more such evidence about new cars means the more I'm glad I got a used car, a 2001 GMC in good condition!!!
Car makers: For some people your new cars can't compete with your 20+ year old used cars! Right, 20 years of changes resulted in big steps backwards.
In general avoid obscurity and complexity. And instead emphasize the KISS principle -- keep it simple silly!
Suggestion: For SUV models with a door in the back, some have just one door and a hinge at the top. Instead have the long common two doors, one with the hinge high and the other, low. That way, can actually have a "tailgate picnic party" and reduce the number of times a head hits the door.
And there is a problem: Please return to the old round headlights, two for low beam and two more for high beam. They gave better light, didn't have a plastic covering that got cloudy, didn't have the current obscure way to replace a light that failed, and were easy to understand and aim and cheap to replace.
I know, the old lights were cheap. But also remember, they were better!!!
More than likely an iButton reader to identify the user and a business/personal use switch.
The switch basically does nothing, but tha state of it is logged in the tracking system along with the routes the car takes. In many EU countries you tax differently for personal use, so the switch is sort of important for tax reasons.
If you continued reading to the bottom of the article you would find validation for your hypothesis
The article doesn't specifically mention iButton or one-wire systems. It just describes a metal plate "to hold a magnet next to" that's connected to a fleet tracking system for driver identification. While this is similar to how iButton/one-wire systems work, it's not fact since the article doesn't confirm the specific technology used.
I have one of those buttons and readers from a project kit from a long time ago, and it's not magnetic.
I think the magnet reference is just a misleading mixup on the dealers side who was probably not familiar with iButton specifically. Very old immobiliser systems used simple reed switches and magnets - basically just pure security by obscurity.
The purpose of the switch is also unconfirmed by the article, but this exact combination of cheap chinese button + ibutton reader were an extremly common retrofit into Opels in Hungary.
Shout out to the old Peugeot 107. You’d struggle to fit your shopping in the boot/trunk, 0-60 takes several business days, the brakes are more of a suggestion to slow down, even moderate hills require dropping to second and ragging the engine (no idea what the redline is cause ours doesn’t even have a tach), and opening the passenger window requires reaching across from the driver’s side.
But it was mine and my wife’s first car and we have a lot of happy memories of places that car has taken us to. Aside from the odd flat tyre and a new clutch and timing belt over the last 8 years, it’s never let us down (it was largely engineered by Toyota which certainly helps there). We got a new car at the start of this year so it doesn’t see much use now, but we’ve kept it as a second car because it’s so damn cheap to run and maintain.
Anyone that has a Tesla knows what data they track? Or is it dependant on the features you have active ...
There is a list at https://www.tesla.com/support/privacy and you can request a copy. They state never sell or rent your data to third-parties, and sentry and dashcam data is only stored locally. They anonymize the data they do use, presumably for AI training.
> sentry and dashcam data is only stored locally.
That must be new https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sens...
I believe that was autopilot footage that was uploaded for training after opting-in, not sentry video. And yes, they changed the policy as noted in the article.
"Several years ago, Tesla would receive video recordings from its vehicles even when they were off, if owners gave consent. It has since stopped doing so."
In that link "The company requires car owners to grant permission on the cars’ touchscreens before Tesla collects their vehicles’ data"
No, it's not. You can see the screen here. It's clearly optional. If anything, people complain they see it too often.
But don't click yes if you spend time nude in your garage like the people in the original claim.
https://www.teslaownersonline.com/threads/data-sharing-scree...
After looking at the photo, and before actually reading the post, I was sure it was a switch for retrofitted fog lights - they are not required in the US and you must to have them in Europe in order to pass MOT.
I have an almost identical looking switch in my Mustang (which I imported from America) and it does exactly that - turns the fog lights on and off :)
I bought a new Ford F250 a few years ago and it came with a built-in fleet management service/subscription with GPS tracking. I flipped it a few months later to a dealer and I had to proactively bug them to take over the access to the service. Would have been very easy to spy on the future owner.
Realistically I can’t imagine the old owner would keep paying for the data connection on cars they’ve decommissioned and sold off. The device probably is just searching for a network all the time.
Probably. Obviously this assumes competence, attention to detail, and responsibility with corporate funds.
My car came with a similar toggle switch under the dash. I figured out it was to fully disable the ABS system. (The previous owner was a fan of taking his car two track days.)
I kept accidentally toggling it off with my knee, so I replaced it with a nice flush push button. I haven't tracked the car yet though.
I hope some day there will be a car brand that is privacy-friendly. As "dumb" as possible.
How do these things send the position? Don't they need their own cellular connection for that?
From TFA: and “can I get free data from the SIM card embedded in the device that I now technically own?”
Doesn't that mean each car has its own subscription? Why would they keep paying for it after the car has been sold?
I wonder, what does this red button do ... https://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw?t=107&si=4QwhQuKlWY3QAlla
"Why did you touch that button? What if it would make the car explode?" - my father.
I never touched an undocumented button again, nor understood why someone would add a button that exploded the car when clicked.
That was a fun read. It's interesting to think that they would leave it attached. Indeed, what could you do with that? Did you find the unit that the wires go to? Then you could open that up and see what chips, sensors etc are in there.
Used car dealers install those as per bank requirement to find the car in case it needs to be repoed, if the customer finishes the payment it just stays in the car but the account is disabled (the dealer pays a monthly fee for nothing otherwise). So basically it’s sending location data to nobody.
A lot of used cars have something like this. I'm honestly more surprised OP apparently bought the car either sight unseen or without questioning this before signing any paperwork.
I bought a used van a few years ago at a strange time: I needed a particular kind of vehicle right away, and there broadly just weren't any at a reasonable price (because chip shortage, mostly). I spent a long time (several weeks) looking, and became increasingly frustrated with what would have normally been a simple process.
When one showed up at a good local dealership, I bought it. I barely looked at it first.
Unusual? Probably. But those were unusual times.
Anyway, it had a small metal toggle switch mounted under the dash. The old-school kind, with the metal tag painted with red and black On/Off silkscreen.
I never did figure out what it was for.
I had a peek more than once (of course) to see what it connected to, but it was just a Siamese pair of wires that drifted off to unseeable areas.
The only other modification I could find was a very neatly-installed remote starter.
And that remote start box did have a switch input (for valet mode, whatever that means), but it was not connected.
(It all got ruined in a crash a couple of months ago and the purpose of the switch shall thus remain a mystery.)
Sometimes it's for a sound system or some other wired feature someone installs from aftermarket stuff. When they sell the car, it's easier to remove the added system and leave the switch.
That's pretty common, yeah. Or fog lights. Or (on VCM Hondas, such as this example) VCM foolers/defeats.
I didn't ever find any evidence of aftermarket anything except for some suspension parts (new shocks/struts, tie rods, woot) and the remote starter. And...the switch.
Given the fact that the vehicle is probably headed to China by now to make new cars out of, the switch will just have to remain strange and unknown.
I've got something similar on a car I bought that was previously leased. I didn't notice it while doing the test drive, but it was almost certainly there the whole time. One day, I'll try to remove it, but afaik, it doesn't do much other than sit there. Maybe it drains the battery a bit, but I think the OEM modem was probably worse... I removed that recently because I was doing work that got me halfway to removal anyway.
I don't buy the GPS tracker explanation... they would have installed it without the switch, because why would they trust the driver to turn it on and off?
I wonder what should be the GDPR implications for the car dealership, selling cars that track their owner's location and not being able to confirm it, explain why it exists, or who receives the data.
Unless the whole thing is disabled in absence of a registered fleet tracker key on the magnet on the right.
While I'm sure they discontinued the service on whatever cellular device transmits the data back it is a curious question about the legality of if they left the service in place and continue to track the vehicle long after they sold it
You have to ask about the little red button though.
The only thing I find odd is that the dealer didn't notice this and remove or plug it.
I remember reading a similar article, here, in the last year or so.
It was about a mysterious box. Turned out to be some kind of remote disabler.
It's the magic/more magic switch.
Meanwhile this is coming as a standard feature on many new cars, and all your data goes straight to LexisNexis.
New car sounds like brand new car, not used car. Which have history.
I found the title a bit misleading in that regard.
I'm pretty sure there is no little man in a back room somewhere tracking his every move.
If you press it, "They will come!"
NMI switch, for debugging?
After reading post: Oh. That makes me wonder how many second hand cars are driving around with similar features?
> I now know my car is being tracked still, and that they know I did try out what the car’s acceleration is like at full throttle.
At 101hp, I am sure noisy, but not thrilling.
I love my bicycle
Fake/simulated security indicator.
yes, agree to the last lines about requesting data under GDPR. I would go further and sue the company collecting data against my knowledge
> now I'm basically driving around with a foreign GPS tracker
You mean your phone?
That was an interesting read
380 comments for "discussing" a simple fleet tracking addon. It's Saturday, get out and have fun instead, you nerds. Oh wait, that uppens your carbon etc. footprint.
[flagged]
I think I'll pwess... the wed one.
> After a bit of perseverance > I figured out what it is
I disagree: after failing to figure out what it was, you asked for help and somebody else figured out what it was.
While you do own the hardware, you probably don’t own the data, licenses, and software in the SIM so you might not be entitled to the data it transmits once it hits the carriers network.
Well,[the data it transmits] it's personal information, so the owner of the car has a very explicit right to it. (Car plates are from an EU country.)
I don’t know how that would work, since that data is the personal information of whoever is in the car at the time of collection, so I would guess that the applicant to get the info would have to substantiate that they were in the car at the time, regardless of the ownership of the car.
Or maybe just ownership of the car is enough? I kind of suspect it might not be though.
Other way around. The person processing the data has a duty to make sure that they have a legal basis.
The car belongs to the individual named Koen Van Hove (as stated in the blog). He holds GDPR rights to any location data that gets sent out.
Before that, if the system allowed for any correlation of location data to who was driving at that point, the exact same rights apply too for each involved driver.
Only if the data controller (the entity who made the choice to put a gps tracker on the car) took specific steps to ensure the location data could not be correlated to an individual (and can prove those steps were taken), is the data safe from GDPR.
It might be your smartphone, but all the data it collects, including recording audio and video is now mine, when I send it to my server. Don't you dare tamper with or even look at it!
(When did crazy things like this start becoming a real thing?)
Legally speaking the data was recorded without consent so if the company receiving this data tries to claim ownership, they'll need to delete it anyway.
However, because the author lives in a country covered by the GDPR, they have a right to receive, correct, and adjust the personal information collected on them. No need to capture the data transmitted by the system, the company is legally obligated to hand over every bit of personal information they have on the author, including any pseudomised information, in a format that's machine readable.
In theory you'd be liable for racking up a bill if you use their SIM card, but I doubt it still works.
Last year Mozilla did a study on the privacy of modern cars. Every car they tested showed terrible privacy problems.
Privacy Nightmare on Wheels: Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644
(edit I see I'm not the first to link this in this thread)
FYI for anyone who owns a Subaru: you can opt out of 3rd-party data sharing here
https://www.subaru.com/support/consumer-privacy.html
If you don't live in one of the states mentioned in the first paragraph, expect this to take a very long time. For me it took 6 months.
The only opting out I would trust would be to take a screwdriver to the cellular modem and disable it. Of course this would probably bubble up various exceptions so best way to do it may be to isolate the antenna, though that may not be 100% reliable.
My bought-as-used Subaru has a 3G modem, and there's no 3G service anymore. Good enough.
You can also opt out of Ford too. They default enable sharing with third party for features, default disable for sharing with data brokers like LexisNexis. It requires you to put in your driver pin to enable that
Pretty sure anyone willing to pay for it has access.
Uh… Can you also opt out of first party data sharing? Or is Subaru still going to be spying you while pinky swearing to at least not share it with anybody else?
The only way to opt out of that is with a power drill.
Whenever I talk about this issue with friends and family I bring up how that report revealed Nissan was gathering info on sexual activity in their cars and can sell it to third parties. That usually gets people to start listening.
Was Nissan actually collecting this data? All I can find is that the privacy policy retained the right to it (some lawyer probably though about what happens if they accidentally record you getting frisky, and put it in there preemptively), but no evidence if it actually happened.
> IMO if the privacy policy allows it, you should always assume it is happening.
Judging by the responses I’ve been getting this is apparently a controversial stance and we should all just give this stuff away to Nissan then wait to find out what happens.
Yes it matters. Or at least it matters whether the claims you make are true, and there is a difference between “had a right to” and “did”.
Have I told you about my neighbor who uses a leaf blower nonstop from 7am until 8pm? Well, he doesn’t actually, be he has a right to, and it’s splitting hairs whether he actually does or not.
Yes. It comes down to intention.
The charitable read is that they are notifying you of the possibility that the car’s data collection may unintentionally include sexual activity. E.g. your car was recorded as having a rocking motion while parked.
The other read is that they are intentionally collecting sexual activity data for nefarious purposes.
The first is the lawyer drafting the release being overcautious. The second is a corporation being evil.
I’m not in love with either, but the claim was that Nissan was actively collecting data about sexual activity, when there is no proof of that. The only thing there is proof of is that they put a notice in their terms of service.
YES!!!!!
there's plenty of REAL privacy matters to address than to invent demons and then undermine genuine issues with 'boy who cried wolf'!!!
I'm with you here. I have an 89 BMW (which is old enough to have an actual servo motor attached to the intake manifold for cruise control) and an 83 Land Cruiser (whose most advanced feature is that it controls its emissions using vacuum controlled pneumatic circuitry).
I'm very glad I've put in the time to learn how to work on cars because I have zero interest in the tech direction of modern vehicles.
I love older cars and drove an early 80s Volvo until 2010 or so, but I also love side impact airbags, antilock brakes, and a car that mostly just “works”.
When I was younger I loved having an 84 Chevy Scottsdale. It was a cool looking truck and was easy to work on. I used to love getting under the hood to chase down problems and find solutions.
Now my knees hurt when it's cold outside, so crawling around on the ground to fix the fucking u-joint AGAIN isn't that fun, and I also like knowing that my children might survive if we get in a crash; something that's genuinely up for question in old vehicles.
I would pay a premium for a new car without an "infotainment" system, cameras (except backup camera), gps, or any form of touchscreen.
I was really hoping to see am EV startup go after the niche of barebones vehicles. I would absolutely have an EV if it was a safe chassis with good range, a powerful enough motor, and none of the infotainment bells and whistles.
I want to be able to diagnose my car if it has issues, but I don't want a system complex enough that it requires over the air updates.
My bet is, once the car companies fully understand the lifetime value of the data, there will be an option to opt out by paying that monetary value up front. My guess is it’ll be an expensive “executive” model used mostly by governments and criminals.
Unless some serious privacy examples get reported and it scares the politicians in California and California puts in place special laws to force “non tracking” to be a legal option.
One final weird option would be. I wonder if you could put children in your car and sue the car company in California because the car company is collecting data on minors without your consent? Do the car terms and condition handle data associated with minors correctly?
I had a Honda that I loved with a backup camera but no infotainment- it showed a little picture-in-picture on the left hand side of the backup mirror. It was pretty slick.
I wonder if the Franework model will ever apply to cars with modern safety. Probably not but one can dream.
I want an electric car. I also wish it was feasible to work on it.
An electric vehicle and "feasible to work on" (presumably in a home garage and/or driveway) do seem mutually exclusive.
The Volvo 940 had all of those modern safety features, but was still more or less the same car as the older RWD 740.
Mercedes also had that stuff early- I had a 1987 Mercedes diesel that had front air bags, ABS, and was basically modern car reliable.
I do have one newer Toyota Tacoma for the purpose of "just working" and it does a great job of fulfilling that role, but includes a host of features and such that I really have no interest in. But if you have project cars, you really just need a very stable "normal" vehicle for day to day.
For Volvo, I know that the 850s were the first to have airbags built into the seats for side impact, and I think they had anti lock brakes in those as well.
87 BMW here. I believe my servo is controlling the throttle cable itself. When the cruise control commands the vehicle to accelerate, the pedal physically moves.
It's not my daily driver, but I would absolutely love to one day get another one as a project car - one that's not in such good condition that I'd feel bad removing the engine - and drop an electric motor in it. That likely _would_ become my daily driver. The car's incredibly well made, and a joy to drive.
I'm not knocking anyone, but i bet there were people who showed the same level of scepticism to a electric motor being attached to the throttle cable as people do today to electric cars
Yep, you explained it better than I did! It's a really charming setup.
Isn't this the standard way to implement cruise control in the decades before drive by wire throttles?
Right there myself.
One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive.
Front wheel can remain gas with transmission. Add more generating current capacity, and have that dumped into the rear drive system batteries.
With my current car, the V6 gets very good economy at speed, and poor economy in town or in traffic.
An assist from the rear can tackle the poor economy cases nicely, leaving the rest to the gas engine.
Depending on battery capacity, I suppose it could do most in town driving at say 40 and below.
This is exactly how Toyota's AWD works in the Sienna these days.
It gets 35mpg city and highway, 1mpg less than the front wheel drive Sienna (which, to be fair, is also a hybrid)
Good to know. Does it have EV only range, or just assist?
> One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive. Front wheel can remain gas with transmission.
It can be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2agCqW6ntc
> 89 BMW ... and an 83 Land Cruiser
I'm with you. Our daily drivers are 2011 Mitsu, 96 Toyota, 92 Buick and a 63 Dart. Also a 61 Sunliner for when it's not-summer.
The Mitsu is unfortunately drive-by-wire; I mostly avoid it.
The Cybertruck is the only vehicle on the market that has drive-by wire. There was previously an Infiniti model that was partially drive by wire.
electronic throttle body controls are extremely common, yes. but they don’t have any downside to driving feel, so i don’t think it would fit what the GP was referring to.
Almost every early electronic throttle like that drives like pure ass, and newer ones are hit or miss at best. Toyota seems have done a decent job with it, but everyone else kind of keeps pooching it.
That falls in with a lot of stuff that felt like it might have made sense on race cars that I don't understand why people keep asking for on street vehicles (drive by wire throttle, CVTs, huge wheels with rubber band tires, certain kinds of traction and stability control, viscous coupled or electronic "all wheel drive" (not 4WD), along with the Subaru boxer 4 people get Stockholm syndrome over); all I can figure is that people are just OK driving stuff that drives and behaves like total shit.
How large is your family? Why do you need so many cars?
At peak teenager/young adult time my family owned six cars. That's for two adults and three driving-age kids. The sixth car was something my dad, who was an old-school motor head of the sort who grew up using feeler gauges, just kept around for no obvious reason but to tinker now and then.
Bingo.
> How large is your family? Why do you need so many cars?
I live with my 5 adult sons.
We also buy cars when deals show up. The Toyota had 41k for $500 and the Buick had 31k for $1300.
We're working on a cheap 88 Dodge P/U; my son converted it to points and carburetor.
We also have a 69 XL that seriously needs to go away. It does 130 at what feels like high idle.
This makes me wonder what the cost is to convert a vehicle over to biodiesel so it can be ran on used oil.
Still green, unlike gas, but restricts the surface area of issues related to modern cars
Most injection systems are rated for 20% bio aka b20 without voiding the warrantee. Bio beyond that doesn't have enough lubrication so you have to supplement it with a splash of something like 2-stroke oil. It can run for a long time like that without hurting the pump but manufacturers don't support it. Some gas stations sell b20. If you're talking straight veg you need a certain type of injection system for reliability, and even there you're decreasing the life of the pump. Old mechanical pumps work great, first gen cummins, vw 1.6, mercedes om617 machines can run on straight heated veg for a long time with no issues. Electronically controlled mechanical systems like the vw 1.9 tdi can run on it too but might be a bit more finicky about what you're injecting.
Assuming you want to make your own bio you'd have to set up a transesterification process where you convert the trans fats out of the oil, that process uses lye so it needs a decent container and is best automated. If you're trying to recover the solvent, which is probably methanol, you'd need a still as well, and decent ventilation. Fully automated with raspi or arduino components is a couple grand or more, prefab units run something like 10k.
If rather than bio you're talking straight grease, it is cheaper to clean but more expensive to set up the car. You'd need a second fuel tank, preferably heated depending on climate, some solenoid valves, and a heated fuel filter. And a pile of hoses and wires to connect it all. Maybe a grand or so to set it up depending on driving conditions, kits run 1-2, some are better designed than others.
Either way you'd also want some big drums for holding tanks at home where you can let the fluid layers separate and a pump to move them around. Most car washes give away polyethylene 50gal barrels.
Most expensive thing in my opinion, is your time and the cost of the oil. You can get something like 5-50gal per week per restaurant, tho most overuse the oil. Best places don't cook meats in there at all. Chain and large restaurants want a schedule. Cost of the oil varies, used to be paid to take it, somewhere around 2010 that inverted and now you pay for the oil.
> Anyway, I'm staying with my old gas Honda until it dies which is probably never with proper maintenance and eventually restoration.
I would have stuck with my 2003 Honda Accord too, except that some woman, probably talking or texting on her cell, slammed into me while I was stopped at a light, totaling my car and damaging 3 others. I got $8K for my car after arguing with the insurance company, and paid $28K for a 3 y/o replacement.
The fine for texting while driving in Kentucky is $25.
What is the relevance of your anecdote? I’m genuinely confused.
That other drivers determine whether or not you get a new car just as much (if not more than) you do.
That whole system looks like what we install on police patrol cars. Left switch allows you to keep car running even when keys are removed (but you can’t drive it will kill the ignition).
GPS is for obvious reasons tracking. But these don’t look like patrol cars so it’s out of my wheel house.
> but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars
All. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECall:
“eCall (an abbreviation of "emergency call") is an initiative by the European Union, intended to bring rapid assistance to motorists involved in a collision anywhere within the European Union. The aim is for all new cars to incorporate a system that automatically contacts the emergency services in the event of a serious accident, sending location and sensor information. eCall was made mandatory in all new cars approved for manufacture within the European Union as of April 2018.”
Interestingly, everyone is actually scrambling to get the legislation changed or a replacement for eCall that works over 4G/5G before 2027 because 2G/3G is or is being shut down all over the place. Otherwise, technically, driving these cars could become illegal in the EU.
It's crazy the EU passed this and collecting someone's IP address or assigning them a random UUID is considered a GDPR violation.
Assuming the tech is not abused, it makes perfect sense (GDPR Art. 6(1)(d)). And, in fact, abusing the tech would be a GDPR violation. You might consider it foolish, but it's not inconsistent.
Quite the opposite! Since people can have faith that they are protected by GDPR, they can have machines that actually work to help them, instead of hobbling them out of fear of being exploited.
How so? A manufacturer who's found to use this information for any purpose other than calling emergency services when you crash will go bankrupt because of the GDPR. This is a strong incentive not to.
Do you have a phone?
This is a huge reason why I won't buy more modern vehicles.
Safety features and fuel economy are night and day when comparing a 5 year old car and a 30 year old one, but between the privacy issues and inability to diagnose or fix a new car I just can't do it.
I bought an 80s model truck that sat in a garage for over a decade and has 50k original miles on it. I'm still chasing down a couple gremlins in the system, but its nice to be able to work on it myself. Bonus that it may not be driving perfectly right now but its happy keep on chugging, even if a sensor is bad or I get an occasional code for running lean.
Isn’t the gas mileage really really bad though?
Everyone chooses their own balance of bills. Personally (I'm not who you're replying to) I'm happy to pay more in rent and utilities if it means I can ride my bicycle most places instead of, say, being a 10-minute drive from the nearest crosswalk. In the end, my emissions are probably much lower than someone who can't imagine leaving their house without their car keys even though I drive an ICE.
Safety is definitely a tricky tradeoff for me. If I couldn't work on the vehicle myself either way I'd have something newer, the combo of privacy and maintenance tip the scales for me (definitely an outlier though).
We don't drive very much honestly, and the cost of maintenance has tended to even out.
Our truck probably gets around 16 or 18 around town, up to 20 if the conditions are right. Not great compared to a modern truck with a 4 cylinder turbo, but I really don't think I go through more than a tank of gas in a month (albeit a larger 20 gallon tank)
What does any of that have to do with a car being electric?
Electric cars are essentially black boxes. When you take it apart, you have largely no idea what any of the chips do, even if you chase down what they're connected to. Is this the infotainment system or is it the infotainment system and a data gathering system that sends all my data off seas? There's no way to know. Old cars don't have that problem. Here's an engine, here's a gearbox, add a radio if you'd like, but by and large it's possible to grok what's in your car. With newer vehicles in general, and electric cars especially, it's near impossible to tell.
But that's not a gas vs. electric distinction, but rather an old vs. new one. Modern ICE cars have all of those problems too.
Bild your own electric in an old style body? Fun, if nothing else.
You can convert any ice car to an ev. I takes time but is straight forward
> this technology is a blocker for people who might otherwise be interested in an electric powertrain vehicle.
This surely isn’t a large group.
Yeah if the world went in the direction that prepper types seem to get wet dreams about petrol ICE cars would only be usable for a year or so - petrol has a shelf life, and you ain't running your own refinery.
A lot of diesels can run off of any vaguely fuel-like liquid you decide to put in them, so I'm sure sufficiently knowledgable people would keep those running, machining parts for them etc.
But electric vehicles are by far simpler than both of those, and generating electricity is easier than producing fuel you can shove in a diesel engine.
They’re not black boxes, you’re just not an electrical engineer. They’re actually way simpler than ICE in a bunch of ways that really improve reliability. We just need to develop a collective understanding of how electric drivetrains work, the kind of understanding that we had developed in previous generations for ICE cars
Sorry, a quip in bad faith. Collectively, _we_ (would-be car maintenance people) are not well enough versed in how these types of systems are designed. This is a collective failure, lack of documentation.
Yes, reverse engineering is labor intensive.
Expensive too. Your test harness is likely the car!
Yeah I read that thread, it sounds like great progress! Really makes me think about the hardware I put out into the world professionally, and if I could realistically have reversed engineered it with no prior knowledge.
Cryptography is probably the real game changer here, secure boot, attestation, message authentication. Can’t exactly blame automakers for wanting those features, given the stakes, but that would make reverse engineering fairly impossible.
Problem with gathering data off cars is that it's really not that effective vs your phone. A car realistically just sits around doing nothing 80% of the time, while a phone is with you 24/7, likely powered 24/7, and already has telemetry mechanisms built in. An old car with someone using a phone probably still collects the same data as you assert.
And an EV without smarts is legitimately just a golf cart.
I mean, besides shape and speed, what is the difference that most people are concerned about. I wasn't aware that golf carts are all electric. I just thought of a golf cart as a car used specifically to traverse golf courses and resorts.
To me, that makes it their car.
In theory I can disable most if not all of the telemetry coming out of my phone, though. I can also choose to leave my phone at home, knowing that it's likely there's still something on it that's collecting data on my movements, even if I've been careful about disabling and uninstalling things.
But the car is largely a black box when it comes to its electronics, and if I need to drive the car somewhere, I can't leave the black boxes at home; they come with me wherever I go.
> And an EV without smarts is legitimately just a golf cart.
Sounds fine to me.
Not necessarily. Cars are a great proxy for human behavior.
Long term, cars will be leased based on driving behavior, and more critically, will be taxed based in driving distance and style.
Sounds like maybe you don't need a car. That's good for you, and I truly mean that. But that doesn't mean it's the case for everyone. It's a big, diverse world out there.
I've been of a similar opinion for many years. I have public transport and my office commute is about two hours and half in each direction, but I only need to go to the office once per week, so it's somehow acceptable.
But I'm getting old. I've decided I want to use my remaining years of any strength to do more hiking, kayaking and camping, and for that I need a car every weekend. Rentals would be slightly more expensive than owning a second hand one. But I do wish car ownership were cheaper and more painless.
That depends doesn't it?
I keep my cars for a long time. 200k miles is the usual, and that has held true buying used a little ways north of 100k miles already on the board.
If we designed for very long car life, the waste equation would look different.
Toyota does, and there are a small number of people planning on half a million miles. Recently there is evidence Toyota is either struggling on this metric. Quality problems or deliberate design intent change?
Depends where you live, and how much of a hassle it is to get a rental car.
If you live somewhere with decent public transportation and good car sharing infrastructure (eg. walk to a nearby car share and unlock the doors with an app or a card vs Uber to Hertz and wait for an hour to sign paperwork), then yes that's a viable option. For many places in the US and Canada, that's not viable unfortunately.
Selfdriving taxis solves much of the 98% unused car problem.
Kill switches across the battery aren't terribly uncommon
Cut the antenna on the modem?
On a modern Ford, just pull the fuse for the TCU. Everything else keeps working as it always did.
I'm fairly sure that yes, though you could also cut the cable. Access might be tricky.
Let's find a list of electric cars without some form of network connection!
Pretty sure my 2018 Leaf doesn’t.
Not sure when this will end, but through 2024 the S and SV models (ie, the two lowest trims) for all Nissans do not have network connectivity. This is one the reasons I bought a 2024 Nissan Frontier over some other vehicle.
Found it:
You jest, but I have one: It's an Opel Ampera-E (in the states that's a Chevy Bolt), it's a 2018 model with all the connected features but first it was disconnected from OnStar with Opel being sold to PSA and later it was fully disconnected because it uses a 3G modem for communication but the 3G network was switched off (in most of Europe anyway...)
I'm currently contemplating upgrading my 2013 Leaf battery to a 62Kwh (and much longer range). It's a substantial cost but that would extend the cars life another 15 years. (un)Fortunately I've taken decent care of the original 24Kwh which is at 80.6 SoH after 11 years. Its use case is daily commuter under 45 miles - that's over 11k miles/year (or 18k km/year). At 2% loss on the SoH, that's another 5 years before it hit's 70% and has a noticeable drop in range.
I once saw a business proposing at a town hall near me that they would open a used ev/hybrid lot, the town was very reserved about approving the business and in the end it fell through. I love cars and tinkering with them, in my experience you can get a lot of miles out of an old car, newer technology can be daunting for old wrenches. I'm somewhere in between with my technical background. The idea of a 'kill switch' in a car is disconcerting for me, but this list gives me hope! Thanks!
The average electric car is a nightmare kludge.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41970406
That's not "the average electric car," it's just a Leaf. It doesn't necessarily imply anything about a modern Tesla, Lucid, or BYD.
For what it’s worth a lot of the transmitters for in car connectivity are in the headliner lighting unit. A lot of electronics end up there like front facing cameras for driver assists. You can in my current Porsche, my past Camaro, and a couple other cars I’ve looked at just unplug the module there. Sometimes you lose your Homelink garage door transmitter.
If you lookup the repair procedure for the cellular unit you will have found the way to disable it.
> Most people would have probably driven around for years with a foreign GPS tracker.
So basically everyone with a smartphone? I'm not sure if it's really worse if the car has its own GPS and cell connectivity. How many people turn off their phone or leave it at home? And you can buy other people's location data, so...
The difference is in intent. People dislike intended tracking by a third party, that’s it. You cellphone company, your google, your govt can have it. Others can not. Even when they can, people actively don’t want that. What’s wrong with it?
> So basically everyone with a smartphone
Tbh considering the accuracy of modern triangulation technology... anyone with a cellphone, period.
You can turn off your phone or go into airplane mode. Can you do that with your car? Even if most people don't use that option on a daily basis, doesn't mean it's fine.
So you put it in airplane mode while in a car and then disable airplane mode when you get to your destination? What's the point of that?
OP isnt talking about putting the car in airplane mode, but the phone.
The point is that you are already tracked via your phone (which is likely kit in airplane mode), so there’s not a massive gain to preventing car tracking.
Well... for most people... everything.
It sounds like you use a dumb phone. Anyone who takes this stuff seriously enough to use a dumb phone will be buying a dumb car.
The longevity of our car not only on how good you drive, but how bad others drive.
While not false, careful defensive driving makes a big difference. But most people hate someone cutting in front of them and so won't maintain large follow ng distances
And maintaining that proper distance can be worse!
I try, and often succeed and generally see risks all around.
Too close, and often with few or no escape paths means maintaining best case attention and response times for the whole drive. That is tiring and usually just not enough.
Too far back means people dropping into the gap non-stop! This too is tiring.
I really hate how this aspect of driving.
True.
I do hate it less these days. Perhaps I am headed your way on this.
I'm not in that much of a hurry, a couple minutes later won't make a difference. I have a friend though, twice in the last year she was rear ended sitting at a red light. Both time the car was totaled. Terrible luck on her part, but not much defensive driving could do for her.
I know your comment is just the traditional HN karma grab, but rejecting technological advancement in vehicles based on privacy concerns means missing out on significant improvements in safety, efficiency, and comfort. Would you also reject modern healthcare because hospitals use connected devices?
One is likely an emergency of a necessary system (body) and the other is not an emergency of a much less necessary system (car).
Not sure your analogy fits.
More Americans live without healthcare than without cars
What is the nature of karma grab?
The "I'm a tech guy so I shoot my printer if it makes a weird noise" meme essentially.
Since I'm going to buy a new car in the following years, wondering which cars don't have those? I don't mind old gas cars but I don't have the knowledge to tell whether the car contains those eSIMs.
These days, the better question is in which cars can you disable the esim.
Some have a fuse you can pull for the modem, without disabling anything else. Others you can pull the antenna, and add a resistor instead.
In some disconnecting the antenna isn't enough, it just reduces the range of the modem. Another option is if the modem can be physically removed.
e.g. http://sandsprite.com/blogs/index.php?uid=7&pid=462&year=201.... I think this head unit is shared amongst Chrysler vehicles, so Chrysler is an option (but then you'll have two problems).
A Lexus forum member went through several attempts to physically disconnect from the Toyota cloud and ultimately had to compromise on this, as the hands-free Bluetooth also went through the data communications module and they weren't willing to give that up.
The interesting part is that even though the antennas were disconnected, there was enough RF making it's way through the plastic sides of the module to give him 2-bars of signal strength. Wrapping it in grounded aluminum foil still allowed enough signal strength for transmission when they were very close to a cell tower. GPS signals were also being routed to the communications module over the car's network from the entertainment module (not sure why the entertainment module needs a GPS antenna or location data).
Ultimately they opted-out from data collection using the Lexus app and will rely on legal protections - in addition to disconnecting the antennas.
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gx-2nd-gen-2010-2023/983214...
That's why I said, add a resistor. It turns the energy into heat instead.
Subarus don't precisely fit this criteria, but you can opt out of 3rd-party data sharing in all 50 states.
There should not be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive
This argument doesn't really make sense. The "expectation of privacy" in public doesn't refer to losing all your rights and letting anyone peek into anything when they want to. Vehicles can also be used on private roads or property, so the privacy invading tech would need to account for that (which I'm sure it doesn't, and there isn't a straightforward solution)
There's the way my e-bike works ; The electric assistance is supposed to be limited to 25km/h, you can opt to disable this through clicking a few buttons in an app for most brands, and use your vehicle on private roads only.
Then it relies on enforcement to catch you operating an illegal vehicle on a public road
Unlike e-bikes, your vehicle has a plate, so needless to say, if you get caught speeding on a public road by a camera and your vehicle was registered as having had the thing turned off at the time in the database (i.e. it shouldn't be on a public road), you could imagine getting an additional charge similar to operating a vehicle without a license plate or operating something that's not road-legal.
It makes total sense to me
>There SHOULD NOT be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive
let's say somebody else said "There SHOULD be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive"
Is there some reason I should side with you over them, or just your opinion? If the courts decided that there was an expectation of privacy on public roads, would you agitate to change the law so there wasn't?
>Is there some reason I should side with you over them, or just your opinion? If the courts decided that there was an expectation of privacy on public roads, would you agitate to change the law so there wasn't?
Sure! It would make infringing on road safety much more difficult thus reduce your chances of getting run over by people who are speeding, running red lights etc. And if you're driving, I think everyone would enjoy less maniacs on the road.
Hello
Motor vehicles killed 3566 people every month in 2022, that's the death toll of the 9/11 attacks every 25 days.
While there is no expectation of privacy when one is out and about on the city streets, it generally means "you can take a photo of a fountain on the city square without getting every tourist that was caught in the photo to sign a release", not "you can rummage through everybody's bags"
We're not talking about monitoring traffic on roads there, but about an embedded spying device that is enabled even when you're in your own garage and is also being used commercially to monetize your private life.
Why do you think you should not have an expectation of privacy when driving?
Do you not consider reasonable to have an expectation of innocence when going about your business?
> Some other good ones: there should not be an expectation of privacy when performing surgery. There should not be an expectation of privacy when performing the monopoly on the legal use of force.
There should be an expectation of privacy when travelling on foot, bike, or any vehicle that doesn't require a license to operate, though.
Some other good ones: there should not be an expectation of privacy when performing surgery. There should not be an expectation of privacy when performing the monopoly on the legal use of force.
Then leave the US.
Ideally, I'd like that everywhere else too.
There was just an incident in my area that involved OnStar shutting down a hijacked car at the police’s behest and the guy got out and shot and killed another driver in the attempt to carjack him.
So, any car with OnStar apparently already has a remote kill switch. Perhaps they needed the owner’s permission first?
I understand your position (and it's one I'm absolutely swayed by to a degree and sympathize with), but I can't help but think that you are assigning unreasonable weights to privacy vs. safety/convenience. (Or, perhaps more honestly, I have to remind myself to be reasonable about these weights in my life.)
Do you think preserving your privacy in this one aspect of your life will have a greater net benefit to your life than driving a safer car (under the assumption that newer cars are safer)? Especially given that presumably there's still data being collected on you even in an old car (cameras on the road, other people's cars, your phone, etc).
By analogy, what's the marginal benefit of not eating any food in packaged in plastic if your water supply is full of (unavoidable, for the sake of argument) microplastics? Is doing so worth the cost (no food for you, buddy!)?
I guess this is just another round of being principled duking it out with pragmatism.
Privacy is a safety concern. If some government agency can control your car remotely, chances are that others also will find a way to do that.
This is especially true if you keep a car for decades. My car is a 2001 and I've had it since 2008. It's possible that a manufacturer could provide security updates for a comparable period, but that seems like an extraordinary claim.
> GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled.
I believe the name of that module is DCM
You can disable some models, but I have my doubts.
In rentals you can forget about it.
Even without the privacy aspect it’s a problem. Last weekend I was driving home in my ICE car guzzling on those dead dinosaurs, and maps on my CarPlay unit went haywire, first I was slightly off to the east by say 50 metres, but this got worse and at one point I was 10 miles away.
Unplugging my phone and the location snapped back to he correct place. Seems that in CarPlay an iPhone will believe what the car says about position, and when it’s wrong, tough.
> Modern cars [...] and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.
I take it that you need a car (which is true for many) and also need a computer (also true for many).
What precautions do you take in computing given that you use a computer that is connected to the Internet ?
The former (i.e. computer) has an unknowable supply chain with blobs of code that you don't vet yourself, and the latter (the Internet) has overtly become a surveillance system.
I just picked up a low mile, garage kept Toyota sedan. V6 sedan, my favorite combo! This one has plenty of power, looks totally unassuming, and can get great economy when I drive modestly.
I plan on driving it a very long time. Same reasons.
It also predates the big infotainment systems. I really dislike the big screen and many functions turned into touch controls dangerous to use in motion.
Finally, it is easy to service. I will do that myself as long as I am able.
I'm sure there will be kits to swap the ice engine to eletricfor most popular cars eventually. Then you will have more control about what features is added.
I've seen people do this but I think it's unlikely. The weight on an ICE car is slung much differently from an EV and placing a battery bank where your engine used to be is not a great idea.
I may be daft but it seems like a great idea. Same weight and everything. In France you get a decent subsidy if you convert your ICE to EV.
Engines do not crumple, and a proper electric conversion will retain appropriate space.
Fuel tanks are not "in the back" for good (see: ford pinto) reasons.
Government overreach is the big thing that I'm worried about. All of the overreactions to adas is really heavily driving it. At some point, they will have to realize that the same attention systems used for adas could be used all of the time.
Given that there are hundreds of deaths each year due to inattention, it'd be almost irresponsible not to look into it.
But a lot of people won't like where that leads.
What is "adas"?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_s...
The more serious preppers I know (e.g. the people prepping/worried about realistic scenarios as opposed to the civil war LARPers) pretty early on make sure they have access to a fully mechanical vehicle - to the extent that's even possible - and have the skills to maintain it.
> Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch.
You're selectively quoting in a way that misrepresents the article.
The post the article quotes:
> “Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026,” read several posts shared widely on Twitter and Facebook.
The actual functionality:
> In either case, if a driver is found to be impaired [by automated monitoring within the car], the car might employ a warning message, block the driver from operating the vehicle, or if the vehicle is already in motion, direct it to a safe stop or automated ride home.
> None of the technologies currently in development would notify law enforcement of the data collected inside vehicles or give government agencies remote control of vehicles, according to Jeffrey Michael, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Injury Research and Policy.
The car has an automatic system which can prevent the driver from operating it, but no one outside the car can trigger that system, which is clearly what the "kill switch" posts were claiming.
> The car has an automatic system which can prevent the driver from operating it, but no one outside the car can trigger that system, which is clearly what the "kill switch" posts were claiming.
That assumes that the feature is implemented securely, which is hardly guaranteed. Would you bet a large sum that it wasn't exploitable? I wouldn't.
No. But "new cars will have mandatory automated controls to prevent drunk driving, which may be implemented insecurely in a way that creates major vulnerabilities" (very reasonable) is not the same claim as "Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars" (blatantly false).
The fact that there are real concerns about something doesn't justify ignoring the truth value of inflammatory claims about that thing.
I think the greatest concern is that the cops don't seem to care about personal privacy at all. They'll do anything that's physically possible to do to prove guilt of a person, they have the Power of The State behind them. They're going to get access to this technology and they will use it to stop vehicles, it's simply a matter of time. Police in the US only ever get more powerful, more militaristic, more immune to consequences. There's an easily visible path from where we were before the bill to where the poster (incorrectly) claims we're at. Just because they don't currently have the power doesn't mean we should be taking every affordable step towards giving it to them.
So, it is a kill switch.
Just not the sort of kill switch that someone (who?) sometime (when?) described, and such description is one that you've neither quoted or given.
You and afh1 seem to be reading both the article and my comment as focused on whether it's appropriate to characterize a device that prevents a car from starting as a "kill switch".
I didn't say anything at all about that term in my comment, and while the article says it's hyperbolic, arguing about that term is clearly not the focus of the article.
Just going to quote the whole opener here - it's about the claim that the law enables cops to monitor you and shut down your car, which is clearly false.
---------------
[Headline] Posts distort infrastructure law’s rule on impaired driving technology
CLAIM: President Joe Biden signed a bill that will give law enforcement access to a “kill switch” that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. While the bipartisan infrastructure bill Biden signed last year requires advanced drunk and impaired driving technology to become standard equipment in new cars, experts say that technology doesn’t amount to a “kill switch,” and nothing in the bill gives law enforcement access to those systems.
THE FACTS: In November 2021, Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, ushering into law a $1 trillion bipartisan deal to maintain and upgrade the country’s roads, bridges, ports and more.
One provision in the legislation aims to prevent drunk driving deaths by requiring all new vehicles to soon include “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” as “standard equipment.”
However, in the months since the law passed, some social media users have misrepresented the provision online, falsely claiming it will give police access to data collected by the technology or allow the government to shut down cars remotely.
“Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026,” read several posts shared widely on Twitter and Facebook.
As I said in a sibling comment, the fact that there are real concerns about something doesn't justify ignoring the truth value of inflammatory claims about that thing.
If one person is criticizing Big Pharma because they use shoddy trial methodology when they can get away with it and heavily market minor variations on existing drugs, and another person is criticizing Big Pharma because they're poisoning our blood with fluoride in service to the Illuminati, it's not appropriate to lump them together and say "Big Pharma's critics are in the right."
(Also, I think the idea that they deliberately adopted a weak version of the criticism to argue against is rather conspiratorial - dumb unfounded nonsense gets very popular on the internet all the time! Valuable criticism that requires nuance is memetically disfavored by comparison!)
If it’s not air gapped the company could be compelled to activate it remotely.
Why are kill switches in cars bad?
It's a vehicle that can easily kill other people. It often does. It's reasonable to require drivers to be in good enough shape before trusting them with lives of random innocent people.
I'm not against enhancing safety, but I have serious concerns about whether auto manufacturers can implement such a feature securely, reliably, and without leaving it vulnerable to misuse by third parties. That said, I would support mandatory breathalyzers in all new cars. While this idea is likely too controversial and complex to become reality, I believe it could significantly reduce fatalities.
I am new to the car/data show, is an eSim really installed on cars around the world? Or is it an Amrican thing? Thinking for example on Europe data regulations.
If so, this is a good fit for a class action.
I have a '98 Honda with 324K miles on it. I'm awful at maintenance but I've had it for ten years and it refuses to die.
Self driving + conversation monitoring => lock the doors and drive you to the nearest reeducation camp for uttering wrongspeak.
> Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point.
Complete with non-replaceable batteries.
tech which was called a "kill switch". Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch.
It's not a kill switch, the link you provided explains that it's not a kill switch, yet you still call it a kill switch.
If you were paying any attention, then you know that idiots online were portraying this as the cops being able to remotely disable your car at their will.
In fact, the requirement is for the vehicle to pull safely to the side of the road when it detects an impaired driver (DUI or medical emergency). There is no external initiation, it's entirely self-contained.
It's not a kill switch. It's not remotely like a kill switch.
Having personally been within minutes of crashes involving a drunk driver who blew a stop sign and smashed into a fire hydrant, and another driver experiencing a health emergency who crashed through an intersection at 80mph in a 25mph zone, I say bring it on. Ignore the Rogan-sphere FUD peddlers.
> There was a bill announced in the US for all new cars to be equipped with "driver impairment" tech which was called a "kill switch".
In addition to de-banking, they can also de-car you.
> Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point, and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.
Exactly. I saw a clip of an elon musk interview where he was asked if tesla would ever build a smartphone. I had to chuckle and think to myself, they already do. It just doesn't fit in your pocket, has wheels and actually tries to kill you physically.
[dead]
> a kill switch
The funny thing is that's what cars do to other people because we don't have enough monitoring.
My e-bike is limited to 20 because "safety". Your car should be to.
Your ebike is limited because it can legally be operated by anybody (including a child) without needing any kind of license. If you want to legally operate a faster electric two-wheeled vehicle, take the test to get a motorbike license.
Is that why?
I get up to multiples of that on a push bike every day. The kids that rip past me do too.
I dunno about "most places". I definitely had to get a boating license, though for some reason the law had an exception for people born before 1978. A cursory search show most states have some sort of legislation regarding it. Many other countries have different legislation based on engine horsepower and age, but it's definitely regulated to some degree most places I've seen. I don't suppose you'd be able to paddle hard enough to cause serious damage
Oregon resolves that by regulating -on motor" only speeds to something a little under 30 and less than a kilowatt.
Everything else is simply a pedal assisted ride.
And a vehicle needs to offer pedal power to qualify for unlicensed use as an e-bike. Otherwise, it becomes a motorcycle and requires registration,
I used to as a kid myself. The norms were generally slower overall, limited by muscle fatigue mostly.
Your e-bike shouldn't be limited. You should get on that.
Electric motorized bicycles exist, they're just called motorcycles or mopeds. The whole point of an e-bike is the limiter, and size restrictions.
You're right. Because my e-bike is of negligible danger to others.
But cars kill tens of thousands every year. Speed limits and red lights being on the honor system isn't working. Luckily technology, like the little GPS tracker in the article, can fix it.
I don't like that my kids can no longer cross the street we live on because people have stopped obeying traffic lights and cops no longer enforce the law. The honor system isn't working and people are dying because of it.
Now what are your specific fears about speed limiters on cars?
A car hitting a pedestrian at 30 mph is 80 % chance of death. At 20 mph the chance is only 20 %.
So the outrage and over-reactive legislation put on electric bicycles or electric scooters is quite insane in comparison. Max 15 mph on an electric bike, no limits on a car in the city..
What downside?
You're not supposed to run red lights or exceed the speed limit. This should be enforced electronically. The machines are unbiased and more accurate than cops. Cheaper too.
> There are about 150 billion cars in the world.
This is wrong by ~100x.
"There are about 1.475 billion vehicles on Earth in 2024.": https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2021/06/how-many-cars-are-the...
> Your e-bike shouldn't be limited. You should get on that.
Absolutely. It's the first thing we fix on our 2-wheel transpos.
One requires a licensed operator. One doesn’t. One requires liability insurance. One doesn’t.
Complain about power wheels, because you’re comparing two things that have nothing to do with each other.
Media people obviously thought that kill switch meant something that can kill the driver and rushed to reassure the public that no that was not the case.
They're good people at heart. Don't misunderstand them.