Bertie I click in, does anyone have any background on the source link author org/individual, haven’t seen this outlet before?
Ahhh… gross.
Thanks.
It’s sad that you can’t replace the infotainment unit in a new car with an aftermarket unit anymore. I imagine 10 years from now we’ll have a fleet of cars with outdated infotainment systems that can’t connect with whatever future version of bluetooth/carplay/android auto anymore. Imagine driving cars with giant but useless infotainment screens that can’t do anything but playing mp3 off a USB stick because its outdated system can’t connect to your new phone.
Car infotainment systems have always been outdated.
can’t do anything but playing mp3 off a USB stick
i’d rather that then spyware
Playing MP3’s off of a USB stick is literally all I do with my car’s stereo, and in fact all I want it to do.
i like the police warnings and the apps that automatically look for a better route in real time when there’s traffic; which means i’ll be keeping my already 16 year old car until i die or parts run out, i guess
I don’t have to imagine, because I refuse to buy such type of car.
What happens when all new cars do this and the older used cars dry up? We need laws to prevent this, but i just don’t feel like that’s going to happen unless China is the one doing the data collection.
useless infotainment screens that can’t do anything but playing mp3 off a USB stick
i had a similar thought a while ago and it feels like we’re regressing back to the 90’s
I liked my recently departed 2012 chrysler infotainment system quite a bit. The sirius/xm radio kept 50 favorite artist and 50 favorite song alerts, had 300gb of storage for mp3s and the DVD system with headphones for the kiddos while we could listen to something else. No newer car I’ve driven, borrowed, or owned had the favorite alerts, and I’m going to miss the hell out of that feature.
Oh, it did have an aux jack and USB input as well. It was the cat’s ass. For a grocery-go-getter, it rocked
Who wants to buy / drive a 10 yo car though…
Good troll.
Who wants to buy / drive a 10 yo car though…
I do. Less built-in obsolescence, let spyware, less vendor lock-in. More durability. Ain’t ditching my '97 Fiat anytime soon.
add to that list better gas mileage than most new cars of the same type and i feel the same way bout my '08 ranger. i’ve had to upgrade the infotainment system 3x already because of the planned obsolescence built into them.
My '14 RAV4 is amazing. Gimme CD player or give me death!
The very same model, yes.
So along with all those positives you listed, the big negative being it’s a death trap.
Yes, newer cars are safer, there are tradeoffs. No, older cars aren’t deathtraps but you can collect your comission from Honda now.
“Americans are keeping their vehicles longer than ever. According to new data from S&P Global Mobility, the average age of cars and light trucks on U.S. roads is a record 12.5 years this year. That’s up three months over the 2022 analysis.May 18, 2023”
and here i was thinking that i was ahead of the curb with my 16 year old car because it gets better gas mileage than most new cars of the same type.
Ahead of the *curve…
LOLWUT, I only buy cars that old or older. Why would I spend an absolute fortune on a new-ish car that I barely use anyway when I can get a perfectly reliable older car fir a fraction of the price?
My current car doesn’t have an infotainment system or any kind of connectivity. It has a 6 slot CD changer.
And if you want connectivity or infotainment you can just install an aftermarket system, still not anywhere as near invasive as new cars integrated ones
i’ve learned the hard way that the aftermarket makers have learned that planned obsolescence makes them more $$$ and going for similarly aged infotainment systems work longer than many of the new stuff
I have no experience about more complex infotainment aftermarket systems but if it can connect to android and add functionality that way they not obsolete as fast. But pretty much all tech nowdays has planned obsolescence which sucks
Have you seen a car lately? Whist I’m sure it could be taken out (leaving a raggedy, jagged, odd-shaped hole in the dash…) you’d lose half the functionality of the car with it. These aren’t the single or even 1.5 DIN chassis of yesteryear, and I doubt Crutchfield has a conversion kit that’s going to replace the dash elements, backup camera, steering wheel controls, climate control, vehicle information center, and, for some bizzarro-world reason, the instrument cluster setup options.
I really can’t stand the modern "everything’s gotta have a big-ass tablet interface with no tactile landmarks. Particularly when I’m hurtling down a narrow corridor in a 1.5 ton metal box and trying to avoid hundreds of other idiots doing the same.
Bring back buttons!
Dude im driving a 33 year old car as my daily. Sub 100 thousand miles and gets better mileage than quite a few modern cars, gotta love government fleet cars. Anyways take your classist shit and shove it, just cause you can and your ilk can buy a new car every other year doesn’t mean most people can, will, or want to.
Buying is the first mistake. I’ve never done it, I don’t know anyone who has. Leasing is the way. A depreciating asset like a car is the perfect thing to lease.
Coming from someone who sold cars via a dealership (sorry): leasing is a perfect way to get fucked in the ass every day of the year, and twice on renewal day. Yes, it is a titled asset. Yes, it has a depreciating value. BUT - the only way leasing makes financial sense is: 1) you can expense the lease payment to a self-owned business (and it needs to be a pretty big percentage), or 2) accept that you are paying a gobsmackingly large amount of money to eat the absolute shit out of the depreciation you’re seeking to avoid, only to do it again in 3 years, for the ability to drive that new car off the lot on the regular.
Yes 1. is the norm and of course you have to look for good offer and not just get the first one you see - same as with buying. For example, I used to lease a $90000 car for $240 / month with no money down, and including all-risks policy. It’s almost too good to be true, but possible because the maker had a “lease our cars” campaign running when I was looking for one. Meaning this price is subsidized by the maker for marketing reasons for a limited time. But I had to compare offers for about 1 week and had to be flexible with the choice of car, if you want to lease your “favorite car” regardless of campaigns and special offers, then it’ll be too expensive as you say.
You’ll have to pardon my skepticism on that claim of a $90,000 lease for $240/mo, even subsidized to the moon. Combined with the earlier statement that they were all employer-provided.
Depreciation is a myth. A car is a tool not an investment. And if depreciation is a real worry for normal people then why do houses not depreciate? They don’t last forever. In fact on average they only last 50 years. But their prices never go down. Not until they get condemned. Why doesn’t the price on a 5 year old car go up instead of down? It’s got 10 more years in it easily and it’s proven not to be a lemon.
But you know what the real insanity is? Paying 400 dollars a month for years for a car with extra restrictions and then having to turn it in or pay even more to own it. Subscription cars need a lot more consideration, like full warranty, maintenance, and insurance for the entire lease period. Upgrade deals at the end. Because the way it is now you’re just giving shit up to keep paying a corporation.
I’m not paying the lease, the company is. Don’t know anyone who pays for transportation
Where the fuck do you live that everyone drives company cars? Where I live the closest ya get is company trucks with the water or electric company.
The only place I’ve heard of everyone in the company driving company cars was in California, a water manager was stealing water and selling it on top of some other scams. He spread the spoils around to keep people quiet it took over 20 years before he was caught.
Germany
So you have a company car. And you think that’s normal?
It is where I live?
Leasing is you paying the estimated depreciation of the lease period. The 1st 3 years is when a car depreciates the fastest and you have nothing to show for it.
As long as it can play tapes, I’m okay. Still using a tape adapter to connect my mp3 player :)
I replaced my car’s stereo with one that had an auxiliary 1/8" stereo jack.
Aux port is precisely what I’d look for when getting a new car. Even though by the time I do, perhaps my last Sansa Clip mp3 player will be dead and I’d get a new model with Bluetooth.
Haven’t seen a new car that can play tapes in nearly 20 years. Got bad news, boss.
Yeah, I hear you. I’ll settle for an aux port when I get a new car…
I got bad news for you, boss…
Yup, sadly you just have to replace the entire car. You certainly can’t attach an entirely new system with speakers and everything to any surface inside the car, just impossible.
I do agree that it’s not good, but it’s also going to be far less of an issue than you think.
Yeah, it was almost a rite of passage in my teen years - getting a decade-old used car and immediately replacing the crap factory system with some overmarketed, overpriced, but really cool kit. Of course nowadays the factory systems are better sounding at least, but you’re spot on regarding the out dating of software and protocols.
It’s even worse when you have a new-ish car that can handle any size USB stick, but will only load the first 8000 files it sees…
The newer model CR-V doesn’t need an app, it’s just a toggle in the car settings. That icon at the top like the article shows is definitely annoying and I agree in calling it a dark pattern.
That one is easy: do not get a new Honda.
Don’t buy a new car, there, FTFY.
Call me an asshole but I think giving driving habit information to insurers is great, so long as good habits are given discounts and bad habits are punished.
I’m one of those people who would love automatic enforcement of driving laws as well as user reportable incidents of other drivers (given you can provide footage of something you’re reporting.)
If people don’t like living under the law… maybe the law shouldn’t exist. “That’s the way it is” is a terrible excuse for fucking anything.
Oh, and make audit trails for this shit public record. Someone creating AI videos or fake reports? Punish that too. It’ll never happen though. People want laws for others, not themselves.
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who picks what habits are good and what are bad? who decides what happens to data beyond this? can you going to mcdonalds twice a day be shared with your health insurer? can you going to that rally be shared with the local police? with your landlord? are you comfortable with everyone knowing everything? because there’s two things you do with data: analyze, and sell.
can you going to mcdonalds twice a day be shared with your health insurer?
You think this data isn’t already shared?
you think that I’m in favor of everything I’m not currently talking about?
no thanks. i hate the entire concept of insurance (especially lawfully forced insurance). there’s no way i want them spying on me.
there are parts of the west where there’s not another car for miles. why should i be punished for minor infractions on a lonely country road when i put no one but myself at risk? this is the same as getting ticketed by a camera for running a red light in the middle of nowhere.
if the law and technology becomes a tool of oppression, it no longer serves a useful purpose for mankind.
Basic traffic liability insurance sorta makes sense - it’d suck you had your car wrecked by someone broke and were SOL.
i think that if i am going to be forced to purchase a product from the market, then the government should just provide the product. add the damages to my tax bill if i get in an accident that’s my fault.
but don’t make me buy shit just to function in society.
it’s a scam. the money you pay in is always more than they pay out. it’s a for profit industry that i’m forced to fund. it’s a racket, no different from organized crime.
Yeah let’s encourage citizens to report their neighbors for every legal offense, this kind of thing has always gone well throughout history
Say, I’m pretty sure I saw you invite a couple folks into your home the other day, and I never saw them come out. Oh would you look at that, the SS is here!
Similarities to fascism aside, this is still an awful idea. Have you ever dealt with automated rule enforcement? It’s an awful way to enforce rules. But even if every single report had a human follow up on it, there’s also massive, unprecedented privacy issues. You may be totally fine with my insurance company knowing where I am 24/7, but I sure as hell am not. I’m super not okay with a government (which we have) gaining free access to that information for anything they want (which they would). Oh hey, we’re back to fascism
Fucking hell, you’re actually promoting a surveillance dystopia.
You’re fucked.
Without absolute transparency and total accountability it’s going to be abused, but we already live in a surveillance dystopia. Have you ever seen what happens to whistle blowers today?
Please, Toyota, don’t do this. They refuse to go full out EV. Hopefully they too decide to keep some of these technologies away from their products.
I really don’t understand why going EV seems to be synonymous with “collect all the data.” The only differences should be in the drivetrain, and they don’t need to collect any data to switch that to an electric motor from an ICE or Hydrid drive system.
I suspect that it’s because they are marketed to be as much of a tech gadget as transportation. An iPad on wheels. So they figure that they can slip in this crap.
Yeah, and I really don’t want that crap. I just want something to get me from A to B that I can fill up at home. Give me something cheap and reliable and I’ll buy it.
It’s already happening anyways on non ev cars and has been for years. They all have monitors and tech in there.
The sad part is that manual transmissions are going away, which means I’m completely SOL if the electronics die. But I guess on the flipside, there’s no transmission to break, so that’s nice.
Give and takes. I’m waiting another 10 years till I hop on the electric vehicle camp. Just want some more competition and reliability.
I was just thinking yesterday what car I would get if I had infinite money and while I’m sure such one probably exists I couldn’t came up with one that I’d like better than my -07 Nissan Navara. I mean yeah I would ofcourse do a total overhaul on it and add a bunch of offroad accessories and such but the truck itself basically has everything I need and switching to a newer one would just add stuff I dont want.
I like cars and trucks but I’m extremely uninterested in most of the new ones. Something similar happened with them as with smartphones when they turned from tools into fashion accessories you use to show off to your friends. Can’t we just have ones that are decent looking and come with the basic necesary features and nothing more? I want it simple, reliable and easy to fix. I don’t want a computer on wheels.
Pulling the fuse that includes OnStar at least keeps it from calling home. But there’s usually some collateral damage.
What kind of damage?
Personally I’d call that a safety issue. A few years ago my wife and I were driving a rental car that was rear ended on the highway by a drunk driver. The impact caved in the left rear wheel and spun us 360 degrees across 3 lanes of the highway. Within a few seconds of coming to a stop an OnStar person was talking to us, asking if we were ok and confirming our location.
We had no clue ahead of time that the rental car had one of these services, but at that moment we were very happy it did. I honestly have no idea about the privacy ramifications, etc. but having been through that experience I’d think long and hard about disabling it outright. I do take my privacy seriously, but I’d have to weigh that against the safety of me & my family in that kind of situation and disable it only as an absolutely last resort… Just my own personal $0.02 on the matter.
A hammer is great for hammering nails… and heads.
Humans, eh?
OnStar never knows where you are. It only knows where YOUR CAR is.
Think about it and decide whether your car’s privacy is worth the cost.
Oh, true. Luckily I never go anywhere in my car so none of my positional data will correlate with the car’s.
I think my car only came with a free trial for that service, I think you needed to pay after a certain amount of time. Cell phone works well enough for me.
Playing devil’s advocate, in a crazy accident you may not be able to get to/reach your phone, or even be responsive. If you use the personal assistant function on your phone, it’s no different than using OnStar, in terms of privacy.
All of this said, last I heard OnStar was pretty expensive for the average household income. I don’t have it, and I don’t worry too much about it.
You assume you’ll have the ability to reach and use your phone
You’re not alone on the road.
It’s incredibly unlikely that you’d be in such a bad accident that you couldn’t call for help; while simultaneously being isolated from the public to the point nobody saw your accident and started calling ems/police before you could.
That’s not to say it doesn’t happen; but I definitely wouldn’t be worried about it.
I’m not saying you should live your life in fear of that. But it is not too difficult to imagine these kinds of scenarios. It happened to me once lol
Also, some of the places I drive? Yeah, I am definitely alone on the road for very long periods of time.
You obviously don’t live or drive in a semi-rural area at night with larger wildlife that tends to dart across the road in front of cars. All it takes is hitting a deer or javelina hard and going into a ditch.
I estimate that the probability of injuring my arms and that no one else is around to call for help is low enough to not be worth the monthly subscription.
I’m not saying it’s worth the monthly subscription, but it is not too hard to imagine the scenario where you get in a car wreck and you get knocked out
Low probability, high salience. Know the difference.
I judge based on probability and severity, and the probability is small enough even though the severity is high for me to not be concerned.
With how everybody and their mother have smartphones in their pockets, I wouldn’t be too worried.
Depending on the crash you could be unable to reach for the phone.
Don’t make life choices based on outliers
No! I mean everybody else! Someone else is going to call for help.
That depends a lot on where you drive. I’ve been in situations where, if I had hit a moose, there would have been no one around to call for help except the moose (assuming it had survived the collision, but they often do if it’s a smaller vehicle). That stretch of road didn’t get many passers-by on snowy Sunday nights in January. Maybe a half-dozen vehicles an hour. Combine that with poor visibility, and it could have been a long time before someone noticed and called for help. Fortunately, I never did have an accident along that stretch.
Of course, if you’re only driving in built-up areas or along major transit corridors instead of in awkward parts of northern Ontario in the middle of winter, your chances of having someone call in for you are much higher.
Does OnStar even work in far out regions like this? Is there even any cell reception? If not then that point is pretty irrelevant.
And if it’s so far out, would emergency services even arrive in time to save you anyways?
My car microphone stopped working
Imo, the only solution is every device with an antenna must be legally required to put a manual off switch.
Cell service, wifi, Bluetooth, any future service. If it broadcasts it needs a physical off switch.
If I sold my car to a government official and they found out I had hidden a camera, microphone and GPS in the car, I’d get a visit from the FBI. Yet companies do it with impunity.
For phones, Pinephone is very nearly this. The only thing is that GPS and cell service are on the same switch (because they’re handled by the same chip on the board)
The current generation of the ford mustang Mach-e has its mobile telemetry cellular antenna wired to an isolated fuse that you can just pull out to kill it. I was astonished to learn how straight forward the process is supposed to be.
I don’t trust that they won’t save the data and upload it during a servicing.
That’s a good point. A Lemmy user claimed that happened to him with his Ford.
A link would be better than hearsay
I don’t know why you care. It’s still hearsay because as I said, it was another Lemmy claiming it.
And each type of communication needs it’s own switch. Don’t let them pull some BS trying to make you enable all the hardcore tracking via a cell network just because you want to connect to Bluetooth.
its* own switch.
For phones, Pinephone is very nearly this. The only thing is that GPS and cell service are on the same switch (because they’re handled by the same chip on the board)
There’s always the carefully applied soldering iron.
If only I knew where.
Right to the temple of anyone who decided it was OK to do this kind of data collection.
Somewhere in the piece of plastic we somehow call a car. They don’t make them like they used to
I’m not that nostalgic. Everything about my new car is better than my older cars. My 2023 minivan has a better 0-60 than my old V-8 Mustang while getting 2x the MPG. The only thing that is bad is the tracking.
They sure don’t, cars continue to be safer, more durable, and require less service every model year. The median age of the automobiles on the rides gets older every year.
The hero photo for the article shows a camera over a road that likely is likely running number plate recognition software…
Honestly I’d be more worried about where that data is going than the tracking software in your car. They’ve got the most critical information (where did you drive and when), and they’ve got it for every car instead of just Honda drivers.
This needs to be fixed with legislation, and it needs to be fixed actively. For example by getting rid of number plates entirely and replacing them with something like the transponders used in aircrafts and ships, but with an encrypted rolling code that only shares your data with authorised parties.
It could work like the “Find My” feature on an iPhone, where your location is encrypted and uploaded to the servers anonymously… the decryption key is only provided when the actual owner of the device authorises a data lookup. E.g. in a traffic stop, police could ask you to tap a button on your car that sends the cops your insurance/etc.
For those who haven’t yet bought a Honda:
- you have the option to buy from alternative brands to say fuck you using your wallet
They’re basically all doing it, so make sure to research who is doing it the least.
The only car makers that give data deletion options are Dacia Renault:
Only two - Renault and Dacia, which are not sold in North America - offer drivers the option to have their data deleted
Good news! Has the time finally come for us to buy a Dacia Sandero?
10-15k for a new car where do I sign up?
Or at this point, the one whose tracking is easiest and safest to avoid or circumvent.
How easy is the telematics unit to remove and whether disabling it affects the functions that are important to you.
I’m missing something. How is the data actually collected? How does it get out of my car? My car doesn’t have any cellular features other than CarPlay. It has wifi, but I’ve never used it.
Cellular is usually how the vehicle provides Wi-Fi, it is effectively just a cell hotspot like you would get from a ohone carrier, but tied into the vehicle. So I think that would be the common way they get the data out.
It seems a lot of the new ones have a cellular modem. On the surface it’s to let you remotely access the car or do a remote start. Even if you don’t pay to subscribe and use it for your purposes they can utilize it to transfer out the data.
Potentially when you put it in for a service, could also be using bluetooth
People take their cars to dealership garages? Fuck that noise lmao
I hear you, but wiith new cars its often a condition of the warranty to use official dealers
buy an old Honda LOL
Honestly old cars a great
I don’t think I’m going to ever buy a car made after 2020. Maybe earlier. None of the new features really appeal to me, and there are a lot of things like this that actively turn me off from wanting a new car.
If they could just give me an electric version of a 1985 VW Golf I’d be happy as a clam. But they want to put me in some lumpy, heavy, clumsy CUV with tracking technology and all the touchscreens and I don’t like it.
EV conversions are definitely a thing. And the Golf platform seems to actually be one of the most popular.
After a quick Google, it looks like there are even some premade kits for the Golf specifically, even with installation available. Although I can only find UK/EU links quickly. May be more built-it yourself in the US.
c/fuckcars
Yeah. Fuck cars.
