Definitely if you own a Tesla
this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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Actually kind of thinking about that, In the context of older cars, it might be that they will start getting more valuable because they don't have computers in them. And then the police might look suspiciously at anybody driving a classic car from the 80s or something.
I think this has been happening since a lot of the assistive driving features started appearing. I know in my (rural) area a lot of people avoid cars with lane assistance because it can interfere with driving tighter and less well painted roads.
I always turn lane assist off because it is all false positives with no benefit. It isn't needed because I'm paying attention while driving...
I drive newer cars occasionally as part of a carshare program since I don't need one for a commute and I live somewhere in North America that transit actually functions.
I do appreciate anti-rear end features but it's only activated once for me on a bridge since I'm usually leaving plenty of distance in front. But holy cow, the nagginess of some features can be beyond the level of your average backseat driver. In particular because they are persistent.
Yes car, I know I'm a bit on the shoulder line because it's a mountain pass and tractor trailers are roaring down in the oncoming direction. Yes car, I see that the vehicle in front of me has started moving away, but I'm not going to follow them left turning into traffic because of it you bonehead...
No way to turn that crap off? Newest car I've ever owned is a 2011, had to rip out Onstar, but that was easy.
we need FOSS cars
The Fast and the FOSSius
We need buses and trains.
We need cars without wireless connectivity again.
If you wanna hack my car, you should have to find the hidden port 🤣
FOSC(ars), a subset of FOSH(ardware)
Fun fact, you can build your own car too!
That's one good thing about capitalism: They can't use their fancy gizmos to kill me if I can't afford their gizmos in the first place. 😌
They can’t use their fancy gizmos to kill me
I guess they'll just have to do it the ol' fashioned way then...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing
police aviators then dropped two explosive devices from a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter onto the roof of the occupied house. For 90 minutes, the Philadelphia Police Department allowed the resulting fire to burn out of control, destroying 61 previously evacuated neighboring homes over two city blocks and leaving 250 people homeless. Six adults and five children were killed in the attack,
👀
How inefficient. Once you have the mandatory Neuralink brain chip installed, it can directly activate your pain centres any time you don't praise Great Leader Musk fervently enough.
Love the truck though!
Some cars can be disabled remotely as part of the terms you agree to when you lease, not buy, certain cars.
But regardless, that functionality is still built into the car, and could theoretically be used unless you disable the telemetry/communication system.
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What? Gah damn. There goes my desire to lease.
Leasing is a scam
For the most part I'd agree with you. I've figured out that some dealerships have stock of particular models they are having a hard time selling. Last year it was the Ford Lightning, and recently it was the Dodge Charger Daytona R/T. Idk exactly why they offer these special leases, but like the Charger was a $590/mo lease for 7500mi/yr max. I probably put like 5k on my current car, and since I'm looking at midlife crisis cars, that one is attractive to me since the others in that range are like $800/no for the same price.
It's some tax thing. The benefit is that if the car has pretty shit reliability the dealer is on the hook for maintenance. So a lot of the mid-life crisis cars are perfect for leasing if you don't drive a lot anyway.
First unless there is a tax advantage you should never lease a car.
Second, this largely applies to sportier sedans and actual sports cars. No one cares if your foot is a bit heavy in a Honda Odyssey but they absolutely care if it is a 60k+ car.
Remember you dont own a lease
Yeah I'm aware of that. I hardly drive and was looking at midlife crisis cars
Gotcha, those tend to have blackboxes then
I guess where I'm sitting I'm not looking at those cars to go fast and turn left some times in.
I just wanna drop my kid off in a car that would have caught my attention.
Like all the doctor and business parents around here drive a Lexus NX or a Lincoln Corsair.
But if I showed up with like an LC 500 or like even the new electric Challenger it would catch my attention. Not that I can afford either, but it's fun to look at the numbers being just out of reach.
Yeah .... I'm going to be driving junk trucks and cars for the rest of the my life.
I'm not going to trust driving my car at 120 kph down the highway knowing that some douche bag idiot has a kill switch or access to my steering wheel that may turn it on either intentionally, maliciously or accidentally
It's a freaky thought .... if you own a Tesla ... Muskrat has access to your steering wheel and accelerator and brakes at all times ... at any given moment if their system ever goes haywire, you may end up flying through that mountain guard rail, heading into one coming traffic or plowing into a crowd of people
As always .... I can trust future technology and all the things that we could possibly develop and create .... I will never trust the people who own and control all these things.
If you regularly drive a car with a black box in it then you should know the finance company is watching your speed presuming it us a leased car.
Exactly - not only can all modern cars remotely be accessed, anyone with access to those [insecure] maintenance pages could hypothetically:
- Track you on the GPS
- List your regular journeys
- Use the cameras to see who is in the car right now
- Wait for you to pass a certain remote area on one of your regular journeys
- Disable the car
- Unlock the doors
- Turn on the interior light
At that point, I wonder what access the car has to affect whether the driver's phone can make a call...
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jokes on them i dont own a car
On the other hand: anything anti-consumer like this (like bricking game consoles) has potential to backfire in a myriad of ways when the inevitable exploits are found.
Ransomware customers, target people you don't like (perhaps even by employees), or simply brick devices to cause returns and/or drive up customer support costs, or just cause a scandal to tarnish the brand itself (or force recalls/end of sales in places that actually have consumer protections). EDIT: Also imagine a dealership where no truck can even be driven off the lot, especially if they all need something like the computer to be fixed/replaced.
The closer to a real brick it is (rather than just a soft lockout), the more potential there is for disaster. Also it reinforces exactly the sentiment that'd cause people to look for said exploits.
But when the product/service is functionally mandated by the infrastructure (you need an internet connection to do everything from paying bills to applying for jobs / you need a car to survive in a society full of car-exclusive paved roads) and the commercial seller has a functional cartel/monopoly on production, the manufacturer has less and less reason to treat you as a potentially-loseable client and more as a potentially-saleable commodity.
Turning these high value durable goods into extensions of the lucrative police state surveillance network is appealing to a monopolized industry that's heavily integrated with the domestic regime.
And if you, as a consumer, don't like it... what are you going to do? Go without basic appliances? DIY retrofit everything in your house? Or just suck it up and toe the line, because this is "normal"?
This is why authoritarianism should be aggressively stamped out, before they can do stuff like this and Minority Report.
I can't imagine owning a car newer than like 2012. It must be a nightmare
It depends. We have two Hondas that are single digit years old and they both have physical buttons/dials for air conditioning and music in addition to the touchscreen. Both have options to turn off the annoying stuff and the touchscreens are a reasonable size so they aren't obnoxious.
In laws had a Subaru and it was awful, everything was in the touch screen and it nagged constantly. Now they have a Cadillac and it is a chore to use as well, including forcing the seat belt just to put it in gear to pull forward a couple feet. Both had extremely distracting touchscreens that made driving them painful.
But those Hondas are still probably 4g capable, right? Because, at that point, it doesn't matter if you turn the annoying stuff "off". Honda is still spying on you, tracking you, and compiling a mountain of data based on your driving habits.
Not on 4g as far as I can tell. Have to be on wifi to do the map and other updates. It might collect and report data, not sure. I figure my cell phone is collecting far more data than the vehicle.
Just pointing out that not all post 2015 cars are nightmares.
Car telemetry might be a separate thing than the onboard maps.
When my parents bought their new Toyota in 2020/2021? (can't remember when), and my parents brought me to the dealership to translate because they don't speak english. And after the sale was done, the sales person was asking to download the app thing to track the car, and my mind was like: wtf, they could just track the car?!?
There was no special installation and its not a feature ever paid for. Its a "free" tracking thing, already built in the car.
The car didn't even have maps in the infotainment system.
Welp, there goes my plan to use that car to transport dead bodies /s
Yeah, telemetry is any information transmitted remotely which could be things like top speed ever, mileage, or even 02 sensor readings.
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My car is still stick shift. lol you americans and your fancy cars
That only stops them from changing gears for you. They can still remotely shut off your engine, slam on your brakes, and if your car has a lane keep assist steer for you.
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I havent needed to own a car with a computer in it yet. I'll just have to keep the 96 Landcruiser running forever.
Toyota Hilux.
MUSK IS A SCHMUCK!!!!
You have my permission to activate this feature the next time I'm driving alone. Thank you ahead of time
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