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What kind of data is my new car collecting?

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Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#161
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not legal advice, and you should consult an attorney if you believe that an OEM may come after you for tampering with your own vehicle. That said, I believe that there is very limited legal recourse for a vehicle OEM who wants to prevent an end user from changing the data collection and upload features of their vehicles. The worst thing would be potentially voiding the warranty, but for 10-15 year old used ve…

Don't forget that Tesla is now in this space, and turning off Tesla's access to it will turn off your car, period. I have a hard time believing that others in the industry will not take the blase reaction to this and then do it themselves.

Which is why Tesla will never have a place in my fleet. I can afford it, and love the mechanical tech, but the lack of rights and privacy is appaling. It shocks me people pay for their own piecemeal enslavement for the latest shiny thing.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... cars cannot be resold anymore without manufacturer involvement. This seems like a violation of long-standing consumer protection laws and precedents.

It's Elon Musk, who cares about minor things like law.

Or ethics. Were saving the world, why do you want freedom!?

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#163
post #157
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not legal advice, and you should consult an attorney if you believe that an OEM may come after you for tampering with your own vehicle. That said, I believe that there is very limited legal recourse for a vehicle OEM who wants to prevent an end user from changing the data collection and upload features of their vehicles. The worst thing would be potentially voiding the warranty, but for 10-15 year old used ve…

>That said, I believe that there is very limited legal recourse for a vehicle OEM who wants to prevent an end user from changing the data collection and upload features of their vehicles. The worst thing would be potentially voiding the warranty, but for 10-15 year old used vehicles, that's not an issue. >I work as an in-house counsel at a vehicle OEM If you're really a lawyer, I'm surprised you'd write any of this,…

I wasn't aware of that, but perhaps it will hearten you to know that I don't deal with warranty law in my day-to-day. So, I clearly have more to learn - not sure why you felt it necessary to call my credentials into question over it though.

But in any case, your post does strengthens my main point, which is that fear over surveillance of vehicles by OEMs, with no consumer recourse, is somewhat overblown.

EDIT:

Just read Magnusson-Moss, and I have a question since you seem to know about it - you said the act "makes it blatantly illegal to 'void' a warranty for any modification, unless it can be proven that the modification caused the issue that the customer is making a warranty claim for."

But the act itself says "the warrantor shall not impose any duty other than notification upon any consumer as a condition of securing remedy [...] unless the warrantor has demonstrated [...] that such a duty is reasonable." 15 U.S.C. § 2304(b)(1).

Based on what's actually in the text of the law, I could imagine Tesla or some other OE making the argument that it is "reasonable" to condition the warranty on the consumer continuing to feed the stream of telematics data to the OE, because it allows them to identify warranty issues before they require substantial repairs, thus potentially saving significant money for the OE, and significant time for the consumer - certainly a reasonable thing. I personally don't agree with that argument, but I'm curious how you would respond to it, and how you can be sure that a court would shoot it down.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#164

Not too long ago I owned a motorcycle from the 70s. I realized at one point that it was probably EMP-proof: no fuel injection, no fuel pump, certainly no OBD anything, and a (literal) kickstarter. The most complicated thing in the wiring harness was the key cylinder and the relay for the turn signals and headlights. I miss that bike sometimes.

There is an urban fantasy series called "The Rivers of London" series after the first book (or "Peter Grant"-series after the main character) and magic interferes with (in the sense of completely fries ) more complicated electronics there, so his master (the last fully qualified wizard of Great Britain) also drives an old Jaguar that is all-mechanical and therefore magic-proof. Very entertaining series with lots of r…

Sounds like Battlestar'ing your transportation. A very popular modification scene in the car world.

I have converted modern cars to points and carbs, its not that difficult. No reason you couldnt drive any car with some motorcycle carburetturs clamped to the intake runners. Hardest part is spinning the rotor and remembering how to set your points. Never drive-by-wire cars will need a throttle cable, and a manual transmission is the only electronics-free option. I have heard a simple mechanical relay logic system can control many autos, but have never tried.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#165
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you still need an ignition source. The OP is confusing the distributor with individual coils found on modern engines. A distributor is only there to distribute the spark to the cylinders. On modern engines the distributor has been replaced by individual coils (on per cylinder).

Well, sometimes one coil for each pair of cylinders. I'm not aware of any motorcycle that had a distributor though.

All gasoline engines have a spark source. A magneto, a distributor/coil setup, or a transistorized driver/coil setup in the case of fuel injected bikes. Nearly all bikes from 1920-1990 have a distributor. The differince is that it often runs off, or is part, the stator (generator coil), making it appear to not exist. Just follow the plug wire.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sometimes one coil for each pair of cylinders. I'm not aware of any motorcycle that had a distributor though.

What determines the ignition timing without distributor?

You can move the points just like you'd rotate a distributor. One set of points drives one coil which provides ignition for two cylinders, one which is firing (near the end of its compression stroke) and the other non-firing (near the end of its exhaust stroke). For a four-cylinder engine, two sets of points and two ignition coils are used.

This setup is even used on modern-ish vehicles, where two transistors drive two coils to run four cylinders.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#167

Not too long ago I owned a motorcycle from the 70s. I realized at one point that it was probably EMP-proof: no fuel injection, no fuel pump, certainly no OBD anything, and a (literal) kickstarter. The most complicated thing in the wiring harness was the key cylinder and the relay for the turn signals and headlights. I miss that bike sometimes.

I had a diesel car that I once drove with no alternator and no battery: started off a jump and drove to the auto parts store. Radio, windows, and lights were dead, but the car drove fine.

Diesel ignights via compression and does not require external ignition. For this reason, they can 'run away' and rev until they explode if somehow given too much fuel as the result of a failed injector or oil leak from the turbo that feeds the combustion cycle. The yt videos are intense.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that depends on country. For example the UK has no public road (that I'm aware of) where a speed of higher than 70mph is allowed, so that would be an easy initial rule. Where there are dynamic speed limits in place, it would be plausible to report back possibles (car location and speed) which could then be checked against a central database which was more accurate. I'm not suggesting that such a system is a g…

In the US this sort of detection is privatized - by insurance companies lowering your rates if you run their app which beans your location, speed, and motion/fitness data to their servers. At least for Allstate you need 50 drives a month to qualify for the discount, and hard braking or speeds over 80 disqualify a drive from being counted for the discount.

A little birdie tells me they always raise your rates. Deny them and thake the small hike.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#169
post #80
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also suspect that in the near future insurance companies will demand higher premiums from drivers who commute on more "dangerous" roads (i.e. roads on which statistically speaking more accidents happen). The companies already have easy-enough access to most of the drivers' GPS data, they certainly do know the GPS locations of most of today's accidents (via Waze-like services), I'm surprised why they haven't already…

In fact there are insurers right now, which give a discount of up to 20% if you share your data with them and if you "follow the rules" like not driving so fast, not doing so much acceleration, … The problem is, if more and more people switching to those insurances it becomes very expansive for people who mind their privacy.

The other issues is that their sensors always report bad driving. There is no upside to putting one on your car.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#170
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also no way this information is 100% accurate at all times. Emotional recognition is inherently probabilistic -- there will be false positives and false negatives, no matter how good the heuristic is. In the end, it'll be you who has to prove that you were in an emotional stable state, and not the algorithm that gets scrutinized.

Emotional recognition is pure fraud, with zero scientific basis. Snake oil is a big part of the current AI product matrix.

Seems to go over well with the phrenology crowd if you get my drift.
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