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Right-to-Repair causes Subaru to disable telematics in Massachusetts

thetruthaboutcars.com

11–20 of 71 posts

Re: Right-to-Repair causes Subaru to disable telematics in Massachusetts

#11

> Numerous automakers (e.g. General Motors) have likewise shown presentations stating that data acquisition would soon become an important revenue source for the industry. Does anyone have any links referencing these presentations? I know selling data to data brokers is a hot topic, but from my (extremely limited) exposure to this topic in the industry I got the impression that the actual value of such data was almos…

Speculation, but the obvious market to me is insurance providers. I'd think that data is worth a decent amount to them, both for good and bad reasons.

Re: Right-to-Repair causes Subaru to disable telematics in Massachusetts

#13

> Numerous automakers (e.g. General Motors) have likewise shown presentations stating that data acquisition would soon become an important revenue source for the industry. Does anyone have any links referencing these presentations? I know selling data to data brokers is a hot topic, but from my (extremely limited) exposure to this topic in the industry I got the impression that the actual value of such data was almos…

Programmers and technical people should store this data hoarding fetisj.

“Just in case” or “will be very valuable in the future” are bad reasons

Re: Right-to-Repair causes Subaru to disable telematics in Massachusetts

#14
> Subaru’s problem is that no such standardized system yet exists, forcing it (and eventually other brands) to have to nix its Starlink telematics offerings and related data harvesting.

It does exist, it's called J1939 and it is popular already in trucks and non european truck-like consumer vehicles i.e. pickups.

It also allows the effortless integration of aftermarket systems like F+R sonar emergency braking, trailer ABS units, radar cruise, low speed acoustic devices and various other bolt-ons like power take-offs.

In fact, it's this standardization that allowed some hundreds of third party fleet telematics systems to plug into virtually any OE vehicle and pull out a whole bunch of useful data, such as the odometer, fuel level, road speed, torque request and selected gear.

It does however currently lack useful standardization for electric vehicles. They can fit within the standard, but there is no standard way to read the voltage of a particular cell in one of the vehicles' many battery packs, for example. Or the state of charge or battery wear as a whole. I think this contributes to the high integration effort in EVs at the moment. Or why you see few upfitters doing custom bodies for EVs. Things could be a lot more .. plug and play.

Re: Right-to-Repair causes Subaru to disable telematics in Massachusetts

#15
post #12

Does anyone know if any bodies are trying to define an open standard? I wonder if the money they're spending fighting this would be better spent developing this standard.

Yes. We have at https://smartcar.com

Happy to answer any more questions!

Re: Right-to-Repair causes Subaru to disable telematics in Massachusetts

#16

> The real impact will be the financial handicap that comes with an inability to harvest and then sell customer data to commercial partners. Handicaps are relative. The carmakers just don’t get to make money a new way. There are many ways they don’t get to make more money. Not an actual problem to anyone.

Alternatively: without this new source of revenue, auto manufacturers will be less able to compete on price and maintain the same margins. As a consumer, I don't get to decide whether I'd like a "repairable" car that doesn't harvest my data for $X, or am willing to settle for a data-harvesting, proprietary vehicle for $(X - Y) - the state has made that choice on my behalf and decided the latter should be illegal to sell to me (read: for me to purchase).

That $Y probably ends up being small enough that it doesn't matter to the average high-paid HN reader, but consumer prices do matter to people at the margins. There's a reason ad-supported Kindles exist, even if I personally would never buy one.

Re: Right-to-Repair causes Subaru to disable telematics in Massachusetts

#18

> The real impact will be the financial handicap that comes with an inability to harvest and then sell customer data to commercial partners. Handicaps are relative. The carmakers just don’t get to make money a new way. There are many ways they don’t get to make more money. Not an actual problem to anyone.

Alternatively: without this new source of revenue, auto manufacturers will be less able to compete on price and maintain the same margins. As a consumer, I don't get to decide whether I'd like a "repairable" car that doesn't harvest my data for $X, or am willing to settle for a data-harvesting, proprietary vehicle for $(X - Y) - the state has made that choice on my behalf and decided the latter should be illegal to s…

Also, by prohibiting poor people from selling their own organs, it is more difficult for these folks to make ends meet in the short term.

That doesn’t sound like good reasoning to me.

Re: Right-to-Repair causes Subaru to disable telematics in Massachusetts

#20
When car shopping a free months ago I learned that Kia wasn’t offering its UvoLink service in Massachusetts and I put it together pretty quickly. I was surprised though to discover the its sibling brand, Hyundai, _does_ offer its telematics service, BlueLink, in MA.
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