451–460 of 497 posts
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Not sure if Tesla is on your list, but FWIW Tesla app works fine on GrapheneOS
Indeed it does, but Tesla is firm on my no buy list
Zeekr is getting up there too, but Tesla is going to be leader for ages - most car availability, easiest to service, most hackable software, best in class privacy, tons of third party options.
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> Management treats software exactly like hardware production lines That's exactly my observation as well. Classic hardware-producing companies have an immense respect on the step of entering mass-production, as whatever issue that slipped through will be multiplied and physically spread across the world. So they come from the mindset that the dominant mindset is to minimize the SURFACE-area of potential risk. This m…
Why shouldn’t software be treated with the same rigor at Volkswagen scale? Pretty much all software products typically talked about on HN are laughable at that scale, they have crashes or weird bugs way more often than the six sigma norm of 99.9999% reliability. For example, I don’t think it’s even possible nowadays to buy a new iPad and use it with default apps and settings for any significant duration continuously.…
No one said that it shouldn't.
What I wrote is, that the approach of minimizing any SURFACE of risk in software creates the (subjectively good and solid) software of previous car-generations (in Volkswagen terms: MIB2 ~ a bit downhill already in MIB3): A solid, predictable and closed product fulfilling its core use-case.
But it DOESN'T create a user experience with those "fun" niche features, competitive remote-access Smartphone features, exposed API's, sudden new features during lifecycle, funny "ludicrous modes" etc.
And today's customers are demanding those features, it's now a hygiene factor for a premium experience on Smartphones as well as on cars.
A Tesla is not considered a "Premium" car because of its premium hardware or manufacturing quality. They disrupted the car-industry by being the first to apply a software-dev mindset to it, and the consumer perceives this as premium.
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German companies, especially old school industrial ones like VW, have a very hard time understanding open platforms. The view everything through the lense of liability and compliance first. Their thinking is that if someone runs their app on a custom ROM and uses that to manipulate the app in any way, and that causes some extremely hypothetical damage, that they might be held liable for not having prevented this situ…
The same company that supposedly views everything through the lens of liability and compliance does this: > When the cars were operating under controlled laboratory conditions - which typically involve putting them on a stationary test rig - the device appears to have put the vehicle into a sort of safety mode in which the engine ran below normal power and performance. Once on the road, the engines switched out of th…
There's only one reason why they're doing this: it benefits them in some way.
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Why shouldn’t software be treated with the same rigor at Volkswagen scale? Pretty much all software products typically talked about on HN are laughable at that scale, they have crashes or weird bugs way more often than the six sigma norm of 99.9999% reliability. For example, I don’t think it’s even possible nowadays to buy a new iPad and use it with default apps and settings for any significant duration continuously.…
> Why shouldn’t software be treated with the same rigor at Volkswagen scale? No one said that it shouldn't. What I wrote is, that the approach of minimizing any SURFACE of risk in software creates the (subjectively good and solid) software of previous car-generations (in Volkswagen terms: MIB2 ~ a bit downhill already in MIB3): A solid, predictable and closed product fulfilling its core use-case. But it DOESN'T creat…
https://www.go-parts.com/garage/brake-pedal-tesla-cybertruck...
https://www.tparts.com/blogs/tesla-latest-news/tesla-issues-...
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I mean, the only reason they did it was to be able to comply with the requirements of the test. But the reality is that every once in a while you have a scandal like this or something like Wirecard, and it happens, because the culture is such that absolutely nobody thinks it possible. That includes officials and regulators whose first instinct will often be to come after the people trying to expose the scandal, as ha…
>because the culture is such that absolutely nobody thinks it possible Only naive laymen or newcomers to Germany think it's not possible. German business leaders, lawyers and politicians know exactly how much corruption and scamming is going on in the business sector, and it's not a little. >first instinct will often be to come after the people trying to expose the scandal, as has happened in the case of Wirecard. Th…
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Well, just don't drive fast than the speed limit and nothing will beep at you. Simple as that. Positive side effect: No expensive photos will be taken, too.
Yes, let’s make people focus less on the road and instead worrying about 1km/h speeding. And where I live expensive photos are only taken way way later than the car starts beeping. It’s the real life equivalent of the cookie banner.
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One is people one is companies.
It sends very weird signals when the EU will fine an American company over some data moving in a direction they don't like while at the same time EU governments will allow home grown companies to de facto force people into using products from those same American companies all while lecturing us about duopolies and privacy only to re-enforce those same problematic patterns. It is absurd.
From what I can surmise, the German/EU philosophy is more of a closed world approach - accepting that companies will keep control, then government regulates the companies to stop the companies-with-control from causing harm. If you don't like the harm, your recourse-focus is to petition the government to stop it (eg GDPR). Whereas the US philosophy is more open world - once someone "chooses" to patronize a company, then the company is free to do whatever they want. Your recourse-focus is to stop using that company.
They both have shortcomings and glaring loopholes, of course.
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Yes, let’s make people focus less on the road and instead worrying about 1km/h speeding. And where I live expensive photos are only taken way way later than the car starts beeping. It’s the real life equivalent of the cookie banner.
Each km/h over the speed limit can decide between coming to a stop at the right moment or killing somebody. Don't try to put it into the wrong perspective. The beeping is fine.
Isn't this for the same reason why you can't do banking on an unlocked bootloader phone? There's no way to verify the integrity of the system, and any malicious app can just grab your banking credentials or enable criminals to unlock and drive away with your car.
a criminal can just steal your keys and take the car too... why is the phone subject to more stringent restrictions?
I do not know the VW app, but other electronic key systems do not require you to have physical access to the car in order to make copies. The keys are meant to be device bound and to have policy (such as I'm giving out access for a week), but that can only be assured via a chain-of-custody attestation system from the boot loader to the app and a hardware attestation that the secure element is proper.
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Mercedes has some interesting EV options, and they have some models at the moment that are not necessarily that expensive. Through the grapevine I overheard something about surplus production due to mandate to build a certain number of EVs. If you don’t want/need a new car, the used car market in Germany is pretty active with EQAs and EQBs.
Mercedes is terrible for EVs. Adaptive Cruise Control for example is a paid feature with a recurring subscription. Don't encourage "Car as a Service" concepts.