Live data from Hacker News

Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

bloomberg.com

111–120 of 220 posts

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#111

My car? I no longer want to own and maintain a car. I want ubiquitous availability of transportation. On demand. But I don't necessarily want Uber / Lyft either. I don't mind driving. As it is, my car lost value the day I drove it off the lot. Most of the time it sits doing nothing at all, sans getting older and losing more value. If ever there was a life pain that screams subscription + pay as you go it's personal t…

That's a zipcar or similiar. Rent by the hour. It seemed attractive but drawback is you have to get to a free car first.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#112
Living in a city and having street-parked "rent-a-car" vehicles for infrequent trips while using trains to get to work is an incredible lifestyle.

I went camping recently, so I rented a 4x4 for a few days. I needed to pick up family from the airport, I'll just rent a car for a few hours. Want to go for a hike up north, rent a car for a day.

All I have to do is Lime-style, book one on the app, tap my car on the windshield to unlock and it's mine.

Parking? No problem, the government has designated parking spots for rideshare vehicles.

It could be cheaper, but with my frequency of use, it's cheaper than owning a car.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#114

I don't want my car to be a software platform. I want it to be like my microwave. It might have software, but software is only incidental to its operation. I do not want to tweet from my microwave. I do not want ads in traffic. This is non-negotiable for safety reasons alone. I don't care what I have to do to attain that. If that means replacing the radio. I will do it. If you brick my car if I don't have a Manufactu…

Same. I will not ever own any car that has network connectivity. So that means older cars only. Oh well. So be it.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#115

Living in a city and having street-parked "rent-a-car" vehicles for infrequent trips while using trains to get to work is an incredible lifestyle. I went camping recently, so I rented a 4x4 for a few days. I needed to pick up family from the airport, I'll just rent a car for a few hours. Want to go for a hike up north, rent a car for a day. All I have to do is Lime-style, book one on the app, tap my car on the windsh…

This. Wife and I sold both our cars and moved to Oslo. We can get almost anywhere with public transportation and rent a car/van when we need to move stuff or get away to the cabin.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#116

I hate subscriptions as much as the next guy, but I also see the flip side of this coin: the legacy auto companies don't have OTA updates, and this affects their incentives in negative ways. I have considered getting a Subaru Outback, a Toyota RAV4, and a Honda CR-V. All of them have 'lane-centering' features, but none of them are good at present. And none of the companies say that they will allow OTA (or any other p…

> the legacy auto companies don't have OTA updates

That's a huge feature.

OTA updates means:

1. An attack vector that will (when, not if) be exploited by bad guys.

2. An attack vector that will (when, not if) be exploited by the manufacturer itself to make your car worse (Tesla already doing this sometimes).

A secure and reliable car must not be modifiable remotely.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#117

Living in a city and having street-parked "rent-a-car" vehicles for infrequent trips while using trains to get to work is an incredible lifestyle. I went camping recently, so I rented a 4x4 for a few days. I needed to pick up family from the airport, I'll just rent a car for a few hours. Want to go for a hike up north, rent a car for a day. All I have to do is Lime-style, book one on the app, tap my car on the windsh…

In my city I have lived through multiple waves of this model.

The main drawback is that it requires a bit of planning: on the weekends, everybody wants a car.

I can count with one finger the companies that have survived multiple waves of this model over the last 15 years. They have "poor" cars, but enough of them, parked in "centralized" locations to ease maintainance, but enough of these locations spread out, great prices for a day, a weekend, etc.

Most other companies that tried this have ended up defaulting the moment they had to repair their first wave of cars.

The ones that still "survive" have gone through defaults, mergers, and have "infinite" amounts of money (e.g. owned by car manufacturers that use them as a way to get people "try" their cars as opposed to a "profitable" business). These are kind of "gimmicks" that you use when you pick somebody from the airport to show them around in a nice car. For everyday stuff, these are expensive enough for competing with Uber, and at that point, I just take a Uber. For one day trips they are also expensive enough that, if you take 3 days per month, owning a cheap car is actually cheaper and more practical than using these....

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#118
post #116

I hate subscriptions as much as the next guy, but I also see the flip side of this coin: the legacy auto companies don't have OTA updates, and this affects their incentives in negative ways. I have considered getting a Subaru Outback, a Toyota RAV4, and a Honda CR-V. All of them have 'lane-centering' features, but none of them are good at present. And none of the companies say that they will allow OTA (or any other p…

> the legacy auto companies don't have OTA updates That's a huge feature. OTA updates means: 1. An attack vector that will (when, not if) be exploited by bad guys. 2. An attack vector that will (when, not if) be exploited by the manufacturer itself to make your car worse (Tesla already doing this sometimes). A secure and reliable car must not be modifiable remotely.

Yeah, I'd probably prefer hard-wired updates, rather than OTA. That way you know precisely when you're getting it, and it's harder (though still not impossible) for a bad actor to cause harm.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#119

Living in a city and having street-parked "rent-a-car" vehicles for infrequent trips while using trains to get to work is an incredible lifestyle. I went camping recently, so I rented a 4x4 for a few days. I needed to pick up family from the airport, I'll just rent a car for a few hours. Want to go for a hike up north, rent a car for a day. All I have to do is Lime-style, book one on the app, tap my car on the windsh…

For this to work you need a pretty good public transportation system. In the US for example, I don't know of any city other than NYC that have that kind of infrastructure.

Re: Cars are about to be a software platform, subscriptions and all

#120
post #84

I hate subscriptions as much as the next guy, but I also see the flip side of this coin: the legacy auto companies don't have OTA updates, and this affects their incentives in negative ways. I have considered getting a Subaru Outback, a Toyota RAV4, and a Honda CR-V. All of them have 'lane-centering' features, but none of them are good at present. And none of the companies say that they will allow OTA (or any other p…

I think you're putting way too much faith in these companies. Just going off of your example, they're most likely just going to provide support for 2 years ( if that ), and then say "sorry, the newest version of lane keep assist isn't available for your model". A la Apple.

Macs from 2012 got the latest security update four days ago.

Macs from 2013 are supported by the newest macOS.

iPhones and iPads from 2013 got the latest security update a month ago.

iPhones and iPads from 2015 and 2014 respectively are supported by the latest iOS and iPadOS.

Classic Apple, right?

Post reply on HN