I made that point a while back, perhaps on another thread.
If there’s a covid-type event 10 years from now and widespread restrictions are deemed necessary, then your electric vehicle will simply be disabled remotely.
I’m all for electric propulsion but it does seem to come bundled with a degree of connectivity that, from a point of view of one’s personal freedoms, seems undesirable.
That’s a great point.
However, since the only practical way to get data connectivity in Europe is over GPRS/3G/4G/5G, that means these vehicles must have a data modem with a contract SIM card. One can get these cheaply enough (I have one on a backup router for £3/month) but somebody has to be paying this, for ever, plus charges for data actually transferred, and there must be some, since the manufacturers would not want to miss out on a load of telemetry.
It must also be possible to disable this modem e.g. by wrapping the antenna assembly with aluminium foil. Much of the UK land area has no data coverage so it can’t possibly tell 
Peter wrote:
that means these vehicles must have a data modem with a contract SIM card. One can get these cheaply enough (I have one on a backup router for £3/month) but somebody has to be paying this, for ever, plus charges for data actually transferred,
What someone has to pay is not some artificial subscription price but rather the cost of this service. And the marginal cost for such a subscription (and low usage of data) is about zero as this is a fixed cost business. Obviously there are some calculated cost , but they are much lower that 3GBP/month. My lawn mower has such a module and the price I paid for it surely doesn’t include a 36EUR/yr subscription. That indicates that manufacturers can negotiate quite good deals with mobile operators…
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
Tesla is now the most valuable car maker
In one particular valuation method for companies (i.e. the one where you take the price for the last traded share and multiply it with the number of shares) this is obviously true. That, however, might say more about company valuation methods and the state of current stock markets than about the quality of Tesla as a company or their cars.
LeSving wrote:
Also this self driving hype bubble is broken.
Couldn’t agree more! Even the less informed car buyers start to realize that most of the fancy self driving videos show features that according to Tesla’s own statements (e.g. in the operating manual) are not allowed to use.
Graham wrote:
I’m all for electric propulsion but it does seem to come bundled with a degree of connectivity that, from a point of view of one’s personal freedoms, seems undesirable.
I see automation and connectivity independent from the drive technology. Any modern higher-end car comes connected to the internet for their “infotainment” system, and if the goal is remote monitoring and control, it can easily achieved there, too, and if the paranoid are right, probably already has. (and BTW – “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you” — Joseph Heller, Catch22).
Re Tesla – So far, the slow move from “only game in town” to “yet another electric car maker” has not hurt because the market is growing faster than their market share declines. This will not go on forever, though.
Malibuflyer wrote:
features that according to Tesla’s own statements (e.g. in the operating manual) [you] are not allowed to use.
I believe all Tesla features actually enabled are legal to use – but they are FAR, FAR away from anything one would call self-driving. It is a mediocre adaptive cruise control worse than what is found in other cars, and an above average lane-keeping autosteer with navigation integration.
Huge let-down. For example, in stop-and-go traffic, the acceleration and stopping is so uncomfortable that I would give it a one-star review it it was an Uber driver. Lane changing in moderate traffic works maybe 50% of the time; especially annoying are time-out aborts halfway through – anyone following me would think I am drunk. The cruise control is a massive step back from the Mercedes I had before. It does not support a speed limit function, so for the first time in decades I have to look at the speed indicator rather than tweaking the max speed and forgetting about it. All I have now is a stupid ‘speed limit’ chime, which annoyingly is wrong in two places on my regular drive because for some reason it thinks the limit is 20 mph when it is 30, and I have to ignore the bongs. And using the cruise control with a set speed is impossible in urban areas because it brakes randomly for parked cars, which is actually dangerous with traffic following.
On longer motorway drives it is fine, although on occasion it makes some funny mistakes.
This is the main reason why I wrote that, given the market at the time, I would buy it again, but next time around, not very likely.
Cobalt wrote:
I believe all Tesla features actually enabled are legal to use
Cobalt wrote:
And using the cruise control with a set speed is impossible in urban areas
Exactly what I mean: The cruise control is not allowed for “within cities or on roads with changing traffic situation” (p. 110 of model 3 owners manual Rev. 2020.44). The use of the “autopilot” (i.e. “steering assistant” is “only allowed on highways” and “generally not in urban areas … or on roads that are used by pedestrians or cyclists” (p. 118)
Interesting observations wrt Tesla autopilot features. I don’t own one, but some of my friends do and the thing pretty much drives itself even in heavy SoCal traffic. Very impressive. Could it be that some of these features are not activated / legal in Europe? One thing is of course certain – it’s a car developed in and for the US with very different road conditions / layouts then Europe.
Interesting. The Model S manual does not contain a prohibition, only a “WARNING: Autosteer is intended for use only on highways and limited-access roads with a fully attentive driver. …”
Not that it makes any difference in practice.
Peter wrote:
that means these vehicles must have a data modem with a contract SIM card
My “old” eUp from 2014 was one of the first, if not the first car from VW with connectivity. About a year and a half ago, this suddenly stopped working for no apparent (to me) reason. What happened next was I entered into a real nasty argument with VW centrally, VW importer in Norway and this We-Connect/Car-net all blaming each other. What VW had done was to change the whole system from the “first generation” to a “second generation” that was GDPR compliant. Car-Net was disabled for my car, only the newer We-Connect could be used. My eUp was the “first generation”, and for it to work I had to change the whole “mobile phone system” in the car, or something like that, including new SIM card. A rather expensive thing. Now, this We-connect is a subscription service (free the first couple of years only), and I had just payed the subscription for a year when it stopped working.
From the mails, it was quite obvious that this was all planned from long ago, and the few existing “first generation” users was simply planned to be left in the dust. I have received no warning, not from We-Connect/Car-net, not from the importer in Norway who also did yearly maintenance from day one, not from VW centrally. It just stopped working. Anyway, after many emails, the local VW garage fixed it. I have no idea who payed, and don’t really care.
I think we will see much more of this. These systems will become obsolete rather fast, at least within the life time of the car, and when they do, you will lose a whole lot of stuff, stuff that you have grown to be dependent on, unless updating the hardware.
172driver wrote:
I don’t own one, but some of my friends do and the thing pretty much drives itself even in heavy SoCal traffic. Very impressive.
As long as it is not stop and go and you don’t have to change lanes, it works nicely. On a 300 mile motorway trip, it makes maybe 2 mistakes; my favourite is if a lane widens to become two lanes, it stays in the middle of the widening lane, only to be surprised when it suddenly straddles two lanes. At that point, it hits the brakes and swerves into one of the two lanes. Fortunately, one can see that one coming; when it happened to me the first time I was thinking “that is going to be interesting!” and was not disappointed…
Stop and go is horrible to no end.
The car itself can stop very nicely. When driving in proper “EV mode”, i.e, turning off the “creep” when the brake is not applied, the car comes to a very smooth stop and then applies the brakes. When you then press the accelerator again, the brakes are released, and again you hardly notice. I general driving, I rarely touch the brake pedal at all.
Not so the autopilot. The adaptive cruise control brings the car to an abrupt stop about a car length behind the car ahead. This is quite uncomfortable; very much like a learner driver who has not learned how to modulate the brake. When the car ahead then starts moving, it reacts with the speed of the average octogenarian waking from a nap, only to accelerate aggressively to make up for that delay.
Lane changes are also fun. 80% of the time they work fine. You indicate, the car initiates the lane change (after some due consideration and deliberation) and moves across. But if the change is delayed a bit, it ‘times out’ halfway across and then swerves back into the original lane.
The “wow, it drives itself” very quickly turns into a “wow, it drives quite badly” in these situations.
172driver wrote:
it’s a car developed in and for the US with very different road conditions / layouts then Europe.
Absolutely – in addition to that, driving in many parts of the US is objectively much easier than in most parts of Europe (from an autonomous driving POV): Lanes are wider, speed on highway is lower (and therefore more importantly more homogeneous), less traffic signs and lights. The only thing which is really more difficult for an AI driver ist 4way Stop crossings – but I’m not sure if Tesla manages to drive these autonomously…
btw.: @Peter: Wouldn’t it make sense to take the Car-Thread out of this political Thread?
