Re:Tesla envy grips Germany’s giants
by paulddraper on Monday September 05, 2016 @02:49PM
(#12431708)
> maintain the sensation they are in control of the status of their vehicle
Hopefully it's more than the sensation. Anyone who's ever had a Windows update take over right before a presentation, or an Apple update brick their phone, wishes they had more control over when and if to accept an update.
Being able to upgrade/downgrade helps a lot. "Bluetooth for my headphones broke, after I upgraded. I'll downgrade, until they've fixed that bug."
I see four categories of people here:
1) People who really don't want to think about it, and fully trust Tesla to take care of them. This is the vast majority of people.
2) People who understand security, and want security patches applied as quickly as possible by a professional. This group also likes OTA updates, but is admittedly quite small.
3) People who want to minimize their security surface area entirely. These people wouldn't buy a Tesla, nor would they allow their dealer to plug into their car. They buy a car that's carefully vetted to have a small attack surface, and do the maintenance themselves (or by a trusted contractor). This is, like, the Secret Service, etc. This is a tiny group.
4) People who need some degree of "control theater" so that they can maintain the sensation they are in control of the status of their vehicle, but who aren't actually applying any sort of rigorous security protocol (as evidenced by leaving their car unattended at a random dealership). It's is a bigger group than #2 or #3, but much smaller than #1.