See, I don't agree at all. Just like all cars have to pass a pretty strict annual inspection to be on the road, I imagine autonomous cars will have to go through regular assessment too.

More specifically, I'm bothered by the fact that if you get into a crash in a Tesla, Tesla can disable your car and stop it from activating unless you do repairs at their approved dealership. You can't just buy parts from a scrapyard and get it running again, Tesla is the gatekeeper and they don't let anyone else hold the keys(they don't even release service manuals unless absolutely required by law). In contrast I could buy a brand new Mercedes CLS with its very respectable smart cruise control and Mercedes can't do anything to stop me from replacing the engine, the head unit, or fixing the whole thing if it's totalled - they just can't. It's not a freedom I'm willing to lose by buying a Tesla.

We don't have open source implantable medical devices either.

I would expect autonomous cars to be have doubled down security against tinkering although I personally don't like that. The reason is purely public safety. If someone could re-program autonomous cars to slam into public crowds and places, imagine the havoc it can cause. A malicious actors can just walk in to parking garage, put in some wires and reprogram every vehicle they can get their hands on - imagine those scenarios.

You can already do that with existing cars(pretty much anything that has power steering, so last 30 years of cars) and yet you don't see people hijacking vehicles left and right this way(or any other way, you can cut someone's brakes in 5 seconds and yet it's extremely rare). I think this is a made up problem.

It's not about usual hijacking or rigging. It's about telling car to speed and slam into pedestrians if it sees large enough group of them, for example, and until that time it can just behave normally. Think of terrorists getting access to programmable robot that weighs over a ton, that can accelerate to 60 miles/hr under 5 seconds and it can identify objects in its surrounding.

So.....a new Mercedes with driver assist package then? And Mercedes will not stop you from modding their cars to your heart's content, you don't have to ask them for permission to work on your car like you have to with a Tesla.

>Autonomous farm vehicles or something, sure

I knew I'd find someone here who hates when John Deere locks down their vehicles, but is fine when Elon Musk does.

How about a random joe tinkering with his brakes? My redneck neighbors replace their own brake pads.