That said, I believe that there is very limited legal recourse for a vehicle OEM who wants to prevent an end user from changing the data collection and upload features of their vehicles. The worst thing would be potentially voiding the warranty, but for 10-15 year old used vehicles, that's not an issue.

I work as an in-house counsel at a vehicle OEM (likely not one you've heard of). Our end customers are generally large companies, so it may be different for personal passenger vehicles, but we actively plan for the contingencies where our end users switch out their telematics module, or request to have the telematics data stream be directed to another service provider. Further, in our market, the idea that the customer wouldn't want telematics at all is not really likely, but we also plan for that possibility.

So, I don't believe the used market isn't as big of a deal as you may think. The real concern for personal vehicles is losing essential warranty or service options for new vehicles by turning off the data collection.

Which is super scary. A couple years ago one of their firmware engineers had his NDA expire, and he posted some stories about his time there in some forum.

One of the stories that stuck with me is they were really sloppy with their updates. One time the pushed one that wasn't fully cooked (it might have bricked some, I can't remember), so one of the engineers literally wrote a script to SSH into each of the cars to roll back part of the update.

Update: here's the original source: https://twitter.com/atomicthumbs/status/1032939617404645376

https://www.wired.com/2016/08/jeep-hackers-return-high-speed...

Since the author remains anon, I always thought it was just a troll.

Full quote:

> model s and x use openvpn to talk to their backend. inside that backend there are metadata services that feed info to the system, one of those things being a ~20MB+ (generated by the worst erp system) json payload that describes supercharger shit for the map in the touchscreen. somebody was smart enough to do automated linting but forgot to validate against the custom parser the car runs which caused a segfault in the qt app that runs the ui, which in turn for a variety of reasons forces a reboot of that component. I think we clocked about 15 seconds before it read the file and faulted after boot. it was doing that for an hour before everyone panicked and got me and qa on the phone to fix it. i wrote a quick python/fabric script that ssh’d to as many cars as possible at a time to rm the file

- "On that note, China has a law in place that mandates all electric cars send real time telemetry to their government servers - Model S/X/3, NIO cars and any other electric car if they're driving already complies with that law to be road certified"

- "Don't be surprised if that becomes a mandate in other countries"

They regularly lambast HN via this thread. It would be great if more people read their criticisms of the community here.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=39...

However, I believe consumers also have a way to laugh Tesla out of the room, eventually: public policy ideas like the first sale doctrine, or just straight up passing new laws saying that when you buy a car, the manufacturer must provide basic certain basic services (such as allowing the vehicle to run, and warranty for basic components) even if the purchaser elects to deactivate some of the data collection.

In the past few decades, we have really allowed power to accrue to large corporations, but I think that things like the right-to-repair movement show that the pendulum may swing the other direction, at least in some contexts. Regardless of overall political or economic ideology, as soon as a large portion of the population realizes that these OEMs are basically saying "yes, pay me a good chunk of your annual salary, and I'll let you use this vehicle as long as you don't piss me off," I think things will swing very quickly in favor of consumers. The reason it hasn't yet is because most people don't have to deal with vehicles with these restrictions.

I'm sure its not going to be long before you don't _own_ your car, you just purchased a license to use it for a period of time.

Have they updated the software such that this isn't possible?

>I work as an in-house counsel at a vehicle OEM

If you're really a lawyer, I'm surprised you'd write any of this, because it's blatantly false. The Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 makes it blatantly illegal to "void" a warranty for any modification, unless it can be proven that the modification caused the issue that the customer is making a warranty claim for.

But in any case, your post does strengthens my main point, which is that fear over surveillance of vehicles by OEMs, with no consumer recourse, is somewhat overblown.

EDIT:

Just read Magnusson-Moss, and I have a question since you seem to know about it - you said the act "makes it blatantly illegal to 'void' a warranty for any modification, unless it can be proven that the modification caused the issue that the customer is making a warranty claim for."

But the act itself says "the warrantor shall not impose any duty other than notification upon any consumer as a condition of securing remedy [...] unless the warrantor has demonstrated [...] that such a duty is reasonable." 15 U.S.C. § 2304(b)(1).

Based on what's actually in the text of the law, I could imagine Tesla or some other OE making the argument that it is "reasonable" to condition the warranty on the consumer continuing to feed the stream of telematics data to the OE, because it allows them to identify warranty issues before they require substantial repairs, thus potentially saving significant money for the OE, and significant time for the consumer - certainly a reasonable thing. I personally don't agree with that argument, but I'm curious how you would respond to it, and how you can be sure that a court would shoot it down.

As for your example, that sounds pretty contrived and ridiculous to me. Doesn't mean someone might not try it though; companies have tried lots of ridiculous legal tactics before, such as Oracle's current API lawsuit. But I imagine any decent court would shoot it down pretty quickly. Warranty claims are made because parts fail before the warranty expires; the absence of telematics isn't going to magically make some mechanical part fail faster. It might help identify it sooner, sure, but it's still a defective part for failing that quickly, so I don't see how the consumer disabling telematics absolves the manufacturer from covering this. In short, it's never been "reasonable" before this for car companies to have telematics to keep their machines working properly through the warranty period, so why is it suddenly required now? It's not reasonable for anything else either; does a new house need telematics for the house warranty to be valid? How about a blender or toaster in the kitchen? I don't see this argument going far at all.

I have never run into a situation where my current company tried to limit its warranty in legally interesting ways (and it wouldn't necessarily get to my desk anyway), so I never really had call to dig and find Magnusson-Moss. I suspect that knowledge of that law is probably more top-of-mind for DIYers than for OEM lawyers.

I still think that whether requiring telematics is a "reasonable" condition for a warranty is more complicated than you think, but what you're saying is exactly the counterargument I would make.

And, I hope I've provided some assurance that I am, in fact, a lawyer. Whether I'm a good one is perhaps up for debate. :)

E.g., Tesla already seems to try and decide the questions in the way manufacturers would likely have them, i.e. suppressing data transmission is tampering and the problem of car reselling doesn't apply as cars cannot be resold anymore without manufacturer involvement.

I think it's up to consumers to offer a different perspective here.

I suspect this will become a huge societal problem if it continues like this in a car-dependent country like the US. Yes, the middle-class people will probably still be able to purchase $30,000-40,000 cars for the foreseeable future (even adjusted for inflation), but what will happen to the people who won't be able to purchase a second-hand car that costs more than $5000-6000 (or even $1000-2000)? How will they continue to get to work in a country that values public transport so lowly?

a) Certified pre-owned and similar programs making some used cars more appealing (and thus more valuable), removing them from the supply of unvetted, cheap used cars.

b) More folks being able to afford used cars around the world. It seems like at the lower end of the market, many American used cars are shipped to Latin America or the Caribbean (in Europe many older cars are sent to Africa), again reducing the supply of used cars.

This is my sketchy recollection of things I've heard and read, I don't have any direct sources to link you to, but I've certainly heard multiple people bemoan that say, $5-10k doesn't buy you nearly as good a car as it used to (even adjusting for inflation).

EDIT: As an aside, the issue of shipping cars to different regions could also prove interesting for owners down the road. There are already some issues there - I believe my car's navigation system is for North America, or maybe US+Canada. So if my car gets shipped to Argentina in 10 years, the Nav will be useless or will need an update. Not a huge deal. But if Tesla's Autopilot is tuned for conditions and laws in a certain region, it would presumably require reprogramming for another region. Would that be an automatic over-the-air update? Or would Tesla not want to bother with free updates to a 20-year-old car?

The OP talking about a $5,000 car is talking about a 10-20 year old car with 100,000+ miles.

Both cars appeal to a different set of buyers. The CPO car effectively competes against new cars.

It's not uncommon at all today to see a car tick over 200,000+ miles, so buying a car for $5,000 with 100,000 miles on it can be seen as a pretty good deal. Usually people would recommend a good Japanese / Korean car (Toyota, Honda, etc.).

At the same time, emissions controls changed the market in that cars are more governed by use not age. I mostly buy Hondas and know the market a bit, and they are all good for about 200,000 miles without significant maintenance.

I sold a 2003 Honda Pilot with 250k miles for $2,500 last year -- really high considering all of the stuff that will break on a car of that vintage. In the 90's, that pricepoint would be for a much younger car. A place like CarMax will sell a 2010 Pilot with low mileage for $15k, which works because the TCO works out -- you won't have lots of maintenance.

That seemed to be true for a while, but I've seen prices relax quite a bit lately. It's possible this was just local, and I'm not seeing a broader trend.

It's also the case that perfectly good brand new cars can be had for $13-$14k, (Nissan Versa, Ford Fiesta) which I appreciate are not attainable for many people.

That's why you don't see less-wealthy people commuting to their jobs in an early 2000s Mercedes S-Klass or in a VW Phaeton (even though they'd be able to purchase such vehicles at today's prices), but instead they use an older Honda or a Toyota or a slightly newer Nissan.

Sourcing a CANBUS module for a 10+yo car is already a roll of the dice. Take all the modules that are required for the vehicle to operate, are matched to the VIN, can't be re-flashed, aren't available aftermarket and aren't made by the OEM anymore and anything that breaks where those sets intersect turns the vehicle into a brick. The list gets a little longer every day and won't get shorter until we get right to repair legislation with teeth.

You can drive a car without all the fancy electronic doodads. Everyone who drives a 20+yo car does it every day. You can't drive a vehicle that won't start because it doesn't see some quasi-essential (e.g. ABS) module talking on the bus.

I'm starting to doubt this more and more. Dumping the ROM from a read-only chip and flashing a new one isn't rocket science. After watching stuff like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqWhId-tQXs&t=9m31s and guys like Dave Jones and Louis Rossman, it looks like the entire repair industry is long due for disruption. Sure, finding old or obsolete parts will still be a problem, but not impossible.

This seems like a violation of long-standing consumer protection laws and precedents.

Not that I doubt that they believe this, or even that they've said or implied it, but is there any official statement from Tesla to the effect of prohibiting, or even trying to limit, resale without Tesla's involvement?

I wonder if anyone will jump at the market for cars that don't track you. I wonder who would fund that.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21971545

In the Tesla Model 3 and Nissan Leaf there are menu settings to disable it. Additionally in the Leaf it prompts you at interval (every 2000 miles?) to notify you about it.

Or every g-ddamned time you start the car, depending if you have a first-gen or not. The GPRS radio in ours is unhooked, so now the button press is just ceremony so you can see the screen.

But do note the part where the cell radio is unhooked. Whatever the car, there’s a module in there somewhere that probably just needs to be unplugged.

My in-laws have a Ford Escape that does that.

Where are you getting this crazy idea? If it's your car, you can tamper with it all you want, as long as you don't violate emissions laws and stuff like that. There's no law preventing you from tampering with your car's data collection or transmission, or most other things for that matter. How do you think the entire aftermarket parts industry exists?

However it will likely require legislation to ensure there's no DRM bullshit in the battery packs.

https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=4&prod...

Used Tesla battery, 5kWh for $1500. you're looking at ~10 of these for decent range.

(What happens when an EU national drives one of the American surveillancemobiles? Sounds like a straightforward GDPR violation to me, although good luck getting that resolved)

A potential privacy issue yes, but much less so than the data collection.

I imagine it'll be like any useful service, once you turn off the data collection, it suddenly loses a bunch of useful features

In Europe there needs to be due to GDPR. It will be interesting to see how this works out as this has not been challenged as far as I know.

Depends on LEO. If it is easier to deal with trackable cars, then untrackable cars will be hotter than black tinted windows and radar detectors.

It already is, to some extent; why can I not gut my catalytic converter & change some programming so my car says the outputs are fine? Because the state wants me to get rid of my old functional car to support the economy of newer more expensive vehicles.

...also probably to protect the environment?

Yes, retrofitting would be better, but if that's not possible, what else would you do to get converters into cars?

Also, I think GP was talking about removing a converter from a car that already had one. Literally not doing anything would be better for the environment than that.

modifies car to literally emit noxious emissions everywhere