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When your vehicle outlives its cloud: What happens next? (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 57 points 1 month ago (70 children)

Well, most cars don't REQUIRE it, but most cars lose features if it doesn't have network connectivity.

Good luck finding a car made after 2020 that doesn't have at least one or two features that require the Internet to function.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (67 children)

    I've never seen a car like this. Mine was made in 2021 though so I must have caught the last ship car out lol. What kind of things do cars even use the internet for? I'm struggling to imagine it

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  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago (27 children)

    Remote start, lock/unlock doors, HVAC, windows, and alarm for basics.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago* (17 children)

    All things that have worked just fine on cars for like at least a decade before the internet was ever invented. You are describing the exact functions of a key fob. They can even open the truck without the Internet!

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    They make it go through an app and a cloud service on purpose these days so they have an excuse to upsell you on a subscription.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I've never seen a fob be able to set climate controls. Either way, I'd rather control my own cloud for the car through home assistant

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago*

    That's exactly what I use remote start for. Just leave your car set to 68 or whatever and then when you remote start it will come up or down to temp. Even on my cheapass Chevy that's 10 years old I can remote start it (including the HVAC) and also hold the "unlock" to start the defroster. Now I can't actually change the temp the system is set at without getting in the car, thats true, but that's a real edge case for me when I can just leave it set at room temp pretty much year round. Even the seats and steering wheel will heat up if I left that on beforehand. But maybe you do have a real need to tweak the temp and A/C values on the daily where you live, rather than just have the car resume where you left it at, I wouldn't know.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago*

    The closest I know of is some VWs and Hondas allow certain click patterns to do things like roll down all the windows or open sunroofs maybe.

    Accords and Passats I think maybe Jettas have done it for decades.

    Same for remote start. Which my 10 y/o Subaru does with a fob and as long as I set the heat to the right settings before getting out, works a treat on subzero mornings.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Off topic, but I noticed your username....China Mieville fan by chance?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    That doesn't need the internet though right? Like a button on your key fob would achieve the same effect?

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    I have two cars made after 2020. Both have a phone app where you can set the internal climate settings in the car. You wouldn't practically be able to do that from a keyfob.

    Both also allow remote starting from the phone, with a setting for how long to let the car run before it turns off again. From a keyfob it's normally set to 5 minutes with no option to change it.

    Both are quality of life features that aren't really required, but I do use them pretty regularly. If the internet stopped working on either car, they'd act just like any older car that didn't have those features.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    nah, pretty simple. set the preferred settings in the menu in the vehicle, then have a fob button to activate it. flash the lights to signal acknowledgement, just like locking and unlocking.

    although maybe don't actually flash the lights, since everything is stupidly over bright LED now and it's rude af to be using those unnecessarily

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    My car has a timer to set the cabin at a given temperature by a given time, do you know if your car has a function like that?

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    To add, my vehicle (2011) has its date display (as in the date & time) no longer accurate because it's somehow integrated with the GPS, which has since stopped updating the date, and cannot be set manually. I now keep a little clock in my car that has the date on it to make up for the loss. It's not that big of a deal compared to what others have mentioned, but it was still a shock to me when I found it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (5 children)

    Not to rub salt in the wound, but the GPS signals are hitting the car's GPS antenna unless you've disconnected that wire, pulled the fuse to the receiver, or only drive inside hardened RF shielded bunkers. When I was futzing with a little GPS breadboard module the time is what I looked for first, because if you've got that time signal from GPS then you know the thing is working. (PEDANTIC EDIT: The signals will hit the antenna if you're outside unless you've shielded them somehow, even if you disconnect the wire.)

    You could use GPS signals to synchronize clocks across the entire planet to within a microsecond while your car could be used to prop a stick up to make a sundial.

    I'm going to wager there's something else going on there. If you have a working GPS receiver, a working display (you said you did), a working "clock" that counts seconds and can give something time-like to the display to show (seems like you do), then a switch might be flipped in software and you have a data point about why GNU does what they do.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    You’re getting downvoted, but I’m in the exact same position. Car made in 2021, no connectivity at all. I cannot start it remotely - why would you do that? Is it really more convenient than turning a key or pressing a button once seated? I guess people really do like it, I just find it hard to imagine.

    Starting the climate control from a distance sounds comfortable, the first few moments of driving can be too hot or cold.

    I don’t have a built-in GPS, but if there was one I don’t see a benefit of using my phone to control it.

    Windows? What?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    You start it remotely if you don't have a preheater. Not that idling is great for a car engine, but at least you'll have clear windows by the time you get in the car.

    In the summer you can use it to have a cold car to sit into.

    Remote climate control doesn't work on ICE vehicles without Remote start or auxiliary preheater.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

    keeping the navigation database up to date is one. no way to update maps in my Taycan without paying $27 a month for Porsche Connect, which I have never paid.

    and I dislike relying on Android Auto given the surveillance inherent in enabling it. it'd be nice to not have fucking subscription navigation maintenance

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Not sure why you think Google would exploit your navigation data but Porsche wouldn't. I guarantee both are finding ways to make a profit by bundling and selling the enormous amounts of data users are feeding back to them by using their systems.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I'm not saying I trust Porsche at ALL with my data. Far from it. In fact I at least trust Google to have better software engineering standards, even if their software is inherently surveillance evil bullshit.

    But I haven't been able to confirm that Porsche actually DOES log and exfiltrate location or navigation data. Certainly not in my Lexis Nexus report, and there's been nothing I've seen reported about them when a bunch of other automakers have been called out for selling surveillance access.

    What I do know is that Google is confirmed to be doing so. Unless I've missed some reporting or leak, I can't confirm that Porsche is collecting, exfiltrating from my car without an active data plan, and selling GPS and nav routing data from it.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Oh for sure, I just meant for those people that do subscribe to Porsche Connect, Porsche is very probably finding some way to monetize all that sweet sweet location and navigation data. I feel like any car that generates telemetry data and has a data connection to the manufacturer, those companies are packaging up and selling off that data to someone. But that's really just speculation on my part.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Problem is, even tho I don't subscribe, the data connection is still there, and it's still used to deliver some OTA updates, and a recall on the battery involves some remote monitoring that, so even tho I don't subscribe I still don't feel entirely safe from being surveilled.

    I've thought a bunch about seeing if I can just pull a fuse and kill connectivity without killing anything else, but the battery recall thing is reason enough to avoid that for the time being. Besides, Flock (and other) surveillance cameras popping up everywhere are such a bigger problem anyways that it kinda kills my motivation to bother

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    I was mentioning this issue with my weird little car in another thread.

    My car is old enough that it uses a 3g radio to connect to the internet so that things like the NissanConnect app will work. I don't know how many 3g towers there are, but the app functionality definitely doesn't work. The rest of the car works fine, all the accessories work, but the app doesn't.

    The car is a 2018, which i think is before the push for subscription heated seats.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    As a side note, heated seats suck, I don't get the appeal. It makes me feel like I'm wetting myself.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I've no clue if I will like them or not. This car I have now is the first I've had with heated seats and steering wheel, I've only turned them on to see if they work, because every day since I bought the car has been over 90°F/32°C.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    Do you not have harsh winters? I don't miss them that much in the American pacific northwest (mild 4 seasons climate) outside of a few weeks a year, but when I lived in the American Midwest where the climate is harsher in both directions I really missed having seat warmers when it was below -5C regularly and sometimes going below -20C

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    GPS, telematics(the driving data your car collects and sends back to the automotive company who built it), over the air updates, some SOS style features like OnStar, maybe satellite radio.

    Edit: Maybe apps, and stuff like updates to the onboard owners manual (because some cars don't come with a paper one anymore). Oh. And using your phone as a key.

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