this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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This is not just something that can impact EVs. NFC door locks, smart infotainment, displays for gauges. None of that is EV specific these days.
These cars were clearly not designed to work without cloud connectivity and or an authenticated account. That seems bonkers. China is huge and has lots of remote areas. How were these cars going to work when they couldn’t phone home?
IMHO, a lot of cars have gone way overboard with “smart” features, but this manufacturer’s problems are the result of cutting corners and not designing for some common use cases.
And I don't need any of that.
Give me a simple car and I'll buy it.
The ages of cars on the road has been increasing. As reliability and prices continue to go up, more and more people hold on to their cars.
Maybe. I don’t know of any other car brands that totally shit the bed when the cloud services get cut off.
To be fair, Fiskers are likely to brick themselves and the company is still alive. They have some of the worst software in the auto industry.
That said, my point is that a lot of “smart” cars are designed work just fine offline. Being offline is common in rural areas and or when the driver decided to stop paying for mobile connectivity.
I’ve done the latter with a couple cars. You lose the ability to download new maps, see traffic, install updated streaming apps, and or remotely control climate / windows / locks with your phone. But I use my phone for music maps, and I don’t really care about unlocking the car with my phone.
I can speak for Volvo and Audi’s platforms over the past 5-10 years. I spent a lot of times using those. They’re connected up the wazoo, but they also work just fine if you stop paying for cloud connectivity or get into a remote area.
You basically lose access to advanced maps, streaming apps, and being able to remotely control / monitor your car with your phone.
When I briefly looked at a Telsa, it looked like those things were kind of in a similar boat. Biggest problem with Tesla is that, since they don’t support CarPlay or Android Auto, you -need- a cloud subscription if you want streaming apps and maps. Other cars can pipe that into the center console through Apple or Google’s projection systems.
Or when the network that the car relies on no longer exists. My old e-reader's mobile connectivity no longer works because the phone company providing the service turned the 3G network off in the upgrade to 4G.
It's just 17 years old. People tend to keep cars for about that long. What happens then? Does it just become limited to basics only, or become a big metal brick?
People stop paying for smart car’s online services all the time.
You typically lose access maps or only get basic offline maps without traffic and charging stations listed. You also lose the ability to use streaming apps, the ability to remotely control locks, windows, cameras and climate from your phone, stolen vehicle tracking, alarm notifications, etc.
But if you have CarPlay / Android auto, the good maps and streaming apps can be pumped in from your phone.
I've never seen Android Auto work worth a shit. I use a charge-only USB cable to prevent my phone from trying to connect. The only use I have for the infotainment system is as a smooth flat surface on which to attach an adhesive phone mount.
I only use android auto in my ev6, I have had multiple pixel phones. Google map, a better route planner, teams, YouTube music. No issues, well one issue but it was not android auto, the cable connection in the car was loss so I put some conductive grease on it and reconnected it. Had no dropout's since.
At least the cars can be updated (at least until the manufacturer says fuck it). A ton of those 'smart' devices have no such capability so when a vulnerability is found it won't ever be fixed.
This is why I won’t touch a car that doesn’t have Android Auto, CarPlay, etc. I want to be able to update my audio apps and maps, even when the manufacturer decides to stop updating my head unit.
that only shifts the problem to Apple and Google, neither of which can be trusted to keep supporting older versions of CarPlay or Android Auto as the years go by and they change shit around.
Possibly, but these technology are a decade old, their product roadmaps still look very robust, and a lot of drivers actually base new purchase decisions on that feature’s availability.
IMHO, it’s low risk, and if it does get killed, oh well. Voice control and a dash mounted phone isn’t the total end of the world.
NFC door locks have a sliding panel with a key override. Usually a shit lock that can be opened by any amateur... One of the many reasons I don't have one.
Probably just should said “phone key” instead of assuming NFC. It looks like a lot of these cars use other technologies to unlock without a fob.