The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled.
Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new cars to be equipped with "driver impairment" tech which was called a "kill switch". Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-402773429497
Anyway, I'm staying with my old gas Honda until it dies which is probably never with proper maintenance and eventually restoration. I'll never go electric. Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point, and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.
Whenever I talk about this issue with friends and family I bring up how that report revealed Nissan was gathering info on sexual activity in their cars and can sell it to third parties. That usually gets people to start listening.
I'm with you here. I have an 89 BMW (which is old enough to have an actual servo motor attached to the intake manifold for cruise control) and an 83 Land Cruiser (whose most advanced feature is that it controls its emissions using vacuum controlled pneumatic circuitry).
I'm very glad I've put in the time to learn how to work on cars because I have zero interest in the tech direction of modern vehicles.
I love older cars and drove an early 80s Volvo until 2010 or so, but I also love side impact airbags, antilock brakes, and a car that mostly just “works”.
87 BMW here. I believe my servo is controlling the throttle cable itself. When the cruise control commands the vehicle to accelerate, the pedal physically moves.
It's not my daily driver, but I would absolutely love to one day get another one as a project car - one that's not in such good condition that I'd feel bad removing the engine - and drop an electric motor in it. That likely _would_ become my daily driver. The car's incredibly well made, and a joy to drive.
> Anyway, I'm staying with my old gas Honda until it dies which is probably never with proper maintenance and eventually restoration.
I would have stuck with my 2003 Honda Accord too, except that some woman, probably talking or texting on her cell, slammed into me while I was stopped at a light, totaling my car and damaging 3 others. I got $8K for my car after arguing with the insurance company, and paid $28K for a 3 y/o replacement.
The fine for texting while driving in Kentucky is $25.
That whole system looks like what we install on police patrol cars. Left switch allows you to keep car running even when keys are removed (but you can’t drive it will kill the ignition).
GPS is for obvious reasons tracking. But these don’t look like patrol cars so it’s out of my wheel house.
“eCall (an abbreviation of "emergency call") is an initiative by the European Union, intended to bring rapid assistance to motorists involved in a collision anywhere within the European Union. The aim is for all new cars to incorporate a system that automatically contacts the emergency services in the event of a serious accident, sending location and sensor information. eCall was made mandatory in all new cars approved for manufacture within the European Union as of April 2018.”
Interestingly, everyone is actually scrambling to get the legislation changed or a replacement for eCall that works over 4G/5G before 2027 because 2G/3G is or is being shut down all over the place. Otherwise, technically, driving these cars could become illegal in the EU.
This is a huge reason why I won't buy more modern vehicles.
Safety features and fuel economy are night and day when comparing a 5 year old car and a 30 year old one, but between the privacy issues and inability to diagnose or fix a new car I just can't do it.
I bought an 80s model truck that sat in a garage for over a decade and has 50k original miles on it. I'm still chasing down a couple gremlins in the system, but its nice to be able to work on it myself. Bonus that it may not be driving perfectly right now but its happy keep on chugging, even if a sensor is bad or I get an occasional code for running lean.
Electric cars are essentially black boxes. When you take it apart, you have largely no idea what any of the chips do, even if you chase down what they're connected to. Is this the infotainment system or is it the infotainment system and a data gathering system that sends all my data off seas? There's no way to know. Old cars don't have that problem. Here's an engine, here's a gearbox, add a radio if you'd like, but by and large it's possible to grok what's in your car. With newer vehicles in general, and electric cars especially, it's near impossible to tell.
For what it’s worth a lot of the transmitters for in car connectivity are in the headliner lighting unit. A lot of electronics end up there like front facing cameras for driver assists. You can in my current Porsche, my past Camaro, and a couple other cars I’ve looked at just unplug the module there. Sometimes you lose your Homelink garage door transmitter.
If you lookup the repair procedure for the cellular unit you will have found the way to disable it.
> Most people would have probably driven around for years with a foreign GPS tracker.
So basically everyone with a smartphone? I'm not sure if it's really worse if the car has its own GPS and cell connectivity. How many people turn off their phone or leave it at home? And you can buy other people's location data, so...
The difference is in intent. People dislike intended tracking by a third party, that’s it. You cellphone company, your google, your govt can have it. Others can not. Even when they can, people actively don’t want that. What’s wrong with it?
You can turn off your phone or go into airplane mode. Can you do that with your car? Even if most people don't use that option on a daily basis, doesn't mean it's fine.
While not false, careful defensive driving makes a big difference. But most people hate someone cutting in front of them and so won't maintain large follow ng distances
I know your comment is just the traditional HN karma grab, but rejecting technological advancement in vehicles based on privacy concerns means missing out on significant improvements in safety, efficiency, and comfort. Would you also reject modern healthcare because hospitals use connected devices?
Since I'm going to buy a new car in the following years, wondering which cars don't have those? I don't mind old gas cars but I don't have the knowledge to tell whether the car contains those eSIMs.
There should not be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive
This argument doesn't really make sense. The "expectation of privacy" in public doesn't refer to losing all your rights and letting anyone peek into anything when they want to. Vehicles can also be used on private roads or property, so the privacy invading tech would need to account for that (which I'm sure it doesn't, and there isn't a straightforward solution)
>There SHOULD NOT be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive
let's say somebody else said "There SHOULD be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive"
Is there some reason I should side with you over them, or just your opinion? If the courts decided that there was an expectation of privacy on public roads, would you agitate to change the law so there wasn't?
While there is no expectation of privacy when one is out and about on the city streets, it generally means "you can take a photo of a fountain on the city square without getting every tourist that was caught in the photo to sign a release", not "you can rummage through everybody's bags"
We're not talking about monitoring traffic on roads there, but about an embedded spying device that is enabled even when you're in your own garage and is also being used commercially to monetize your private life.
Some other good ones: there should not be an expectation of privacy when performing surgery. There should not be an expectation of privacy when performing the monopoly on the legal use of force.
There was just an incident in my area that involved OnStar shutting down a hijacked car at the police’s behest and the guy got out and shot and killed another driver in the attempt to carjack him.
So, any car with OnStar apparently already has a remote kill switch. Perhaps they needed the owner’s permission first?
I understand your position (and it's one I'm absolutely swayed by to a degree and sympathize with), but I can't help but think that you are assigning unreasonable weights to privacy vs. safety/convenience. (Or, perhaps more honestly, I have to remind myself to be reasonable about these weights in my life.)
Do you think preserving your privacy in this one aspect of your life will have a greater net benefit to your life than driving a safer car (under the assumption that newer cars are safer)? Especially given that presumably there's still data being collected on you even in an old car (cameras on the road, other people's cars, your phone, etc).
By analogy, what's the marginal benefit of not eating any food in packaged in plastic if your water supply is full of (unavoidable, for the sake of argument) microplastics? Is doing so worth the cost (no food for you, buddy!)?
I guess this is just another round of being principled duking it out with pragmatism.
Even without the privacy aspect it’s a problem. Last weekend I was driving home in my ICE car guzzling on those dead dinosaurs, and maps on my CarPlay unit went haywire, first I was slightly off to the east by say 50 metres, but this got worse and at one point I was 10 miles away.
Unplugging my phone and the location snapped back to he correct place. Seems that in CarPlay an iPhone will believe what the car says about position, and when it’s wrong, tough.
> Modern cars [...] and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.
I take it that you need a car (which is true for many) and also need a computer (also true for many).
What precautions do you take in computing given that you use a computer that is connected to the Internet ?
The former (i.e. computer) has an unknowable supply chain with blobs of code that you don't vet yourself, and the latter (the Internet) has overtly become a surveillance system.
I just picked up a low mile, garage kept Toyota sedan. V6 sedan, my favorite combo! This one has plenty of power, looks totally unassuming, and can get great economy when I drive modestly.
I plan on driving it a very long time. Same reasons.
It also predates the big infotainment systems. I really dislike the big screen and many functions turned into touch controls dangerous to use in motion.
Finally, it is easy to service. I will do that myself as long as I am able.
I'm sure there will be kits to swap the ice engine to eletricfor most popular cars eventually. Then you will have more control about what features is added.
I've seen people do this but I think it's unlikely. The weight on an ICE car is slung much differently from an EV and placing a battery bank where your engine used to be is not a great idea.
Government overreach is the big thing that I'm worried about. All of the overreactions to adas is really heavily driving it. At some point, they will have to realize that the same attention systems used for adas could be used all of the time.
Given that there are hundreds of deaths each year due to inattention, it'd be almost irresponsible not to look into it.
The more serious preppers I know (e.g. the people prepping/worried about realistic scenarios as opposed to the civil war LARPers) pretty early on make sure they have access to a fully mechanical vehicle - to the extent that's even possible - and have the skills to maintain it.
> Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch.
You're selectively quoting in a way that misrepresents the article.
The post the article quotes:
> “Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026,” read several posts shared widely on Twitter and Facebook.
The actual functionality:
> In either case, if a driver is found to be impaired [by automated monitoring within the car], the car might employ a warning message, block the driver from operating the vehicle, or if the vehicle is already in motion, direct it to a safe stop or automated ride home.
> None of the technologies currently in development would notify law enforcement of the data collected inside vehicles or give government agencies remote control of vehicles, according to Jeffrey Michael, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Injury Research and Policy.
The car has an automatic system which can prevent the driver from operating it, but no one outside the car can trigger that system, which is clearly what the "kill switch" posts were claiming.
> The car has an automatic system which can prevent the driver from operating it, but no one outside the car can trigger that system, which is clearly what the "kill switch" posts were claiming.
That assumes that the feature is implemented securely, which is hardly guaranteed. Would you bet a large sum that it wasn't exploitable? I wouldn't.
It's a vehicle that can easily kill other people. It often does. It's reasonable to require drivers to be in good enough shape before trusting them with lives of random innocent people.
I'm not against enhancing safety, but I have serious concerns about whether auto manufacturers can implement such a feature securely, reliably, and without leaving it vulnerable to misuse by third parties. That said, I would support mandatory breathalyzers in all new cars. While this idea is likely too controversial and complex to become reality, I believe it could significantly reduce fatalities.
I am new to the car/data show, is an eSim really installed on cars around the world? Or is it an Amrican thing? Thinking for example on Europe data regulations.
tech which was called a "kill switch". Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch.
It's not a kill switch, the link you provided explains that it's not a kill switch, yet you still call it a kill switch.
If you were paying any attention, then you know that idiots online were portraying this as the cops being able to remotely disable your car at their will.
In fact, the requirement is for the vehicle to pull safely to the side of the road when it detects an impaired driver (DUI or medical emergency). There is no external initiation, it's entirely self-contained.
It's not a kill switch. It's not remotely like a kill switch.
Having personally been within minutes of crashes involving a drunk driver who blew a stop sign and smashed into a fire hydrant, and another driver experiencing a health emergency who crashed through an intersection at 80mph in a 25mph zone, I say bring it on. Ignore the Rogan-sphere FUD peddlers.
> Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point, and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.
Exactly. I saw a clip of an elon musk interview where he was asked if tesla would ever build a smartphone. I had to chuckle and think to myself, they already do. It just doesn't fit in your pocket, has wheels and actually tries to kill you physically.
Your ebike is limited because it can legally be operated by anybody (including a child) without needing any kind of license. If you want to legally operate a faster electric two-wheeled vehicle, take the test to get a motorbike license.
Media people obviously thought that kill switch meant something that can kill the driver and rushed to reassure the public that no that was not the case.
They're good people at heart. Don't misunderstand them.
> “can I get free data from the SIM card embedded in the device that I now technically own?”
That seems like the next-most-interesting question now that you've determined what the device is. Possibly followed closely by "can I use that free-to-me data in a fun way that might teach the people who installed the SIM to deactivate their devices when they sell them?"
i.e. Could you send and receive enough on the connection using that SIM to cost them enough money that they'd notice it?
If the people who made it know much about telecoms, then no, the will not work. When your mobile device connects to the Internet, the connection tunnels through the mobile network to a gateway specified by the "APN" (access point name). This is usually set up automatically these days, but you can dig the setting out of your phone. That's for an Internet connection - however a company can pay for a "private APN". This is still a gateway, but they control what it connects to. This is often done for machine to machine connections, e.g. for utility smart meters - so a SIM for a gas meter will not be provisioned for the normal Internet APN, and if you were able to get that SIM out (difficult as they are not usually in card format) you would not be able to connect to the Internet. Typically the equipment company will negotiate a cheaper data price than for Internet access, since the data usage will be low and predictable.
Now it could be that the people who built this tracking device are too small scale to negotiate a deal, or just don't know this, but my guess is that (a) the SIM is not in a physical format which can be removed and fitted in a different device; and (b) it is connected to a private APN which is not connected to the Internet.
BTW, if you look up the Wikipedia article, bear in mind that it is a bit inaccurate - for instance it refers to an APN as being a gateway to the Internet, which is not always true. I'll correct it some time.
Cars now have cell modems that you can hook up to select telecom providers to turn your car into a hotspot, so those cell modems/SIMs do have an APN for internet data
It’s surprisingly common for SIMs in IoT devices to not be locked down. If the data usage spikes enough above the noise it’ll probably be detected & deactivated.
I've experience working on a team for one GPS fleet management solution. Our SIMs were usually provided in a bulk PO from a top tier wireless provider and were all locked down to a certain very small (on the order of 5mb/mo) bandwidth plan. This cuts cost and risk.
I work at a place with LTE GPS trackers on fleet vehicles. Tracking boxes get moved from old -> new vehicles when possible. Otherwise the cell and tracking services are deactivated ASAP to avoid paying a monthly fee on an unused tracker.
I'd personally be equal parts creeped out and curious about the hardware if that showed up on a car I bought. If it's a former fleet vehicle, its probably deactivated.
The particular sound described makes me think of older pre-lte stuff, which in my part of the world was abandoned and became useless a couple years ago.
I work for a company that uses sensors with some kind of 4G connection. I don't know the details but I did ask our sensor guys what would happen if someone removed the SIM card (or whatever it is) and started using data. My recollection is that locking down those SIM cards is the responsibility of the sensor maker. We have an agreement to pay for all legitimate traffic at a contractual rate, but the device manufacturer actually owns the connection and pays for the data themselves.
So you're probably using the connection in violation of the wishes of the responsible party, but it was not clear to me exactly how illegal that would be? Like I'm sure they could charge you with a crime but I have no idea what it would be.
Our water company switched our meters from RF to cellular a while back, I'm not curious enough to mess with it, but I suspect you could repurpose the sim card from one of them.
I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed.
I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time.
My patience was running out so I threatened the security company with removing the cameras installed in the house I owned, but I was told that they owned them even if they were inside my house.
The contract would likely say something to the effect of "I promise to pay for the data sent to or from this device" and nothing about the owner of the device. If anything was said about the owner, it would be that the responsibility of the original contract holder is to ensure the contract was terminated when the sale took place.
Is there case law on this? I don't see any way in which this is legally theft by the OP (admittedly my knowledge is more US-centric than Euro-centric). If I let someone tether a device to my cell phone (or loan my phone to them), are they committing theft?
The company on the contract voluntarily gave the SIM to OP.
- Headline "My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch".
No, this is not a new car. This is a used car. Finding undocumented switches in a vehicle someone else owned is very common. People modify their cars all the time. Finding an undocumented switch in a new car would be wild.
- "And that’s how the search comes to an end. After a bit of perseverance I figured out what it is."
You literally took your car to a dealership, and the mechanic told you what it was. This ENTIRE ARTICLE boils down to this statement. You did the bare minimum to investigate what it was: took the panel off and confirmed that the wires went __somewhere__.
How does this get upvoted so heavily on Hacker News?
That's one thing I'm very curious about: is there a way in english to differentiate between "(my new) car" (a used car which is new to me) and "(my) new car" (a new car which is mine)?
I have to say I agree fully and it's kind of disappointing how much chaff makes it to the HN front page. This is ostensibly an interesting article, but at second glance doesn't really hold up to any scrutiny as anything really novel... folks buying used cars for decades have been doing detective work on 3rd party aftermarket modifications that have been left in. Instead, show me a door chime that has been converted to Toto's Africa using an arduino or custom fab board with STM chip.
I mostly drive old 90s enthusiast cars, and I have had my fair share of undocumented switches.
The most surprising to date was in a Nissan Silvia, from 1989. Sometimes it wouldn't crank off the key, given the solution chosen it must have been a wiring issue. Instead of fixing that wiring, the previous owner had directly wired power to the starter via a "missle switch" style switch, and instead of mounting it anywhere remotely useful, it was just spliced into the loom and sat on top of the rocker cover in the engine bay.
So if it wouldn't start, I had to leave the key at "on", hop out of the car, bump that switch and then it would start. Obviously standing in front of a manual car while starting it is the dumbest thing next to wiring your starter to a switch in the engine bay. Fortunately I never ran myself over.
Another one, I will keep short, a 97 Skyline would only light up ready to start 1/4 times. Seemingly randomly, on key bump. Turns out the flash memory for the fuel map had corrupted, and depending on the temperature and a bit of randomness from the sensors, it would only hit a corrupted cell occasionally. It got worse and worse as more of the table corrupted, until it would only start say 1/60 key bumps.
It was a dodgy power wire causing the corruption, and fixing that plus reflashing the tune fixed the issue.
At first glance this reminded me of some Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor models which had similar unlabeled buttons. One would disable all exterior lights, including brake lights, for going into stealth/surveillance mode. An adjacent button was used to be able to remove the key and keep the engine running, while preventing the car from being shifted out of park until the key was inserted again. I haven't seen either feature re-introduced in the newer Explorers or Fusions though.
Many modern ambulances have a similar shifter disable switch so that it can be left running and someone can't take off with your ambulance while you're off collecting your patient.
> … used to be able to remove the key and keep the engine running, while preventing the car from being shifted out of park …
I’m pretty sure (not 100%) that new cars with contactless keys have this feature by default. You can get out (with the key) and leave it running, but the shifter won’t work until you return with the key.
I think you're right, although I've noticed that there's a timeout where newer cars automatically turns off if the key fob doesn't come back within range after so many minutes. Probably a safety feature to avoid accidental walkaways, whereas the button required a deliberate two-step action (hold down while turning and removing the key) to activate the feature.
I was astonished to learn that Ford no longer sells sedans (Fusions) of any kind. Neither does GM. I dislike SUVs, and it seems the only choices for American sedans are a Cadillac or a Tesla. Hondas and Toyotas are selling like hot-cakes, but when they had to compete on quality American automakers just decided to walk away from the market.
So no need to worry about that feature on Fusions... they don't sell them anymore. Nor Chevies, Buicks, Oldsmobile is long gone, no more Dodges or Chryslers... nothing.
> I was astonished to learn that Ford no longer sells sedans (Fusions) of any kind
It has been a very long time for Ford now. I was heartbroken when they discontinued the Fiesta/Focus ST/RS trims in the US, those were peak car models for me.
Story: when I was buying my Fiesta ST I did all the usual dealership prep tactics to avoid getting overcharged. I researched the dealership cost and all that jazz, and told the salesperson I have that much + a few hundred bucks which seemed a fair offer. They immediately accepted it and got me out the door with that car within the hour; I got the sense they were not selling well even back then.
those CAFE standards, or the “not an EV mandate” have destroyed the US car market. Trucks come standard with 4 cylinder engines now and manufacturers are reducing their offerings to meet the aggressive climate goals.
Check Chevy and Dodge too. Chevy has one sedan and Dodge is still selling 2023 model years to avoid CAFE.
Steven Wright: "I have this switch in my house that doesn't seem to do anything. It's in a hallway, so every time I pass it, I flip it: up, down, up, down...up...down. A few months after I got the house, a guy from Indonesia called me on the phone and said...'stop it'"
So this was a gps tracker that was installed by a fleet and never removed. The larger issue is that most car companies in the US are reselling your data on newish vehicles (2016+) anyway. I am still amazed that this is not a larger issue.
>The larger issue is that most car companies in the US are reselling your data on newish vehicles (2016+) anyway.
A fun read related to this: "Privacy Nightmare on Wheels: Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla - Including Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota - Flunks Privacy Test"
>The very worst offender is Nissan. The Japanese car manufacturer admits in their privacy policy to collecting a wide range of information, including sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic data — but doesn’t specify how. They say they can share and sell consumers’ “preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes” to data brokers, law enforcement, and other third parties.
Why? It is quite clear that the mass populace just doesn't care. That's the bigger story. So many people are quite happy giving away data that they don't fully understand or even want to take time to try to understand as long as they get free/discounted service/fees and use the same equipment to keep up with the Jones. Another study should be why otherwise smart people cannot come to terms with this.
People care about privacy. But in our current telling its a hard problem to understand and the costs are too high. The costs are not talking to friends, or not driving a car. So as a coping mechanism people will convince themselves they dont care for privacy.
The phenomena you're describing isn't about caring.
You're describing a "trade" in the same way mobsters and conmen do.
My 2024 Toyota GR Corolla has a fuse that, when pulled, disables the Data Communications Module (DCM). It also disables the in-car microphone. At first I was mildly annoyed at not being able to make phone calls over a Bluetooth connection between my phone and the car's computer because of that, but the more I thought about it, I realized I was actually okay with the car's microphone also being disabled.
I often put my phone into Airplane Mode when I'm not actively using it, and I prefer to avoid the distraction of a phone call while I'm driving because I'm a terrible multitasker. If it's too easy for me to receive an incoming phone call when I'm driving then I'm too likely to do it when I really shouldn't.
In general I want as little data collection and reporting capability built into my car as is reasonably possible. I wish more auto manufacturers would make it as easy as Toyota did with the GRC -- and a few other of models, as I've heard -- to disable telemetry.
Readit News
Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new cars to be equipped with "driver impairment" tech which was called a "kill switch". Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-402773429497
Anyway, I'm staying with my old gas Honda until it dies which is probably never with proper maintenance and eventually restoration. I'll never go electric. Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point, and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.
Privacy Nightmare on Wheels: Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644
(edit I see I'm not the first to link this in this thread)
https://www.subaru.com/support/consumer-privacy.html
If you don't live in one of the states mentioned in the first paragraph, expect this to take a very long time. For me it took 6 months.
I'm very glad I've put in the time to learn how to work on cars because I have zero interest in the tech direction of modern vehicles.
It's not my daily driver, but I would absolutely love to one day get another one as a project car - one that's not in such good condition that I'd feel bad removing the engine - and drop an electric motor in it. That likely _would_ become my daily driver. The car's incredibly well made, and a joy to drive.
One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive.
Front wheel can remain gas with transmission. Add more generating current capacity, and have that dumped into the rear drive system batteries.
With my current car, the V6 gets very good economy at speed, and poor economy in town or in traffic.
An assist from the rear can tackle the poor economy cases nicely, leaving the rest to the gas engine.
Depending on battery capacity, I suppose it could do most in town driving at say 40 and below.
I'm with you. Our daily drivers are 2011 Mitsu, 96 Toyota, 92 Buick and a 63 Dart. Also a 61 Sunliner for when it's not-summer.
The Mitsu is unfortunately drive-by-wire; I mostly avoid it.
Still green, unlike gas, but restricts the surface area of issues related to modern cars
I would have stuck with my 2003 Honda Accord too, except that some woman, probably talking or texting on her cell, slammed into me while I was stopped at a light, totaling my car and damaging 3 others. I got $8K for my car after arguing with the insurance company, and paid $28K for a 3 y/o replacement.
The fine for texting while driving in Kentucky is $25.
GPS is for obvious reasons tracking. But these don’t look like patrol cars so it’s out of my wheel house.
All. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECall:
“eCall (an abbreviation of "emergency call") is an initiative by the European Union, intended to bring rapid assistance to motorists involved in a collision anywhere within the European Union. The aim is for all new cars to incorporate a system that automatically contacts the emergency services in the event of a serious accident, sending location and sensor information. eCall was made mandatory in all new cars approved for manufacture within the European Union as of April 2018.”
Safety features and fuel economy are night and day when comparing a 5 year old car and a 30 year old one, but between the privacy issues and inability to diagnose or fix a new car I just can't do it.
I bought an 80s model truck that sat in a garage for over a decade and has 50k original miles on it. I'm still chasing down a couple gremlins in the system, but its nice to be able to work on it myself. Bonus that it may not be driving perfectly right now but its happy keep on chugging, even if a sensor is bad or I get an occasional code for running lean.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41970406
Deleted Comment
If you lookup the repair procedure for the cellular unit you will have found the way to disable it.
So basically everyone with a smartphone? I'm not sure if it's really worse if the car has its own GPS and cell connectivity. How many people turn off their phone or leave it at home? And you can buy other people's location data, so...
Tbh considering the accuracy of modern triangulation technology... anyone with a cellphone, period.
Not sure your analogy fits.
Some have a fuse you can pull for the modem, without disabling anything else. Others you can pull the antenna, and add a resistor instead.
let's say somebody else said "There SHOULD be an expectation of privacy from the authorities when operating a motor vehicles on public roads on which you need a license to drive"
Is there some reason I should side with you over them, or just your opinion? If the courts decided that there was an expectation of privacy on public roads, would you agitate to change the law so there wasn't?
Do you not consider reasonable to have an expectation of innocence when going about your business?
So, any car with OnStar apparently already has a remote kill switch. Perhaps they needed the owner’s permission first?
Do you think preserving your privacy in this one aspect of your life will have a greater net benefit to your life than driving a safer car (under the assumption that newer cars are safer)? Especially given that presumably there's still data being collected on you even in an old car (cameras on the road, other people's cars, your phone, etc).
By analogy, what's the marginal benefit of not eating any food in packaged in plastic if your water supply is full of (unavoidable, for the sake of argument) microplastics? Is doing so worth the cost (no food for you, buddy!)?
I guess this is just another round of being principled duking it out with pragmatism.
I believe the name of that module is DCM
You can disable some models, but I have my doubts.
In rentals you can forget about it.
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Unplugging my phone and the location snapped back to he correct place. Seems that in CarPlay an iPhone will believe what the car says about position, and when it’s wrong, tough.
I take it that you need a car (which is true for many) and also need a computer (also true for many).
What precautions do you take in computing given that you use a computer that is connected to the Internet ?
The former (i.e. computer) has an unknowable supply chain with blobs of code that you don't vet yourself, and the latter (the Internet) has overtly become a surveillance system.
I plan on driving it a very long time. Same reasons.
It also predates the big infotainment systems. I really dislike the big screen and many functions turned into touch controls dangerous to use in motion.
Finally, it is easy to service. I will do that myself as long as I am able.
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Given that there are hundreds of deaths each year due to inattention, it'd be almost irresponsible not to look into it.
But a lot of people won't like where that leads.
You're selectively quoting in a way that misrepresents the article.
The post the article quotes:
> “Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026,” read several posts shared widely on Twitter and Facebook.
The actual functionality:
> In either case, if a driver is found to be impaired [by automated monitoring within the car], the car might employ a warning message, block the driver from operating the vehicle, or if the vehicle is already in motion, direct it to a safe stop or automated ride home.
> None of the technologies currently in development would notify law enforcement of the data collected inside vehicles or give government agencies remote control of vehicles, according to Jeffrey Michael, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Injury Research and Policy.
The car has an automatic system which can prevent the driver from operating it, but no one outside the car can trigger that system, which is clearly what the "kill switch" posts were claiming.
That assumes that the feature is implemented securely, which is hardly guaranteed. Would you bet a large sum that it wasn't exploitable? I wouldn't.
Just not the sort of kill switch that someone (who?) sometime (when?) described, and such description is one that you've neither quoted or given.
It's a vehicle that can easily kill other people. It often does. It's reasonable to require drivers to be in good enough shape before trusting them with lives of random innocent people.
If so, this is a good fit for a class action.
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Complete with non-replaceable batteries.
It's not a kill switch, the link you provided explains that it's not a kill switch, yet you still call it a kill switch.
If you were paying any attention, then you know that idiots online were portraying this as the cops being able to remotely disable your car at their will.
In fact, the requirement is for the vehicle to pull safely to the side of the road when it detects an impaired driver (DUI or medical emergency). There is no external initiation, it's entirely self-contained.
It's not a kill switch. It's not remotely like a kill switch.
Having personally been within minutes of crashes involving a drunk driver who blew a stop sign and smashed into a fire hydrant, and another driver experiencing a health emergency who crashed through an intersection at 80mph in a 25mph zone, I say bring it on. Ignore the Rogan-sphere FUD peddlers.
In addition to de-banking, they can also de-car you.
Exactly. I saw a clip of an elon musk interview where he was asked if tesla would ever build a smartphone. I had to chuckle and think to myself, they already do. It just doesn't fit in your pocket, has wheels and actually tries to kill you physically.
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The funny thing is that's what cars do to other people because we don't have enough monitoring.
My e-bike is limited to 20 because "safety". Your car should be to.
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Complain about power wheels, because you’re comparing two things that have nothing to do with each other.
They're good people at heart. Don't misunderstand them.
That seems like the next-most-interesting question now that you've determined what the device is. Possibly followed closely by "can I use that free-to-me data in a fun way that might teach the people who installed the SIM to deactivate their devices when they sell them?"
i.e. Could you send and receive enough on the connection using that SIM to cost them enough money that they'd notice it?
Now it could be that the people who built this tracking device are too small scale to negotiate a deal, or just don't know this, but my guess is that (a) the SIM is not in a physical format which can be removed and fitted in a different device; and (b) it is connected to a private APN which is not connected to the Internet.
BTW, if you look up the Wikipedia article, bear in mind that it is a bit inaccurate - for instance it refers to an APN as being a gateway to the Internet, which is not always true. I'll correct it some time.
Here’s an example from a few years ago: https://scootertalk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1370
I'd personally be equal parts creeped out and curious about the hardware if that showed up on a car I bought. If it's a former fleet vehicle, its probably deactivated.
The particular sound described makes me think of older pre-lte stuff, which in my part of the world was abandoned and became useless a couple years ago.
But you're right, I don't think I've heard my phone cause that sound since I switched to an LTE phone.
So you're probably using the connection in violation of the wishes of the responsible party, but it was not clear to me exactly how illegal that would be? Like I'm sure they could charge you with a crime but I have no idea what it would be.
Doubt it. You'd be using a device you bought and now own, that didn't come with any kind of agreement/contract/etc to limit your usage. :)
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I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed.
I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time.
My patience was running out so I threatened the security company with removing the cameras installed in the house I owned, but I was told that they owned them even if they were inside my house.
The company on the contract voluntarily gave the SIM to OP.
- Headline "My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch".
No, this is not a new car. This is a used car. Finding undocumented switches in a vehicle someone else owned is very common. People modify their cars all the time. Finding an undocumented switch in a new car would be wild.
- "And that’s how the search comes to an end. After a bit of perseverance I figured out what it is."
You literally took your car to a dealership, and the mechanic told you what it was. This ENTIRE ARTICLE boils down to this statement. You did the bare minimum to investigate what it was: took the panel off and confirmed that the wires went __somewhere__.
How does this get upvoted so heavily on Hacker News?
Just that it's YOUR new car.
I mostly drive old 90s enthusiast cars, and I have had my fair share of undocumented switches.
The most surprising to date was in a Nissan Silvia, from 1989. Sometimes it wouldn't crank off the key, given the solution chosen it must have been a wiring issue. Instead of fixing that wiring, the previous owner had directly wired power to the starter via a "missle switch" style switch, and instead of mounting it anywhere remotely useful, it was just spliced into the loom and sat on top of the rocker cover in the engine bay.
So if it wouldn't start, I had to leave the key at "on", hop out of the car, bump that switch and then it would start. Obviously standing in front of a manual car while starting it is the dumbest thing next to wiring your starter to a switch in the engine bay. Fortunately I never ran myself over.
Another one, I will keep short, a 97 Skyline would only light up ready to start 1/4 times. Seemingly randomly, on key bump. Turns out the flash memory for the fuel map had corrupted, and depending on the temperature and a bit of randomness from the sensors, it would only hit a corrupted cell occasionally. It got worse and worse as more of the table corrupted, until it would only start say 1/60 key bumps.
It was a dodgy power wire causing the corruption, and fixing that plus reflashing the tune fixed the issue.
I’m pretty sure (not 100%) that new cars with contactless keys have this feature by default. You can get out (with the key) and leave it running, but the shifter won’t work until you return with the key.
So no need to worry about that feature on Fusions... they don't sell them anymore. Nor Chevies, Buicks, Oldsmobile is long gone, no more Dodges or Chryslers... nothing.
It has been a very long time for Ford now. I was heartbroken when they discontinued the Fiesta/Focus ST/RS trims in the US, those were peak car models for me.
Story: when I was buying my Fiesta ST I did all the usual dealership prep tactics to avoid getting overcharged. I researched the dealership cost and all that jazz, and told the salesperson I have that much + a few hundred bucks which seemed a fair offer. They immediately accepted it and got me out the door with that car within the hour; I got the sense they were not selling well even back then.
Check Chevy and Dodge too. Chevy has one sedan and Dodge is still selling 2023 model years to avoid CAFE.
A fun read related to this: "Privacy Nightmare on Wheels: Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla - Including Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota - Flunks Privacy Test"
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-...
Small excerpt:
>The very worst offender is Nissan. The Japanese car manufacturer admits in their privacy policy to collecting a wide range of information, including sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic data — but doesn’t specify how. They say they can share and sell consumers’ “preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes” to data brokers, law enforcement, and other third parties.
The phenomena you're describing isn't about caring.
You're describing a "trade" in the same way mobsters and conmen do.
I often put my phone into Airplane Mode when I'm not actively using it, and I prefer to avoid the distraction of a phone call while I'm driving because I'm a terrible multitasker. If it's too easy for me to receive an incoming phone call when I'm driving then I'm too likely to do it when I really shouldn't.
In general I want as little data collection and reporting capability built into my car as is reasonably possible. I wish more auto manufacturers would make it as easy as Toyota did with the GRC -- and a few other of models, as I've heard -- to disable telemetry.