Mazda recently surprised customers by requiring them to sign up for a subscription in order to keep certain services. Now, notable right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann is calling out the brand.
It’s important to clarify that there are two very different types of remote start we’re talking about here. The first type is the one many people are familiar with where you use the key fob to start the vehicle. The second method involves using another device like a smartphone to start the car. In the latter, connected services do the heavy lifting.
Transition to paid services
What is wild is that Mazda used to offer the first option on the fob. Now, it only offers the second kind, where one starts the car via phone through its connected services for a $10 monthly subscription, which comes to $120 a year. Rossmann points out that one individual, Brandon Rorthweiler, developed a workaround in 2023 to enable remote start without Mazda’s subscription fees.
However, according to Ars Technica, Mazda filed a DMCA takedown notice to kill that open-source project. The company claimed it contained code that violated “[Mazda’s] copyright ownership” and used “certain Mazda information, including proprietary API information.”
Subscription services or software restricted features for cars should just be outlawed entirely.
Nobody likes these, if someone is willing to deal with a subscription product then they can do that aftermarket. The car itself should never come with something that will require recurring payments.
Nobody likes these
Shareholders love them
I think I can speak for most Americans (and as someone who owns stocks) fuck the shareholders.
I’m conflicted. On one hand, I’m a shareholder due to broad market investments in my 401k. On the other hand, I’m a consumer.
On net, screw this nonsense, just make good products and the recurring revenue will happen due to happy customers.
I bought a bit of BP shortly after the oil spill.
I was hoping to lose it all, but had the feeling I’d end up making money. I did make money.
All those shareholders should have been fucked.
You are the reason they didn’t lose it all.
Yeah, if not for me the government would have responded appropriately and bankrupted the company.
Exactly! I’m glad you understand.
You’re the problem. You get that, right?
how else are people supposed to avoid money losing value? bonds?
Shareholders love lootboxes too.
And one party autocracy.
Should they though? The average lifespan of a car is 12 years. Even if they got someone to pay the subscription the entire time, that’s like 5% of the value of the car, spread over a length of time that makes it almost worthless. They could more easily charge an extra 1500 for the car, which is more money and it’s money they get now and isn’t picked apart by inflation.
It’s not especially good financially in the short or long term and is harmful to the brand image and customer loyalty.
Even if they got someone to pay the subscription the entire time, that’s like 5% of the value of the car, spread over a length of time that makes it almost worthless.
It’s a revenue stream you can collect after the vehicle is sold. Continuous cash flow means long term revenue stability for the business.
And its the introduction of a model that can scale. Once you’ve got someone’s account information, you can sell them more shit (or just sell their data to advertisers). This is just the tip of the spear. Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes are all experimenting with Vehicle as a Service product models.
Investors love the possibility of revenue growth, and these programs promise the possibility of high margin after market sales for the life of the vehicle.
harmful to the brand image and customer loyalty
Not when everyone is doing it
Shareholders can get fucked. They’re making the world a worse place daily.
I think it’s fair if Mazda has to operate a server to enable it, but I think Mazda should have to pay car owners to allow them to connect the car to a mobile network, especially for operating their spyware/telemetry.
I think it’s fair if Mazda has to operate a server to enable it
No. Either you support it for a predetermined few decades as part of the vheicle cost, or let the consumer switch to a different service.
Option 3 take the stop killing games approach and grant the user the server back end when they stop supporting it themselves so users can host it themselves
That too
With your way, now everyone has to pay for the subscription service of remote starting, even those who would never use it and just want to use their keyfob, your idea is worse
Just like every feature on every car?
What the fuck are you talking about.
There are at the very least trim levels and usually a bunch if options so you literally don’t have to pay for things you don’t want/need
So require an upfront cost for the service.
I shall point you to my original comment
As long as they give me a way to run my own server for free, I agree with you.
Well it’s double shit if you can’t get the remote start on a FOB now. Fuck Mazda for that bullshit.
Completely agree. I use the fob.
OK, they can add $1 to the price of the car for a lifetime subscription (and no the load probably will never add up to that).
You still have to pay for the cell service to connect the car. That’s going to cost a whole lot more than $1
But not that much more.
A consumer mobile connection is about $30 a month. A car company could get it cheaper, not just by buying in bulk, but also because by not needing that much bandwidth for their connection.
A car is is multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars and a 3g, low data IoT sim card is less than $100.
A car is is multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars
Fucking what?
This is the equivalent of “I mean, it’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost? 10 dollars?”
Most of us aren’t buying lambos.
I think it’s fair if Mazda has to operate a server to enable it
Do they? Why can’t the 2 devices communicate directly?
…because something needs to check you’ve paid your subscription. A man in the middle.
You’d probably still need at least some sort of discovery server for devices to find each other.
Yea, that is worse than eWaste, in my opinion. Hope EU does not let this slide for far longer… It should be illegal to ask for subscriptions for something that is a one time cost for the manufacturer.
Hope EU does not let this slide for far longer…
You’re out of luck with the remote start feature. Remote start is not allowed in the EU because it is unnecessary wear and tear on the engine, a waste of fuel and adds to air pollution.
Before my inbox explodes, I understand there are places that get unbelievably cold, and warming the car before the fragile human gets in is preferable, nevertheless, cars warm up faster and more economically when driven.
None of those reasons apply to electric cars, though. What’s their stance on that?
I have no clue. However, turning a heater on is not the same as starting an engine.
I can start the heater (and AC) remotely on my dacia spring within EU 😂✌🏻
But how got the conversation there? 😂😅
The car itself should never come with something that will require recurring payments.
Cars already do. Satellite radio has been a thing for decades now. I’ve never used it. Never felt the desire to use it. I haven’t even taken the free trial. I’m less annoyed that it exists, and more annoyed that I’m forever fated to receive unsolicited junk mail for this feature that I have to unceremoniously dump in the recycling bin every couple weeks.
As for the remote start, yeah, it’s kinda bullshit that they’ve removed the more permanent, older version of a feature to replace it with something out of the owners’ control. If anything, it should exist in parallel with the key fob button, not replace it entirely. I’m less concerned about the fact that it’s a subscription than I am about the prospect of that feature dropping support down the road with no recourse for the owner.
Your SiriusXM subscription doesn’t go to the manufacturer of the car. This is what they referred to as aftermarket subscriptions in their comment. It isn’t any different than if I subscribe to spotify Snr then connect my phone to the car to use it.
SiriusXM does revenue share with auto companies.) Old article, but I’m too lazy to dig through a financial report or find something newer.
Fair enough but I still view it differently than being locked out of using actual OEM features of the car. I do find this unsurprising though based on the metric fuckton of spam you get from SiriusXM after buying any new or used car from a legit dealer.
I still view it differently than being locked out of using actual OEM features of the car
Totally agree!
I do find this unsurprising though based on the metric fuckton of spam you get from SiriusXM after buying any new or used car from a legit dealer.
I’ve always wondered how much this costs relative to the number of takers they pull in.
I’m forever fated to receive unsolicited junk mail for this feature that I have to unceremoniously dump in the recycling bin every couple weeks.
Imagining a future in which I have to tell my YouTube integrated car company that I don’t want to sign up for their music service every time I start my car.
Imagine if you lived in a country where a simple note taped to your mailbox would eliminate all junk mail.
Where would that be?
The Netherlands, at least.
Does it work out for you? I’m German, and in theory the sticker has to be respected here too, but in my experience a lot of junk mail bets on me being too lazy to sue them.
It seems to be working pretty well. There’s the occasional transgression, but by and large we only get spam that is actually addressed to us.
I haven’t even taken the free trial.
- Download this app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.siriusxm.dealer
-
If you don’t have the means of faking your location with root (not through developer settings), drive to, like, any nearby car dealership.
-
Open the app, tap the “Enter Radio ID” button, and… do that.
-
Profit!
No sign-up or account required. You will have full service for 3 months.
You can repeat this process indefinitely. It has worked for years. They do not care.
An API is not copyrightable 🤔
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There are no penalties for filling a bogus DMCA takedown and the legal cost for restoring the content falls on the victim of such a takedown: the DMCA legislation was designed exactly for it to be used as Mazda and many other use it against individuals and small companies who can’t spend thousands of dollars fighting bogus takedowns.
Why is there no big alternative hosted outside of the US where your DMCA does not apply?
There are other centralised code hosting services, for example Codeberg, but they are equally scared of any legal action even when it doesn’t directly apply.
There are penalties. They require proof of intent, however. So there are no penalties.
It’s intent is harassment.
it seems everything is copyrightable if you are rich enough
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc.
When two very rich entities argued about it it was determined you can’t copyright API.
Sure, but if you’re not rich and they sue you, you loose. No matter what, you’ll run out of money before successfully using that case.
I wasn’t disagreeing.
Where are the EFF fighting this?
You’re assuming the law matters when a company can hire a team of lawyers and a solo dev can’t
I’m saying that when both sides have “infinite money” the “truth” can be found lol.
And if they want to attack car owners for doing what they want with their own car let’s go to court and see how fast their bullshit holds up.
Can’t wait for the inevitable “You don’t actually own the car, you just have a lifetime licence/lease to use the car”
That’s being normalized right now with video games. It’ll happen with other things soon enough too.
Frankly, for a lot of places, I don’t know that would be such a bad idea.
Now doing the same for land, that would be bad…
It could make sense if the price were reflecting of not owning the car. But we know damn well that you would pay full price as if the car was yours, but you just wouldn’t own it.
Oh well, “if buying isn’t owning…” Time to watch some Lockpicking Lawyer and trundle down to the car licensing lot and indulge in a little piracy >;-)
I was considering a Mazda for my next car. Now I’m not.
I live in a place that gets fucking cold in the winter. If the normal fob option were always available and you get the option to pay for the convenience using an app, that would be one thing - though $10/month for that is ridiculous. But removing the fob option and locking this basic feature behind a subscription is exactly the sort of game I don’t want my vehicle to play with me.
Go ahead and sell roadside coverage, parts/repairs, batteries, get royalties from Sirius or whatever for extra cash flow. Make a great app that adds new convenient live-service features and is worth paying for, even. But fuck all these new subscription un-gimping games.
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Toyota, Mazda and Honda are the only makes I’ve really ever considered, or ever plan to consider. Of those 3, Honda has not gone that route yet as far as I know. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Honda collects and sells your driving history without your consent.
ALL of them do this. Literally all.
Is there a sim card buried in there somewhere that can be removed or is it soldered in, potted, etc?
… Or your car bricks if you remove it wouldn’t surprise me, regardless.
Could very well be an eSIM …
Subaru does the same thing, on my car it was free for three years then you pay or lose all connected features. That includes remote start, there is no way to start the car from the keyfob.
22 CRV here. Fob based remote start, no subscription for that or anything (though I would like to get the maps updates without payin) :(
I’ve used three remote start once in almost 3 years and I live in Wisconsin. It’s just really not that necessary. The car warms up quickly just driving.
Might as well throw Subarus into that list. They’re LGBT Toyotas lol
Subaru has their own set of issues
https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/02/23/subaru-right-to-repair-fight-cars
Toyota tried to push this exact same remote start subscription BS as well so cross them out too
It took me 6 months to find a newer truck that had no Internet connectivity at all, and it was a royal PITA.
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For some reason AA doesn’t work on my phone. I suspect it’s a USB permissions issue, but I’m not motivated enough to dig into it any deeper lol.
I was planning on going electric with my next vehicle and I’m really hoping they force all the Chinese brands to disconnect them for national security or whatever. Just that will make the special import tax worth it.
I’m also kind of pissed at most car companies anyways, they have been dragging their feet when it comes to climate change. At least Byd is trying to offer cheap evs even if it’s to fuck with our economy.
Don’t know if you can guarantee they’re disconnected.
At least Byd is trying to offer cheap evs even if it’s to fuck with our economy.
Oh hey, looks who’s defending a billionaire!
They all are. Your only option would be to buy an older car without connected services and hope that you never need another one.
As much as I’m sure this answer will be hated, Tesla cars don’t require a subscription for basic remote services. What comes free is:
- traffic aware navigation updates
- OTA software updates mandated by recall
- phone app access
With the phone app there are zero regular features that require a monthly sub. Free things include:
- HVAC controls
- heated seats
- charging stats and start/stop chargin
- unlocking all doors, frunk and trunk
- even changing radio/SiriusXM stations
Tesla does have an optional monthly subscription but that gets you:
- streaming radio
- unlimited internet
- traffic density notations on nav maps
- satellite view in nav map
However the car operates just fine without any of that optional stuff and therefor there’s no mandatory fee for regular functionality.
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Those things are free…for now….while they feel like it. There’s nothing stopping them from charging for that stuff when their stock price dips another 20%.
Those things are free…for now….while they feel like it. There’s nothing stopping them from charging for that stuff when their stock price dips another 20%.
They could change it for cars purchased in the future, but they can’t do what Mazda did and start charging for it now. So its either lifetime of free Standard connectivity, or at worst 8 years. These are part of the purchase agreement.
“All new Tesla vehicles ordered on or before July 20, 2022, will have Standard Connectivity features at no cost for the lifetime of the vehicle (excluding retrofits or upgrades required for any features or services externally supplied to the vehicle – e.g. telecommunications network). As additional features and services become available in the future, you will have the opportunity to upgrade your connectivity plan.”
I still don’t understand how that stops them from charging a subscription when their stock drops a bit more.
Contract law.
You know that “Terms and Conditions” you agree to all the time that binds you to things. It binds them too to those terms. The terms I posted above were what both car buyers and Tesla agreed to at the time of purchase.
The same courts that continue to allow the sale of “Full Self Driving”? You have a lot of faith in a system that has aggressively and repeatedly shown that it does not care about you.
Oh noes, somebody said something positive about Tesla! Get 'em boys!
Seriously though, I would like to see some legislation that made them offer connectivity free models. All the connectivity crap should be opt-in. If you don’t opt in they don’t connect the SIM card.
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There will be financial repercussions with the car. They want to sell that data, if you’re going to deprive them of that, they’ll expect recompense.
Teslas unlimited Internet package is also super cheap at $100/year the last time I checked. Competitors are multiple times more expensive.
The subscriptions is free for the first few years so if you plan on trading it in definitely still worth it. While this does piss me off I still really like my mazda 2020
That’s called giving the drugs for free then taking it away so the addiction kicks in. Fuck that noise. Stop justifying it because it’s ‘free for now’
ISPs do this too…go look for new service, it’s a royal pain in the cock trying to find the actual cost before bullshit sales that can be taken away with minutes.
Im not justifying it. In fact, I said that I didn’t agree with it. All I’m saying is that in some situations, this shouldn’t affect your decision if the car feels right for you. Like other commenters have pointed out, most major manufacturers are pulling the same BS (Which obviously doesn’t make it OK) But the free 3 year trial makes it less of a sore spot for some.
Also, there are plenty of aftermarket remote start systems that you could install if you dont want to deal with the expensive OEM solution. This is the case for the majority of additions anyway.
Again, it’s not okay, I think it’s absolute BS that you have to pay any sort of subscription on a 5-figure purchase, but thinking pragmatically, there are plenty of situations where this is irrelevant.
“you wouldn’t download a car” was prophetic
“Of course I would” has always been the response though.
Having a car without internet connectivity would be a feature for privacy minded consumers
Usually this stuff is aftermarket. Sounds like a good business plan
Everything is becoming public and opt-out. Privacy is beyond dead.
“capitalism promotes healthy competition”
One of the biggest lie of all time.
Don’t forget innovation:
Hilariously, due to the teardrop shape, cars like this would be more aerodynamic if the shell was reversed.
Car companies do not want to innovate, because aerodynamic cars are “lame”, “soy”, etc.
People seem to have a low tolerance for what is considered weird when it comes to cars. That’s why most cars look the same. (Likely due to marketing and peer pressure)
Bar Atera, Ariel and a couple of other “unconventional” designs, and a handful of other concept cars. (Fuck the cybercrap, it’s the opposite of innovation)
TL;DR: cars could be way more aerodynamically efficient, but they aren’t, because people are peopleing.
Interesting and strange that there really as a car “uncanny valley”.
There’s an empty spot at the bottom of that list and the author – who by the way is a monster – could have easily included Subaru.
But but, did you see the new “brand x brand x brand” product? The one where all the brands are owned by the same mega-corp and they just decided to smoosh their products together?
Innovation is dead and buried.
And Communism does so much “better”:
Why don’t you go to Cuba and ask how they’ve been able to do it for ~100 years. Those people have self-reliance down to a fucking science at this point, and the cars they have been keeping running for 60+ years are a perfect example of it. Imagine if they were actually allowed to participate in global commerce.
Car manufacturers are being so blatant about this stuff. It goes to show that they know how slow regulation is and they can milk it for all its worth.
Bets on which car company is going to be the first to EOL a server and brick a bunch of cars because some key feature is now “unsupported”?
Enel is currently doing exactly that with their electric car chargers (the Juicebox), they’ve decided to pull out from the North American market and just shut down the servers. Like WTF, at least open-source the thing…
Something similar already happened when bicycle manufacturer VanMoof went under. I believe there was a workaround if you extracted your bike’s crypto keys before the servers went down but otherwise you were practically screwed.
Fisker, due to going bankrupt, arguably is the worst version of this right now
Nissan EOL’ed all their remote services blaming the 3G turn off. But yet my Leaf still connects to their services to report my driving location and driving style to them. They just turned off any features I could use. The 3G network in the UK will be up for quite a long time still and the 2G network will be around for longer, but they decided it’s a good excuse to save some server money on cars that are less than 10 years old.
It’s going to be Tesla, no question.
Imagine a world where the laws are literally used to opress you!
Now open your eyes.
Narrator:
their eyes were open the whole time
Why does the car need an internet connection? Rather get a car from 2005-2010 that doesn’t connect to the internet, more have a stupid subscription.
Preach. Got a benz from 2009 that has all the features I want (heated seats, automatic climate control, rain sensor, etc) and none of the things I don’t want (remote connectivity, spyware, subscriptions).
Beginnt dein Name mit p?
Nein?
Yep, I got a very basic trim 2010-2015 car. I think it’s about as new as you can get without really bad enshitification. The upper trims even had some of the gimmicks and techy stuff. I loath to think if the day this car dies. I may only ride my bike from that point on.
There is no need for the internet to use remote start
I just bought a new car and it has internet enabled remote start. The salesman touted the feature. My response: “oh so I can start the car in [one state] while I’m in [another state] so it’s ready for me when I get back?” He didn’t have a good response for that. Nice car, dumbass feature.
I use mine all the time. I have about a 1/4 mile walk to get to my car, I like to start it in winter to heat up, or summer to cool down before I get to it.
It’s a luxury, but one I enjoy.
Lora and other RF based communication protocols exist and are much better ideas than using the internet. If someone is starting their car they are probably less than a mile away and the benefits of having something that works regardless of cell towers probably outweigh the benefits of being able to use it through bunker doors and across the globe.
add that an internet connected car is not something we want, we want our remotes which we already have to do this
I’m not familiar with Lora or other RF systems. Can they adjust temperatures too?
My other vehicle is from 1976… I love it and I love the ability for me to fix it without plugging a computer in.
Walking a 1/4 mile in cold wind to a warm car that’s already defrosted is pretty amazing though. And I’m vehemently against subscriptions where possible, so I get the hatred towards connected cars as well.
Lora is mostly intended for small packets of information (like sensors), temperature could be sent in base 1 and still be sendable over it.
Some people live in these tall things that are called, “not a single family house” and so starting the car from up there you would need some way to communicate to the car, keyfob ranges are limited.
It’s a good thing we invented remote start at the same time as the car itself, I can’t imagine the horror of only operating a motor vehicle I’m next to (let alone touching)
What are you talking about?
Remote start of any kind is a luxury and it’s wild to me that someone would defend internet car controls as any way important or even desirable. That’s what I’m talking about. Physical keys work totally fine and add like two seconds of time to the process.
Not when your door is frozen shut. I wrote another comment detailing my personal struggle as a second shift worker during the polar vortex in -40 degree weather. The guideline was five minutes before you began to risk serious damage, and that was about the length of my walk through the lot. Have you tried opening a car frozen shut by a literal sheet of ice while standing on another sheet of ice while your joints are already starting to stiffen from the cold despite the layers of winter clothing you’re wearing? Remote start stopped being a luxury for me when the Midwest winters started getting deadly cold.
Remote start of any kind is a luxury
Who said it was not?
Physical keys work totally fine and add like two seconds of time to the process.
YOu know except for the fucking case I described where you don’t live in a house so the keyfob might not reach so you need some other way to connect to the car to be able to remote start it.
it’s wild to me that someone would defend internet car controls as any way important or even desirable.
not my fault you struggle with social skills and can’t relate to other people
I mean, his point is still valid. Take the 2-3 mins it takes to go down and start the car.
We managed before so let’s not pretend that wireless fob are necessary.
Counterpoint: During the polar vortex everyone was told that staying outside in the -40 or lower temperatures for more than five minutes risked frost bite. I worked 2nd shift so I was getting out dead of night at the coldest time, walking to the back of the lot to a car covered in a sheet of ice that simply did not allow me to even open the door to physically start it. That’s a 4-5 minute walk already to a car that I can’t open, who knows how long to chip away ice I can’t see, sometimes can’t even reach leading to struggling with the door using brute force trying to get leverage standing on icy pavement just to FINALLY enter my car, which is still -40 inside.
Or I could have had remote start and skipped the potentially lost fingers. Thank goodness I had coworkers who started staying behind to help those that didn’t.
And then what genius? Should I sit in the cold car or stand next to the cold car while it heats up?
The point of the remote start is to avoid this, are you all some brain damaged kind that doesn’t understand user experience?
Why should that use the internet though? There’s low-power wireless communication technologies like Wifi HaLow that have a range of around 1km (0.6 miles), which would be totally fine for this use case. No internet needed.
Is that ubiquitous and does it go through walls? And what’s the cost of that compared to existing solutions?
HaLow is sub-1Ghz so it goes through walls pretty well. Not sure about cost or how widespread it is yet.
Do you usually start the car from your bedroom?
In the winter I would, yes, if my car had it, sitting into a cold car in the morning fucking sucks, starting it 10 minutes before take off and have it defrost, and turn on seat/steering wheel heating would be the fucking tits, and I don’t live in a house so might not even have a line of sight on my car so keyfob wouldn’t be enough
Huh, TIL.
Nice for you to live somewhere mild enough your car doesn’t need to pre-heat but some people live in Chicago and other places where it still snows and pre-heating the car is a must 3 months of the year.
I live in a snowy climate and we did just fine before the invention of wireless starters. My car does not have one and we manage just fine.
That is a great QoL, but let’s not pretend this is necessary.
My main point is fuck subscription for every fucking thing to try and squeeze more money, even worst by removing features and putting them back behind a paywall.
However, we need to stop saying that things are necessary when most of the time they are convenient.
Because that is how they get us to pay. Every little inconvenience is treated as if it absolutely needs to be adressed.
Then, we can say fuck off to these companies and live with the inconveniences they left on purpose to sell a subscription.
But until, companies will push these hardware subscriptions because it nets them more money.
I live in a snowy climate and we did just fine before the invention of wireless starters. My car does not have one and we manage just fine.
That is a great QoL, but let’s not pretend this is necessary.
Yes, but we have had remote start without the internet for decades. It’s nothing but a cash grab. That’s what people are upset about here I think.
They took a feature that did not require the internet, then made it require the internet, for literally no purpose except:
But until, companies will push these hardware subscriptions because it nets them more money.
It’s one thing to withhold a feature. It’s another thing to overcomplicate a feature for the purpose of withholding it.
When I was like 20 or so and needed to drive every morning and it was -25C or colder outside, I’d go outside in my t-shirt, start the engine, remove the key (because the ignition lock was so worn, I could remove it), lock the car, go back inside
Woke me right up and afterwards when I went outside with proper winter clothing, I didn’t feel the least bit cold. Plus the car had a nice big gasoline V6 as opposed to the diesels I mostly drive nowadays, so it actually did manage to defrost the windshield in <10 minutes no problem.
…in Chicago … pre-heating the car is a must 3 months of the year.
I don’t believe you’ve lived anywhere cold for very long. Cold places existed long before remote start. The car warms up while you finish shoveling and brushing off the car. You’re warm from shoveling, and the car is ready to go. If it’s just cold and you’re late to whatever, you sit your shivering ass down behind the wheel and drive away anyways…
The issue isn’t “I don’t want to be cold.” The problem is when it’s below 20F/-7C, you need to wait long enough for the coolant to warm enough to evaporate the moisture in the defrost vents and the inside of the windshield. Otherwise the inside of the windshield frosts over and you can’t see well enough to drive safely. And the colder it gets, the longer it takes.
Do you need remote start? Nope. I don’t have it on my vehicles. But you will need to wait long enough to keep the windshield defrosted.
…coolant to warm enough to evaporate the moisture…
Where I come from, we just scrape off enough ice to see where you’re going, and crack a window to keep it dry enough the interior doesn’t freeze. But, hey, if you know how to leave early enough to get to places on time in a warm cabin, more power to you 😉
You ain’t likely to want to do that at -20F at highway speeds.
By the time you hit the highway you’re usually warm enough that things have defrosted.
There is no need for the internet to use remote start
In truly cold weather, starting and idling your car doesn’t properly warm it up in any sane amount of time and can even be bad for the engine. What you want is an auxiliary heater like Webasto or Ebersprächer (sp?)
Remote start would be nice with with mild weather or on a hot summer day when you need AC though.
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I promise you that there are plenty of people in Chicago without the ability to preheat their car and they’re surviving just fine lol
So…who is making the open source car?
Someone very rich who doesn’t feel the need to get arbitrarily richer.
So no one.
An ethical billionaire?
Yea, no one is right.
There are definitely open source-ish options. Google locost 7
I don’t think “ish” is a thing. Either the sources are provided openly under a libre license, or they are not.
What license does the locost 7 release their designs under?
Locost 7 is a generic name for replica Lotus/Caterham 7 type cars that are built by people in garages, there’s no centralised body beyond “The Book” the original design came from. As far as I’m aware the book’s author has defended the design in court as being too generic to be protectable (which presumably precludes their design being used as a basis to prosecute anyone building something similar).
Most of the cars are built custom to the donor vehicle, taking the original design as a basis, there’s 100s of variations online with drawings - none of them are going to be protectable and no-one’s really tried in the 30 odd years since the book came out. No-one’s published anything with a libre license, I’m not sure if there’d be any point.
I’d be cool with starting a car company for as little as $1M salary; I don’t even need equity, just a couple hundred mil to get it started
I don’t think 2mil is enough to make a factory capable of making cars that can compete economically with mass-produced cars. More of a hobby project, I imagine. But if you can do it, even on a small scale - go ahead! That’d be great! Make the world a better place one bit at a time.
Also to some of us (myself included) 1M salary and 2M equity is already through-the-roof rich!
Edison Motors would be my bet.
That guy is doing some seriously cool open source shit on a HUGE scale (electric logging trucks). I’m sure once they perfect the process they will move into the car and truck market.
His media channels and shorts are always great, even if you have no knowledge or interest in the logging industry.
Can you link to the build instructions and CAD repo for the electric logging truck?
Did you bother to look into it at all? What you are asking doesn’t even make sense from a design standpoint.
Nobody asked for a car you can print.
The way they are building their electric truck is the smartest way. Using available, off-the-shelf parts that have proven reliability. Nobody is going to be using CAD to create custom parts. Reinventing the wheel is precisely the problem and Edison Motors is working to avoid those mistakes.
Also, they are taking design input/feedback at the consumer level right now, BEFORE they have a ‘completed’ product to purchase. This is as close to open source as you can get in my opinion.
You could literally buy the same parts out of a warehouse and build a logging truck yourself if you wanted to.
Or you can sit on the internet and complain without having any idea what you’re talking about.
If they’re using off the shelf parts and they include them in their open-source licensed CAD files, thats fine.
But, yes, CAD files are required, by definition, for open hardware projects. I said nothing about printing. CAD is needed for all types of manufacturing, even when using off the shelf standard parts like M3 bolts.
If they didn’t release CAD files and license them openly, this is not an open source project and its not worth contributing to.
I build open source hardware for a living btw, and ive built open hardware industrial machines. Don’t assume everyone you’re talking to on the Internet is sitting in an armchair without rolling up their sleeves in the shop. I’m legitimately looking for an open hardware car. Best ive found is OpenMotors Tabby. They’ve released their CAD files (which are licensed under CC BY-SA), but their documentation is terrible.
Here’s a link to help others https://openmotors.co/download
That doesn’t look like a car to me. I don’t even think they have a FOSS ICE afaict?
Are any of those open source?
It comes in parts and you can replicate them, isn’t that open source?
Nope. What makes if open source is that the designs are published and licensed using an open source license, such as CC BY-SA
Edit: not sure why I’m being down voted. That’s literally the definition of open-source hardware, per OSHWA https://www.oshwa.org/definition/
Well, crap! Was seriously looking at the CX50. I’m not paying monthly to use stuff that’s already equipped in the car. Just madness.
Love the CX-50…
I acknowledge the cell connectivity in the car costs Mazda money to keep running. Most cars with that kind of connectivity charge for it. But, I think 10/month is too much.
I believe it comes with a 3 year trial
Wait… Even if users don’t pay for this, their car still comes a WWAN module that is hardwired to their ignition. Yes, I realize it’s more likely bolted on to the infotainment system and/or the car’s RTOS, but it’s still baked in.
Depends on the manufacturer’s implementation, but yeah in recent years they’ve made it really difficult if not impossible to remove
Some models are as easy as removing a fuse or unplugging an optional component from the infotainment system. So a “quick” 1-hour process can remove that noise from the car.
But I really shouldn’t have to rip apart my car just to remove spyware and nagware.
I might regret not searching about this before running my mouth here, but I would assume most automotive manufacturers, in 2024, are soldering the wwan modules onto the main board of the infotainment system for cost, and to prevent user removal of their subscription vector.
I would also assume most manufacturers who are converting standard automotive features into paid subscription services that dubiously rely on SaaS backends, are NOT also designing isolated architectures that separate the IoT infotainment system from the car’s critical systems like drive control, transmission, brakes, etc. I’m guessing most at least have CAN bus connections linking them together.
But I don’t know enough about cars and automotive systems to even pretend being knowledgeable. So, if anyone here is actually well versed on this subject (and not just searching forums before replying to me), please tell me I’m wrong, and how so.
Seriously, I want to be wrong about this.
Aftermarket android head unit. As long as they are able to sort out the canbus features, it’s a thing. Unfortunately, it’s mainly the Chinese that do this.
I unintentionally fibbed, because one thing I do have a bit of experience with is aftermarket car stereos, including double-DIN android units.
Granted, I haven’t tried to install one in a 2024 car, but a lot of modern infotainment systems can’t just be ripped out and replaced with aftermarket unit and retain the car’s original functionality, if it can be removed at all without breaking, or removing your access to core functions, like climate control, etc.
Here’s a picture of the interior of one of the cars in question, a 2024 Mazda CX-90
You’re not popping a double DIN in there, and even if you did remove the screen, I’m betting the actual infotainment system boards are inside the dash somewhere installed in a mounted panel box, and they aren’t just going to pop out and be replaceable like your standard head unit.
Another photo, this one from the linked article:
Chinese aftermarket “designed to fit” android head units aren’t just double din universals.
actually well versed
That’s not me, I mostly searched forums and whatnot. My cars are all old enough that they don’t have this nonsense, and while I am handy with cars (do all my own maintenance), I’m not a mechanic, so I don’t have direct experience.
That said, at recent-ish Chevy cars w/ OnStar seem to have separate power and board for the wwan. I’ve watched a couple of these videos, and they seem pretty legit.
And with a quick check on Mazda, It seems you have two options:
- call customer support to have the TCU disabled - ends data collection and interaction, but the device can still be detected and communicated with
- remove the TCU - need to look up where it is, but for the '23 CX5, it’s below the center console; removal would turn on warning lights since it can’t find the device, but AFAIK it shouldn’t prevent vehicle registration or regular car operation
Again, I haven’t actually done this for any car, but it’s definitely something I’m going to be looking at before deciding on a make and model because I intend to remove whatever tracking BS they put in.
I remember a time when these features were just “standard” and car makers ad campaigns all around features just being standard, making the car more enticing than their competitors.
Now I dread the idea of getting a vehicle in the future because of bull shit like this.
But fuck the consumer amirite?
When did customers become consumers?
I’m more concerned with the transformations from customers to product.
“Hey, buy our expensive shit but also give us all your data so we can also sell it to other companies.”
Consumer means an individual person customer who’s not a company. Otherwise customers can also be other companies.
I don’t think unlocking or starting your car from an app was ever standard
Y’know you’re likely correct and that’s totally my bad. I got confused about the remote start from the key fob. I can understand the remote start from the app being a paid thing for sure, like OnStar or specifically in my case the myChevrolet app.
I can understand the remote start from the app being a paid thing for sure.
But why would it need to be? The connectivity from the app is there already, it takes the manufacturer very little to handle the occasional web request. Especially if it can be done for free through third party software.
I mean, if the car needs a cellular subscription.
If it does then I wonder how a free tool could do it.
And if you do, indeed, need to pay for the car’s cellular then I hope features such as these are included.
