I'd much rather side with the company that was willing to allow the user to disable net connectivity...

I would assume so. Even on older cars, service techs can typically manually push firmware updates over the OBD-II / J2534 port. Rivian's OBD-II port actually hides an Ethernet signal inside of it - so the interface is certainly there.

Fun fact: You can buy an Ethernet adapter directly from Rivian here to connect to the car's internal network: https://rivianservicetools.com/Catalog/Product/TSN00535-300-...

Edit: I eventually recovered most of the cost via a settlement court.

I get some updates OTA, but the dealer has to install some others, and when I took it there they updated it with a USB stick.

What if they did the EV equivalent of Dieselgate[1]? Say it has a dangerous amount of torque or something, but you like that.

Could you just turn off the network and keep it in the desired (unsupported) state?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

While this does not fully prevent backdoors and hacking it does raise the bar quite a lot.

What an utterly ludicrous and silly notion.

Is what I would've said two years ago.

I wish it was two years ago.

> do dealers have any way to update control modules besides OTA?

Yes.

Of course they do. It would be absolutely silly not to. And in the case of safety recalls, their duty to inform you would entail a more traditional and substantiated disclosure i.e. a letter.

It’s not such a stretch to believe that there’s some aspect of this that is specific to a driver or to a vehicle, and so requires that they collect your data. Even if this is not accurate, I can see a business making the decision that, given they need more and more data to improve the model, they would not allow customers to opt-out of that training cohort and still use the feature. Incentives etc.

Directionally though, I am with you on auto telematics data collection; I am not sure you can even buy a new car in the US that doesn’t ship with tracking, and many manufacturers (like the one who makes my car) don’t allow opt out at all. Fcking Stellantis

Instead, Rivian adds a purely performative toggle that makes the car's navigation largely useless and doesn't provide a good alternative.

Older cars have no concept of such updates.

Happy with my 70s and 80s and early 90s cars.

Whoa, didn't know that. Well the caveat is finding a decent J2534 device, right? There are a lot of cheapo knockoffs. Then actually knowing how to use the software with it.

Yes.

You get a letter in the mail asking you to take your car to the dealer so they can install the update.

Been there. Done this.

- I already pay for internet on my phone, I'm not interested in paying for another cellular service just to get maps and music streaming on the screen in my car. GM ditched CarPlay specifically to push customers to their subscription service. I know some electric automakers are offering it "for free", but I do not trust that it will remain free, and that's important when spending tens of thousands of dollars on something you plan to use for a decade+.

- Third party app ecosystem means I can use the maps and music player I want, and not just what my car manufacturer decides is worth including.

- Auto manufacturers suck at software. I've yet to use an infotainment system that wasn't a stark downgrade from CarPlay.

Basically, my car shouldn't need an internet connection because my smartphone already does all the same things but better.

Kia's engines are known to fail predictably even within first 100K miles. They extended their warranty because of it. But then they weasel out of it unless you hire an attorney and go to war.

As if I needed another reason to keep my 2014 skoda.

If i ever have to get a new car, i will disable telemetry, and i will buy it either without telemetry, or with the agreement that i do not consent to telemetry.

(read the fine print before getting a new car. the shit they can do that can go wrong and you have to pay for.. no wonder old cars cost as much as new ones.)

Nice. This is really normal now, for what it's worth - all of the European makes have moved this direction as well (DoIP over ENET). There's shockingly little documentation about Rivian online, though, probably because emissions regulation doesn't mandate it.

Rivian are probably the only major manufacturer I've never had a chance to look at in any RE capacity and I'm getting more curious by the second. The reaction their vehicles had to the infamous bricked-infotainment update actually represented a pretty good adherence to safety guidelines (the drivetrain as well as the speedometer and warning lights on the cluster still worked in a degraded format even when the infotainment was bricked) IMO, so they do seem to apply a reasonable degree of care.

Sources:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46501220

https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_104#_hide-and-disab...

> In the EEA, Windows will always use customers’ configured app default settings for link and file types, including industry standard browser link types (http, https).

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2023/11/16/preview...

Good. Lane Keeping Assist should be illegal.

Same. This is the first thing that I've ever read that makes me think I might be willing to buy a modern vehicle.

A: never once installed the app or registered an account, which flummoxxed the salesman so much he argued with me for 10 minutes trying to say that I had to set up the app to even take delivery, even though I paid cash in full. He even cried to mama (the manager) to find out what to do about this impossible situation. In the end, of course you do not actually need to install the app, even temporarily just for a one-time setup, or even register an account. But MAN do they want you to.

B: Within a few weeks found that someone makes a kit that lets you completely disconnect the telemetry & internet functionality module while providing some pass-through connections that normally go through that box.

Apparently in this case all the bad stuff is conveniently in one box you can disconnect, and still have normal bluetooth for android auto, apple car play, or plain bluetooth headset & media. So still have gps & media on the console stcreen. I can only assume that this won't stay so convenient. They could have anything require anything else any time they want.

They do offer an official way to disable all internet features (remote start from your phone from any distance, remote vehicle monitor, tracking/shutdown, etc), but all that does is disable the useful functions for you, while not disabling any of the functions they use for themselves. It's still actively logging and uploading data, and they still have the ability to remotely track and even disable the vehicle.

I've been to the dealer (different from purchase) once for a free oil change and they didn't say anything. So idk if they even tried to do any updates, or they have some other way to do it or what.

https://www.autoharnesshouse.com/store/AHH-DCM77

They are also super fun to drive and, although they have small batteries, the can charge at 40-50kWh, which translates to 10 minutes to ~85% full. We have used a eUP 2013 model to travel across europe (~900km) in two days, many times! One charge last between one and two hours, depending on speed and weather. We usually cruse at about 90km/h, and the car is basically sipping electrons! The newer model have double the range, but I have not owned or testet them, but might be a decent compromise for longer travels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Truck

https://www.slate.auto

Unlike most vehicles sold in the United States, the Slate Truck is not expected to have any in-car entertainment system; instead, customers are expected to use their own mobile device for audio streaming, navigation, and over-the-air updates for their trucks.

That is a desirable outcome.

I have driven about half a dozen vehicles with this feature, and it has been annoying 100% of the time, and never helpful at all. In the company van I drive (Citroën Berlingo) I have to disable it every time I start the car. The lane keeping gets confused all the time by snow or dirt or when merging onto the motorway, or fucking background radiation - I dunno. It always shocks me when it pulls on the steering wheel. This crap should be forbidden. In the same car I also have to disable the start-stop system so as not to destroy the engine. Aside from that it's a nice enough van for a diesel, but I've been ruined by electrics.

In my own car (Nissan Leaf 2021), it stays disabled. But then it shows me a lawyer screen on every start asking me to consent to handing over my first born son etc.

Imagine if proper EV's had been invented in 2005 - we would have had some awesome cars.

I do distinctely remember strongly disliking the user agreement I signed for the "internet connected" features of the car when I bought it. 100% rubbed me the wrong way and I couldn't' find a way to opt out, and I wasn't so motivated to physically remove it from my new car. Thankfully.

Shouldn't have to trade privacy for safety.

But don't worry, the FTC is out to protect you. Their settlement with GM says that can only sell your name attached to zipcode resolution location data and only sell your precise location trace attached to an opaque ID rather than your name.

The mechanical parts of a car haven't changed much in the last 25 years, and are easy to understand just by watching a few YouTube videos.

The electronics have certainly gotten more complex, but if you can understand basic computer networking and low voltage electronics it's still quite simple.

If you are interested in learning how to fix your own car, there is a great guy who runs an auto repair business on YouTube and his tagline is: "Remember folks If I can do it, you can do it."

https://www.youtube.com/@SouthMainAuto/videos

Certainly not any time in the last 15 years that I’ve been buying IDS/FDRS and service manual access.

Knowledge of this setting has shifted my perspective considerably.

edit: not enough to ditch Sublime, however.

Result, I drive a 2012 car.

This is how cars used to be made. Features were standalone modules: there could be some bus traffic about optional data (wiper module with rain sensor could broadcast that it's raining and body control module could hear that and could be configured to close windows when raining) but they weren't strictly integrated in any meaningful capacity. You could change the radio unit to whatever you liked: if you were lucky you could get one that can actually understand what the other modules in the car were saying and show some non-enterntainment info on its screen as well. Navigation used to be a standalone system that had GPS receiver but nothing else in the car couldn't necessarily tap into the location data.

SUre, it meant some more wires and maybe the features had disconnects because they weren't aware of each other that much but all in all that was a good thing. It kept everything simple, isolated and repairable. Now because of more integration the modules need to know who they're talking to which leads to bizarre things like having to code in new headlights and pair them with other modules or they won't be recognized and just stay off.

You shouldn't have to, and yet...

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/01/...

My car needed another key. The stealership quoted me >$400 for it. I took it as a personal insult and did the research and ordered an OBD device and also discovered you can order replacement keys on aliexpress, and they'll even cut them for you with a good picture of your existing key. It was actually a fun project and very satisfying when I was able to successfully program and link the RFID chip to the ECU to start the engine.

May not be feasible with more locked-down modern cars which I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, but I was able to fix it for about $150, not including my time of course. But I have the OBD device to use next time now as well.

The other reason i did it is because the dealership and other shops quoted me over 10 times the cost of parts, and I literally did not have the money to take them up should i have wanted to. Car maintenance is expensive, _especially_ at the dealership.

Did you also disable ABS and refuse to use smart cruise control?

If this were a widespread policy I bet class action lawyers would be all over it without you having to pay for it.

https://automotivevehicletesting.com/vehicle-diagnostics/doi...

https://www.iso.org/standard/13400-2

Some laws require discussing very specific lists of categories of information they might have. I'm guessing this is a completionist CYA lawyer accounting for this.

I believe the truly concerned/paranoid will not want to take their car to the dealership for updates at all. Which would, IMHO, be a mistake: having known security holes in your car's software is more likely to lead to a privacy invasion (via getting your car hacked at some point) than letting the dealership get their hands on it for a few hours.

(I should note that all of this is theoretical for me: I drive a car that's old enough it doesn't have any software).

EDIT to add this P.S.: Actually, I can think of one category of people who would be concerned enough to turn off the car's ability to connect to the Internet, but feel fine about taking it to a dealer for updates. That would be people who want to turn off the car's Internet connectivity not because of privacy concerns, but because they don't want anyone to be able to disable the car (either via hacking or via "legitimate" means, i.e. the manufacturer does it) while they're driving. Such a person would care a lot about the car's Internet access being completely off while they are driving, but not care about it being turned on while it is at the dealership.

The gen 1 system uses cameras primarily. It’s not awesome lidar or AI. It needs up to date road information.

I’ve been driving down I-5, a major interstate and had it turn off on me, presumably because I hit a dead spot, as conditions were fine and I5 is one of the most popular routes there is.

I’m fine with all of this. I prefer that it hand back control to me rather than make me another statistic like Tesla’s system.

My phone does this now. Most phones do it now.

Lane keeping assist likely (a) shares data back to Rivian, and (b) depends on GPS and (live) map data to know location specific settings.. that there are 4 lanes on this road and the left 2 lead somewhere else (etc). Line detection (on-device) isn't always reliable (snow, rain, ice, mud, gravel, construction)

Incidentally if you can get enough cold water into it you can get around 150bhp out of a first-gen Nissan Leaf motor for a few seconds, which is really all you're going to need.

There's a guy in the south of England who makes tubular steel spaceframe chassis replacements for VW Beetles, that are compatible with most kit car bodies. Instead of taking a hard-to-get Beetle engine and gearbox they take an MGF engine and gearbox, but I bet you could cram your Leaf motors and batteries in. There you go, now you're running around town in a ridiculously quick electric beach buggy. How cool is that?

I have a garmin watch which is great for overland hiking, multiple day expeditions etc

I download the maps and the watch has GPS to plot where I am on that map. My watch doesn’t have an eSIM at all.

Rivian is an adventure brand so if they wanted to design a maps system like that, where I am not continually downloading tiles from open maps or google and sending my location to them and others, they probably could

I just don’t think they have space for those types of features most people don’t care about while they are trying to compete in a rough industry and deliver new vehicles

eBay key fob (new) + local locksmith, easy and no insults!

Why do you think smart cruise control is useful?

I can't tell if ABS is useful or not. My car has it but I've never used it.

In Europe, car manufacturers have to show that their cars meet safety standards. In the US, car manufacturers only have to say/certify that their cars meet safety standards. This is the huge sticking point for Trump's attempt to force EU countries to accept cars that have not been proved to meet safety standards (it is portrayed as "unfair/uneven trade barriers" in the US media).

I think if I might be critical, the idea that the car graciously hands over control to you at a moment you are capable of catching might be a bit of a blind spot. The car could lose one of the signals it needs at an inopportune time and you would need a split second and correct emergency reaction to not spear off the road or collide with something. The physics of cars at highway speeds is awe inspiring, problems happen really, really fast.

I'm very curious at what level the restrictions operate. With every other manufacturer I've looked at, they're extremely coarse-grained; it's more like "is there a known long-time-horizon hazard in this area that is known to impair the system" than a "we mapped every lane and you need a database." I wonder if your I5 issue was a weeks or months-old construction area, for example. I haven't looked at Rivian much, though, and it could be totally different or extremely fine grained, there's no reason to suggest otherwise either.

But maybe that’s what you meant?

I think that's only for the speed limit alarms. Wouldn't have that if people would stick to limits, I guess...

They're worried about the cost of a new car, and the cost of all the electronics, should they go bad.

2. identify anything that looks like capable of housing a cell modem. that takes some understanding of contemporary car electronics

3. deny RF interface to units identified. that takes some understanding what RF = radio frequency interface is and also getting rid of fear of disassembling significant portions of your car.

All in all that is a great learning experience.

There's another post on this article asking for an EV that doesn't: "need internet connectivity via wifi/esim at all? I'm looking for something really simple. A chassis, four wheels, an engine, airbags. Basically my current ICE car, just electric."

I'm hoping that they get a lot of good suggestions, but I'm not holding my breath.

This is the company whose flagship voice assistant, in 2026, can’t tell the intended recipient in a sentence like “Text Bob Mary signed the deal.” And if my phone happens to be thrown into the back of the car by the crash, I doubt anyone will be able to hear me.

Not to mention that OnStar has operators who talk to first responders. the cell phone thing will just call 911 and hope for the best.

I pay for OnStar, and think it’s worth it.

Only if it hasn't been crushed, damaged, or otherwise flung out of the vehicle that crashed so violently that it's actually upside down, as noted in the original comment.

The experience was even comparable to today's experience - I've been auto-routed around a road closure, like, twice in 5 years? And it _failed_ to route me around a road closure probably twice as well?

And at least the object-on-road feature is one I'm glad they have. I once saw a truck ahead of me in my lane suddenly swerve hard onto the shoulder, which alerted me to danger. (The truck driver remained in control of the truck, thankfully). And there was a wooden pallet lying squarely in the right lane of the highway. I avoided it by moving into the left lane, then once I spotted a mile marker I pulled over and called 911 to report the traffic hazard. About ten minutes later, as I was driving on, I saw a police car on the opposite side of the highway, heading towards where I had reported the pallet on the highway. No way of knowing whether that car was the one responding to my call, but the timing suggests it was. Hopefully nobody had an accident before the pallet got cleared away. These days Google Maps would be able to alert people to the hazard before they got close, so nobody will be in the situation I was where the vehicle in front of them blocked their view of the hazard until they were quite close.

Long story short (yeah, yeah, I know: "too late"), some Internet-required features of modern navigation are ones I'm glad they have.

(Just stating this as a data point for you.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140827195715/https://blog.uber...

https://www.crvownersclub.com/attachments/tsb-15-086-crv-tra...

I really wish car review publications would start adding a ‘Privacy’ section along side the Perfectly, Road Handling etc parts of reviews

You can count the exceptions to this on one hand.

^^ Not EV, but... :)

You can be using CarPlay to navigate at that moment to a destination, and because of the way my fiancee has Siri set up, if she says "Get me directions to the nearest Starbucks", Siri will say, "I'm sorry, I don't know where you are."

Someone with the requirements you outline is not in the market for any new car, regardless of powertrain.

Also, there are now several countries that sent positioning constellations (obviously to not have to rely on the US for positioning), and most receivers support several: GPS (US), Galileo (Europe), Glonass (Russia), Beidu (China).

My phone can pre-download maps into Google Maps for offline use, I've done this in foreign countries where I didn't necessarily have full data connection. There's no reason you couldn't cache the necessary maps on the car's navigation system and let it operate based on that and an incoming GPS signal, never emitting out one bit.

OTOH, if you wanted live data, dynamic routing etc. for your convenience you could explicitly turn data on but then you'd acknowledge it comes with the caveats such as potential snooping of telemetry data.

Admittedly, I would never trust a car manufacturer to actually disable telemetry no matter what they'd promise. So, disconnecting the antennae would be the only reliable method regardless. I wonder if there will ever be a car with a physical radio kill switch like laptops.

And chances are you would have to get rid of 2/3 or more of oem electronics.

It'll end up a prototype vehicle or something, with custom ECU and stuff. On the bright side it will belong to you and not to the some mckinsey guys running those insurances and whatnot. It has been done too, although I personally prefer to just use vehicles that do not require this level of effort.

The other day there was a thread on unclouded tractors what I missed and I must tell I love my Universal 445 made in Romania in 1989. For all its quirks, it just gets the job done, no connectivity, no nothing, it's an unbreakable 3-cylinder diesel that just works.

So if being VC funded puts you off an editor, being VC funded may also put you off ycombinator.com

1. For years "Navigate Home" has done exactly what you'd expect, then one morning it decides traveling to Home Depot is the only possible interpretation.

2. A bog-standard timed alarm goes off, and half the time "Silence Alarm" leads to it insisting that there are no alarms going off right now.

What stings is that these aren't issues with ambiguous grammar or unusual phrasings, these are extremely predictable commands for features I would expect in the minimum viable product.

That lasted about 6 hours before I figured out how to switch back to Assistant.

Same, same.

Nothing made me skeptical about the tech industry like working for a VC-backed startup. Ugh.

Fully agree. I also feel like a lot of companies do not need to be on the stock market, especially if they're reasonably profitable, feels like the stock market is where you go to let go of more of your company just to get rid of the VCs whom you owe a lot of money to.