this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
260 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37800 readers
89 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You still have to buy a Tesla. You're acting like it's a win to control the software that is on the hardware that you own. It's sad that it is.
Locked down software is shit don't get me wrong, but being able to jailbreak it feels so good.
It's worth noting our regular cars have locked down ECU. I had to pay good money to be able to get around it. But I agree it's not great overall and isn't headed in a promising direction.
Even my 2005 Audi A6 had software locked features.
Some were probably tuned for different markets, like lock confirmation beep, but others were added as later model year updates like visualization of parking sensors which, IIRC, was added with the 2006 model year update.
Now, granted, the Audi dealer that had serviced my car prior to my ownership never bothered to install firmware updates, but even when I did it was off by default.
To update I needed to flash new firmware onto the ECU’s using 3 CD’s with various updates while the car was hooked up to a charger. The whole thing took about 3 hours.
And then I could use a third party diagnostic tool (VCDS) to set and enable the visualization of the parking sensors. Honestly can’t remember if it actually worked, but at least I got other features made available due to the software updates.
The problem, IMO, is the trend towards never owning anything - not software gated features.
And that trend is certainly negative.