To combat fundamental attribution error, whenever you read an article about Tesla, try replacing the word 'Tesla' with your least favorite car or consumer product company.
'Brand X' has a bunch of data about accidents, and they are motivated to not share all of it with authorities. When they do share data they are motivated to share the data that presents them in the best light. How would it feel if there was data about a crash you were involved in that you could not get access to?
It’s a good question, because in reality it depends on where the data is going.
E.g. in China they don’t trust parents with data on the gender of their child from ultrasounds due to the prevalence of sex-selective abortions. In other countries there are parties about the data. Data is always in a cultural context.
I'm not sure folks understand the comm arch in a Tesla. CAN probably still is the main way data are slogged around between ECUs (this info is five years old). CAN works by broadcasting data values at some periodic rate (1 PPS, 10 PPS, 100 PPS usually) and there is no 'publish/subscribe' except that all data are 'published' and any ECU can listen. What the other ECU does with the data, the originator doesn't know. If one of those ECUs listening is the 'gateway' then it can pluck off the main CAN bus anything it likes, and store it for as long as it likes, and upload whatever it wants. New GW FW can be OTA loaded to save and upload different types of data.
In Teslas, there are two main CAN busses: the regular one and the 'secure' one that does the brakes and other safety stuff. There is NO connection between the two; but there is a secured path where the gateway can listen & get data from the secure one. The point here is that vehicle safety CAN bus is likely unhackable remotely, as there simply is no RF path writing onto that bus. (all bets are off if you have the vehicle, physically). I believe all previous exploits have been fixed.
And one more thing: ECUs have some amount of on-board flash that is used during a crash/power loss scenario. The "dump important stuff to flash" CAN command causes the ECU to take an NMI-style interrupt and do it. Also, if the ECU's own power monitor notices the ECU is about to lose power, there is enough energy storage on board to operate for maybe a few hundred ms. The important stuff is saved.
Every ECU must have a way to OTA its code. E V E R Y O N E, including some door lock or whatever (essentially LIN to CAN gatewaying). There are no, as in ZERO, exceptions to this rule. (or, there weren't as of five years ago, ymmv)
If every ECU has OTA update capability then how could the secure bus possibly be air gapped? You could attack it remotely via OTA updates to an ECU on that bus.
It can if the only ECU on both buses has read only access (e.g. uses a receive only transceiver or if the TX pin of that transceiver is grounded). Also signed updates aren’t rocket science and work well enough if you keep the verification code minimal, well reviewed and formally verified if possible.
Car crashes are taken very seriously in The Netherlands. It's refreshing to hear investigation into systemic problems vs personal responsibility regarding crashes, common in many other countries (see link).
To save others from having to pass a cookie wall to even see what you're talking about, the link is (predictably) from Not Just Bikes: why there are fewer vehicles crashing into buildings in the Netherlands versus USA.
Can someone provide some color on why a state actor would advertise such a feat? Now that this is public, I imagine Tesla can and likely will work to block access.
> You wouldn't know that it would be possible to ask for more information, unless you knew they were collecting it.
Totally. I've played this game with FOIA (public records requests). It's exhausting. Of course they had the data. But as a private citizen, I had to prove they had the data before I could request it.
> You wouldn't know that it would be possible to ask for more information, unless you knew they were collecting it.
Only if Tesla purjured themselves during discovery. That's not the way court cases work. You can ask "Do you guys record the accelerometer data anywhere else but on the MCU?" and they have to answer truthfully.
What you write here mostly amounts to a conspiracy theory. You're taking the idea that Tesla is "hiding something nefarious" as a prior and then taking evidence that their storage was reverse engineered as evidence for that prior.
Eh, that’s generally not how the procedure works. A defendant quite explicitly doesn’t need to proactively provide all information that could possibly incriminate themselves. If the plaintiff isn’t asking for something then, cool. The plaintiff COULD ask for ‘all self driving data’, but often that can be objected to and/or thrown out, as it’s a fishing expedition and that data is proprietary. So that can tie up things for a long time while everyone argues back and forth in court, and it’s likely they’d only get the bare minimum to address whatever the case is alleging. That is very expensive to do.
If they know it’s there and can proactively argue it’s appropriate, that changes the equation dramatically.
You don't have to know it's there, you just have to understand the problem space enough to find it. You depose an engineer and you ask "do you store this information?", and they have to answer. Then you can ask "where do you store it?", and so on. There's complexity about some questions being procedurally allowed, etc... But that's how it works.
Fundamentally this process isn't any different than reverse engineering. If a good hacker can figure out how something works based on knowledge of the problem domain and technology in use, then those same questions can be answered in a deposition and provided via discovery, by definition.
> It will now more often of course as the information gets out.
AGAIN you are arguing from a conspiracy as a prior. There is no "information" to "get out". The car stores telemetry and sensor input. We always knew that. This is a story about someone figuring out how to recover it.
There is literally zero implication of a conspiracy in any of my prior posts?
Rather no one dumps everything in a deposition. If there is something that could help opposing counsel, then it will be avoided as best as possible. This is basic law 101.
Just because you, and some others, know exactly what is there (presumably) doesn’t mean everyone else does! And I’ve seen first hand how opposing counsels can screw themselves over by not spending time and effort to figure out how the technology actually works, and many times plaintiffs don’t either, so they just don’t know where to poke.
And that is avoiding that knowledge of a previously hidden area (such as if something is recoverable that seems like it should not be because they have the wrong assumptions or don’t know how it actually works internally!) can radically change the actual strategy and applicable law.
You seem to keep asserting that everyone already knows everything and all optimal strategies are already known because of this, which does not apply to the real world at all.
The article states, “Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) said it had discovered far more data than investigators had previously been aware of.” The implication is that Tesla has not shared all of this information with investigators before.
As someone who actually purchased FSD and has yet to receive it, it's not a scam. It's just a really hard problem that I think Tesla will solve before anyone else.
If someone promises you’ll have it any day now, so you pay them a lot of money, but they delay it years and years - and you note it’s a really hard problem - at what point is it fraud?
Most legal precedent I’ve seen says a lot less time than they’ve already delayed it, frankly.
It's fraud when someone is harmed. People like you who didn't buy the product and don't want it don't have standing here. People like me, who did, do. And almost without exception, we're all lined up to get the beta release. Offer me a $10k refund today in exchange for never getting access to FSD releases, and I'd turn it down.
"People willfully paying for something I don't like" isn't fraud. Find a FSD owner willing to sue for a refund.
2. Tesla is currently advertising their cars as being capable of driving themselves. They have videos of people driving with their hands off the wheel. They have failed to implement safety features that make drivers pay attention while using driver assists. People have died because of this.
3. There are no FSD owners because FSD does not exists.
4. You are a victim too. You will realize it someday.
5. I sure as hell have standing. Have you seen the video of the current FSD version? It just plain does not work and is being released on public roads for "testing" by untrained drivers. Tesla is putting my life in danger, and shame on you for going along with it.
My admittedly layman understanding of 47 USC §1001 is that no actual harm needs to be demonstrated for it to be an instance of fraud:
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;
So if Tesla is knowingly taking pre-orders for FSD without being certain on when they could deliver it _and_ they don't make it clear that they don't know when or if FSD could be delivered, that would likely qualify as fraud.
And considering that it isn’t clear that a legally viable FSD implementation will ever be possible on the hardware Tesla sold, it’s a pretty ballsy move for anyone but a time traveler.
And given the length of time it’s been going, at some point someone is going to call
time and it’s going to be a big mess for Tesla. Unless they actually deliver it.
Why would getting a refund preclude you from buying self driving if/when it's released? I think that "pay now, maybe get it later" or "don't pay now, can't buy it later" is a false dilemma.
> Why would getting a refund preclude you from buying self driving if/when it's released?
It wouldn't. It would be an existence proof that this isn't fraud: I want the product, they offer it as a pre-purchase with disclaimers, I bought it, ergo I wasn't harmed. Getting a refund now for a product a fully intend to purchase again in the future is called a "loan".
Again, fraud is a crime. It requires damages. I have to have been harmed.
Crimes DO NOT require concrete damages. Civil claims do require concrete damages.
Being convicted of drug possession being one really clear example - there is often no need to even prove the person was aware of the existence of the drugs. Mere actual possession is usually enough (depending on the jurisdiction). And there is no need to prove the person intended to sell, distribute, harm, or even do anything with them. Even if the person literally was taking them to be destroyed, they can still be convicted of the crime.
What if it can be proven they were never serious in their claims about the feasability of self-driving. What if it was all a scam to milk investment money, and yours as well. Would it be fraud then? Point being you were given a disclaimer that was accepted in good faith about receiving a product/service in a reasonable time frame. If that time frame turned out to be 100 years, I'd say you were damaged.
> What if it can be proven they were never serious in their claims about the feasability of self-driving. What if it was all a scam to milk investment money, and yours as well. Would it be fraud then?
Yes, it would. Because then I would want a refund. But that would be asserting facts not in evidence, and I refer to my point upthread about arguing from a conspiracy as a prior.
There are plenty of videos on Youtube showing the state and rate of progress of self-driving. It's clear it's got a long way to go but is improving quickly.
Everyone knows that Elon Musk's twitter is not a reliable indicator of feature release dates.
>It's clear it's got a long way to go but is improving quickly.
First part yes, second part no. It has been in development since at least 2015 and still drives straight into walls. Meanwhile Waymo and Cruze are putting down tens of thousands of miles between interventions.
You can see the same route being driven better as new betas come out. There's just not the same openness from Waymo and Cruze as Tesla which has vehicles out there in varied conditions able to be recorded by members of the public.
The access is already blocked, it says in the article that they had to decrypt the data in the data-storage system. It's not like Tesla can prevent a state actor from having access anyway, that's just a law away.
> The vehicles also record speed, accelerator pedal position, steering wheel angle and brake usage, and depending on how the vehicle is used, that data can be stored for over a year.
Tesla really seems to have an extreme amount of personal data capture combined with always-on remote access.
It’s fascinating to watch people swear off Amazon Echo and delete their Facebook over privacy concerns but then proudly drive around in a vehicle that records everything, stores everything, and gives opaque data access to the parent company. In this case, a parent company with a reputation for bending the rules to suit their needs.
Really goes to show how much the computing privacy debate is a matter of brand loyalties and each company’s position on the hype cycle more than anything else.
I feel like there's only a very small intersection between the Facebook-avoiding, home assistant-eschewing crowd and the Tesla driving crowd.
Anecdotal I know, but most people I know who drive Teslas have multiple home assistants, Instagram/Facebook accounts, and little regard for personal privacy.
Most people I know in the social media/home assistant avoiding crowd talk about how they wish they could buy a car with 90s tech (but 2021 safety tech) to make it simpler and cheaper to repair, since they don't care about CarPlay or Android Auto or the million "convenience" features that don't work reliably.
I’d agree with that. We own Teslas but have no home assistants, use Facebook as little as possible, and buy Apple products because of their privacy stance. Nuance is important. I trust Tesla and Apple with my data, but not Facebook, Google, or Amazon.
Contributing in small part to the electrification of transportation is more important to us than any benefit I’d enjoy from Tesla collecting less or no data from our vehicles.
But why one companies and not the other in terms of trust? It’s not like there are inherently different types of people working at one company vs the other. I’m curious.
Yet. As soon as data is stored/archived, it can be used later for any purpose. Even if the original company has no desire to do so, acquisitions/mergers/sales/trusted-third-parties could.
No, stored data cannot be later used for any purpose.
In recent years there have been numerous laws and regulations passed concerning data rights and privacy. If you get consent for data usage in one way, but then use it in a way that differs with what the user consented to, that isn't in compliance with the law.
It would be fairer to say that even if the original company desperately had the desire to do so the legally required privacy compliance officer would reject their ability to do so. This is especially true at the bigger tech companies wherein they have things like external audits of their privacy compliance policies.
So why is it that so much of Hacker News as a community seems convinced that things aren't like this?
In the book Factfulness by Hans Rosling he talks about ten reasons that people get things wrong. One of them is that people assume that things stay the same rather than changing over time. One of the examples that he used for this is the widely held incorrect belief of a sharp distinction between third world and western countries. While there was once a sharp divide, the actual disparity greatly diminished. However, the legacy of that disparity continued to exist in the minds of people who weren't aware of the shifting distributions. As a result of these sort of shifting distributions one of the things he encourages in the book is regularly refreshing knowledge on a subject. I think something similar is happening here. A kind of nhilistic worldview in which things don't improve leads to people not updating their understanding of the world that changed in response to their frustration.
Your point is valid; however, I would say that something being legally possible and technically possible are two different things. I think there have been several data breaches in the past couple years that have shown data to be kept or used beyond its assumed intended purpose.
Even if the company itself followed the law completely, there's nothing technically stopping a bad actor (internal or external) from doing whatever they want with it if they access it.
Not just most Tesla drivers, but most people in general have these things.
The recurring theme is just how terrible high tech people are at estimating what’s normal in the world.
The overwhelming majority of people don’t think or care about the privacy concerns of either. The overwhelming majority of Tesla drivers are not privacy oriented tech nerds.
If you want a high-performance engine that meets modern emissions requirements, you're probably going to be looking at EFI and turbochargers. Changing the fuel injection maps on a modern car requires something akin to rooting/flashing an Android.
> If you want a high-performance engine that meets modern emissions requirements, you're probably going to be looking at EFI and turbochargers. Changing the fuel injection maps on a modern car requires something akin to rooting/flashing an Android.
It's also federallyillegal, I don't know why you've veered this thread into ease of performing illegal modifications.
Not everyone lives in your jurisdiction. I don’t know why you would be quick to police the discussion, as talking about how something works is done does not mean you intend to do it (and is well within the scope of “Hacker” News).
The closest analog with smartphones to federal emissions laws is more like the FCC prohibiting hacking the baseband ostensibly to protect the cellular network.
2021 safety tech includes back-up camera and associated LCD display, auto braking, lane keeping, LED headlight advancements, blind spot monitoring and numerous air bags, auto wipers and lights etc etc. plus structural improvement.
The car they want sounds like less well made 2021 car with 1990s fuel economy and performance and a drivetrain that is easier to maintain but needs more maintenance.
Outside of airbags and structural/material improvements, most of that hasn't actually contributed much to safety.
Many brands have also seen a big decline in reliability and quality of craftsmanship. In fact Tesla's high-end models still don't match the quality control of Toyota's most basic cars. Sure tech has improved but construction and longevity has taken a hit.
No, just the airbags, structural improvements (including crumple zones), and ABS brakes. Most of the other things you listed are primarily or exclusively convenience features.
Those data items, speed and control position, don't seem equivalent to the data Google, Amazon and Facebook collect. They do seem like legitimate telemetry on a machine operated by a human though. If my pedal position differs from someone else's, that tells you nothing about me other than that was where the pedal was.
Those tell Tesla nothing about my personal habits, my political leanings, who my friends are, what organizations I donate to or participate in, etc.
Could be used to calculate the price of your car insurance.
If the data is distinct enough, it could be used to identify the driver (with some degree of probability). It then could be shared with car insureres / law enforcement agencies / private investigators / random concerned citizens.
They can't, without your consent. The problem with google & fb is not primarily that they will share their data with 3rd parties (without your consent). It's that they will use it against you. E.g. they'll show the right adverts to nudge your behaviour in directions you may not want but for what they are being paid for. E.g. imagine a political party wanting to efficiently gain new supporters by converting those who are most susceptible. FB and google will have a lot of information about a lot of aspects of your life and they can sell services (not the data!) to interested parties based on that knowledge.
Tesla will just know about your driving habits and probably won't be able to sell anything based on that. It's a huge difference. Law enforcement, now that's a different story. You'll probably want to keep the privacy laws of your country strict and not allow peeking into the memory or recording of your car too easily.
While Tesla knows more info about how you use or operate the car, the big piece that matters to your privacy is arguable the vehicle location and that is not at all unique to Tesla. Many (most?) vehicles produced in the last decade have a GSM modem that pretty much continuously leaks your data at least to the cellular networks, and likely the vehicle manufacturer/operator. I used to physically remove the modem from my cars were possible.
> It’s fascinating to watch people swear off Amazon Echo and delete their Facebook over privacy concerns but then proudly drive around in a vehicle that records everything, stores everything, and gives opaque data access to the parent company.
How does this give anyone more data on me than is already out there based on the cellphone in my pocket and the use of my credit/debit cards? Even if Tesla didn't collect it the LTE signal of the car is enough to track me when I leave my phone at home.
And if you don't have Tesla and your car has something like OnStar it can do this too.
All I see are people making a mountain out of a mole hill. The data on my accelerator pedal is not a threat to my privacy or freedom.
The massive number of safety features in this car are a net benefit for my physical safety, though. The number of times I've avoided collisions because the car took action when people I couldn't see were about to hit me is worth every penny.
I will never buy another car without the Tesla standard set of features ever again. I used to avoid doing things because of a long drive as I hate the fatigue. Now I don't even blink at the idea of going 300 miles for an event.
I've definitely been hesitant to buy a Tesla for exactly this reason. It's not clear if you can turn it off or avoid it by not using FSD either. It's a shame, would love to own one some day. But I'm guessing the option of buying a car that doesn't have this is slowly dying unfortunately. Consumers never win with this sort of stuff. The really ironic thing is that it is tied in with a more environmentally friendly car. Want to avoid being spied on? Then you need to use dirty fossil fuels.
I will continue to repair my ‘70s and ‘80s era vehicles, because newer models that incorporate electronics are all total garbage. Reason: embedded engineer for 30 years who has worked on automotive software.
old vehicles are very inefficient in terms of safety, fuel consumption, and exhaust gases, for this reason alone one should prefer electric or modern era ICE
The emissions cost of building a new car and shipping it halfway across the world will significantly affect this calculation. You can drive a less efficient car for many years on the carbon cost of building a new one, as long as you're not driving some huge pick up or other obscene gas guzzler.
The second part of what you said is a widespread myth.
There is a crossover point after you drive a certain number of miles in an EV, after which the lifetime carbon cost is lower than that of an equivalent ICE car.
For Model 3 the crossover point is estimated at around 5,000 miles. Not "many years."
The sources and methodology for this estimate are discussed in detail in Tesla's 2020 Impact Report.
Variables often overlooked by other lifecycle studies:
* Using Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) or Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fuel/energy consumption data (both of which overestimate fuel-economy and underestimate emissions) rather than real-world data;
* Not considering the higher energy efficiency of Tesla’s powertrains;
* Assuming the average EV needs a battery replacement at some point in its life;
* Not considering emissions generated through the oil refining and the transportation process; and
* Using outdated data for the carbon impact of cell manufacturing.
That report compares the total lifetime emissions of a Tesla with an ICE, as far as I can tell. Also, I don't see any discussion of the cost of mining, smelting, etc the chassis and engine parts, it seems that those are acquired and not included in the production costs. Furthermore, it assumes that the car is locally built, it doesn't seem to include the cost of transporting the car and/or parts long distance. Finally, the 24.8MPG number they cite is pretty large consumption compared to the usual fuel economy of cars I've seen around me at least: it's basically 10 l/100 km, where the cars people around me own are at ~4-6 l / 100 km in real driving (maybe a difference between EU and US?).
Regardless, the discussion wasn't about replacing an ICE car with an electric, it was about replacing an old ICE car with a newer ICE one.
I will also note that personally I have a a very low level of trust for any statements put out by Musk's companies - they have a clear history of greatly exaggerating various good news.
Perhaps chassis costs (meaning carbon costs of making the chassis) are roughly comparable between ICE and EVs, so I suppose there was no need to focus on this in the report.
>and engine parts, it seems that those are acquired
Tesla motors are wound and made from scratch from raw materials on site. This data point would not be in favor of ICE cars, for the reasons you mention. Batteries on the other hand do increase the carbon cost and that's why EVs start off behind ICE cars at the start of their lifetime, catching up in terms of lower carbon used only after some period of use.
>Finally, the 24.8MPG number they cite is pretty large
They go by real world consumption, not manufacturer claims. Remember VW Dieselgate? Credibility is not a given in ICE circles. But you have a good point it's probably more about the EU/US difference here with US cars being gas hogs, due to size and possibly the impact of different emissions equipment in some states.
>Regardless, the discussion wasn't about replacing an ICE car with an electric
OK. It was one line, not so much a discussion, but it did come from you to be fair, so although I didn't read it that way, you get to decide. Still, I believe the comparison makes most sense against an EV, although it may not have been what you had in mind. If one cares enough about carbon to even make the comparison, and to try to defend the position that driving an older car is better for the environment, it doesn't make much sense to ignore the cars that are indeed better.
>clear history of greatly exaggerating various good news.
SpaceX and Tesla are legitimately doing great as far as I can see. Which good news were you talking about?
I fully agree that, IF you buy a new car, you should buy an EV, at least in most places (in my country, EV infrastructure is really behind, so EVs are almost entirely relegated to city cars). My point was more about whether you should change your current ICE with a new car, and even more so, I was defending someone who was caring for their old ICE instead of buying a new ICE for 20 years (if you look further up the comment thread, this was the discussion I was chiming in on).
In the EU at least, there has been constant pressure not to do this on environmental grounds, and I believe this has been misguided (perhaps EVs will indeed change that).
> SpaceX and Tesla are legitimately doing great as far as I can see. Which good news were you talking about?
They are doing good, but they constantly promise far more - Tesla Cybertruck, Tesla Semi, "FSD" (Elon promised in ~2018 that "very soon" you would be able to let your Tesla work as a robotaxi when you don't need it and recoup its cost within a year from all the money it would make!), solar tiles.
SpaceX has similarly claimed fantastic schedules that they are far from, fantastic price cuts for orbital flight (they claim Spaceship will be at least 50x times cheaper than the cheapest option so far), that they will offer commercial earth-to-earth space flights in the near future, and that they will maintain a fleet of 40k satellites, larger than all the current number of satellites combined.
SpaceX also has a history of lying to the FAA and EPA about their launch schedules and environmental risks (not talking about CO2 here, but rocket debris in protected swamp lands).
I like this youtube video that goes over various crossover points. The tesla beats the RAV4 prime at ~45k miles and a rav4 ICE at ~28k miles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEqxaH47DTs
I think 5k miles is a bit low, and using tesla as your only source biased.
I wouldn't count out the possibility that this YouTube channel is receiving affiliate commissions and is not as reliable a source as you think.
Putting that up against Tesla, which would have a lot to lose by putting the wrong analysis into their Impact Report, I would give Tesla more credibility despite the fact that they have a vested interest here.
Their vested interest is out in the open, not a secret… it's the mission of the company even.
Fuel consumption and carbon emissions - that very much depends. Small cars of 30-40 year ago are often very good, even better than today's models in some cases.
Some people care more about other things when choosing a vehicle. I suspect motorcyclists are far less worried about safety, for example. Performance enthusiasts too, although not to the same extent; and some just want a comfortable roomy ride with plenty of power as well as ease of repair and parts availability.
As the saying goes: "It's not about the miles per gallon, it's about the smiles per gallon."
And those extra costs are worth paying to avoid businesses that abuse their customers by making parts and service inaccessible or unaffordable, tracking their customer, and otherwise making cars more expensive and less enjoyable to own and use. And all carmakers are abusive these days, because the market has selected for that new status quo.
In case of a crash, I rather have my butt position being tracked and in palantir's databases or equivalent than having the engine block crushing my body.
I have no idea why these are mutually exclusive and no I'd rather die in a flaming car accident than have myself tracked in Palentir's databases. Fortunately, I don't have a car-- nor need one -- so this is a pleasant day.
In my experience fuel injection is much more reliable than carburetors. Fuel injection requires zero adjustment. Many mid-90s cars have electronic fuel injection and ABS controllers and that’s it.
The really ironic thing is that it is tied in with a more environmentally friendly car. Want to avoid being spied on? Then you need to use dirty fossil fuels.
I see similar parallels with software. Want a sane UI with the functionality you need, or avoid being spied on? Then you have to use "insecure" older software.
There's an option in one of the menus for data sharing which should restrict some of the individualized data being generated. They'll still collect data on certain aspects off vehicle operation for diagnostic/monitoring purposes though.
I agree with your general comment, but I don't think any of those things can be classified as "personal data". How are you gonna identify a user based on values from those parameters?
GDPR, while not perfect, describes "personal data" to be:
> The data subjects are identifiable if they can be directly or indirectly identified, especially by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or one of several special characteristics, which expresses the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, commercial, cultural or social identity of these natural persons.
Given enough of that data you should be able to trace which roads most users drive on and where they park their car. That seems like personal data to me. Don’t forget they should have a full database of VIN numbers they can already look up a list of owners.
Fingerprinting? There is research around identifying users purely based on their keystroke patterns which are apparently fairly unique. I wouldn't be surprised if driving (and probably a lot of other activities involving physical movements) has the same potential for fingerprinting.
Is it not a necessary condition to collect that data in order to build and refine eventual FSD? I'm not making a blanket statement about bulk data collection but in Tesla's case, that data will eventually trickle back to the consumer in the form of car upgrades.
It looks to me like Tesla's an AI company masquerading as a car maker with the real goal to take in as much data as necessary for their various AI projects to succeed.
Or an explanation that doesn't require such giant leaps: they want to capture as much data as possible in case they ever need it and know there's nothing stopping them, so why not.
Fact 1: Tesla is attempting to develop a self-driving system that is based on machine learning.
Fact 2: Training machine learning systems requires training data. Having large amounts of real training data is highly desirable.
So a single step?
I'm sure that Tesla also benefits from being able to defend against false claims that would tarnish their image[1], but please don't be disingenuous about their machine learning goals.
The giant leap is Tesla is an AI company. Most companies gather data if they can, you wouldn't call them an AI company. A concrete example: Amazon, Walmart, and Target collect a lot of data on their respective ecommerce websites. Are they AI companies? They also and use train machine learning models.
Tesla is trying to fix left turn regressions [1] in an if statement it introduced with its latest over the air update. Working on getting an iteratively better lane / cruise control assist is something many auto companies are doing, and that also doesn't make them AI companies.
I mean in the same event that you list, Elon literally opens with: "Tesla is much more than an automotive company, and we have lots of deep AI activity..." I think it is fair to say that a company that is literally inventing its own AI training supercomputer is probably an AI company as well :)
Elon says a lot of things. Elon also brought out a person in a robot costume to dance. I stand by it takes giant leaps to think Tesla is an AI company at this stage and them collecting data doesn’t change that.
I’m not going to deny that their cars are standout and that they sell well, if you wanted to collect a lot of data you need a good and hip product to piggyback onto. But I don’t necessarily think the car is the end goal. If they manage to crack autonomous driving fully first thanks to collecting all that data it will be such a product that it makes the car irrelevant and it will genuinely change the course of history. Of course that’s just my gut feeling about it. It’s not all that unlikely if you look at the extent of what Silicon Valley is willing to go to just to show you ads, from creating the world’s most popular smart phone OS to a giant video sharing site to voice assistants to pioneering vr to creating the world’s most popular web browser and I could go on :)
If they have decrypted the data then this is a story with much bigger repercussions.
What they may have done is decoded the data from the log files, which could have been in a proprietary or obfuscated format.
I don't have a link handy, but WSJ reported that China does not allow high ranking officials to drive Teslas because of the potential of leaking location data etc.
Claim "legitimate interest", wait for someone to bother with a lawsuit, profit in the meantime for many years while the fine can be at most a few % (I think max 4%?) of turnover in a single year, and that's only if you lose badly.
Not saying this is actually illegal, just if it is then this is probably the reasoning. One could design a drinking game around illegal things that just nobody bothers to enforce. Related: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-tenths_of... (basically it's up to the victim to bother with legal work and proving things)
To combat fundamental attribution error, whenever you read an article about Tesla, try replacing the word 'Tesla' with your least favorite car or consumer product company.
'Brand X' has a bunch of data about accidents, and they are motivated to not share all of it with authorities. When they do share data they are motivated to share the data that presents them in the best light. How would it feel if there was data about a crash you were involved in that you could not get access to?