Comment by moooo99

You're proving the previous commenter's point. VW doesn't want liability. They do not care about "security" just liability.

When they leave the "security" to the platform they can blame them in a lawsuit.

How else would you build "security" into the app (in the sense of not allowing third-party modifications of it that would open them up to liability), except relying on hardware attestation that the app has not been modified? That attestation necessarily requires the platform provider to be involved.

“Compliance” only matters when their own interests aren’t involved

They'd have you know they actually cared a bit too much about said compliance itself.

That was just engineers engineering their way into creating Electrify America :)

I mean, the only reason they did it was to be able to comply with the requirements of the test.

But the reality is that every once in a while you have a scandal like this or something like Wirecard, and it happens, because the culture is such that absolutely nobody thinks it possible. That includes officials and regulators whose first instinct will often be to come after the people trying to expose the scandal, as has happened in the case of Wirecard.

Them cheating the tests WAS them ensuring THAT compliance.

In fact, that's how a lot of compliance works in industries where there's little little enforcement and relies a lot on self regulation.

But why? I'd understand (though not approve) them tightening down everything about the car firmware to the max. They are responsible for the app, sure (it's a "digital element"), but they aren't responsible for the OS the app runs on. The CRA should not be used as an excuse to enact stupid restrictions.

Yes? These things directly follow one another: VW are obsessed with letter-of-the-law compliance, so things like end-runs around test routines are obvious solutions.

And VW didn't single-handedly destroy the diesel market; economics and physics did. Almost every other manufacturer was also fudging the tests results in some way. But more importantly, building a passenger car diesel that meets NOx targets doesn't work; by the time a passenger car diesel meets modern NOx targets honestly, the car contains a ludicrous precious metal loading in the catalyst and is only a few percentage points more efficient in terms of consumption and CO2 emissions than a petrol car and the math doesn't add up. Diesel is just not a practical solution for passenger cars; it never was in most ways, but it took the EU a long time to restrict NOx pollution to a sustainable level and expose the physical issues at hand.

VW is large enough that different parts of the company can have very different opinions.

You don't understand, both comes from the same motivation and way of thinking: You see, compliance in Germany is about pretending to be super-compliant and not getting caught. Everyone will do the dance, make all the moves, and if you seem to make all the moves, you are assumed to be compliant. Supervisory authorities will not really check thoroughly except if you are annoying them or making them look bad. Especially if you are partially state-owned like VW.

In Dieselgate VW got caught, made the supervisory authorities and politicians look bad, which is why the authorities also weren't inclined to sweep it under the rug completely. They just shielded VW from the financial consequences in Germany (German VW customers got shafted).

Blocking GrapheneOS is the useless "pretending" part of compliance. They don't really want to do security, because that would cost money, so they pick some actions that seem drastic, harsh and don't cost them anything to implement. Later, when there is a security incident, they will point to their huge heap of pretend compliance, whine a bit about state sponsored actors, high criminal intent and other obvious deflecting bullshit. But they will get away with it, because they did the compliance dance, so they are obviously compliant and did nothing wrong. Nobody in authority will look twice als long as they are neither annoyed or made to look bad.

tl;dr: compliance in Germany is performative

One is people one is companies.

As a dealer, it would be frustrating especially because it is so silly. Basically, if they report any of this to HQ, it would be along the line of "I am losing the sale of a whole car over some stupid app block".

Net Promoter Scores is the only thing that the marketing department cares about. So fill out that customer satisfaction survey, give them a 1 out of 5, and say why. Passives (2-4) are not even considered lol.

You could make a similar argument about voting in democratic elections. It's still important to vote.

What incentive does a dealer have to know or care why a sale fell through? Bizarre question

What is the risk of letting them know that someone lost trust in VW's features due to a boneheaded decision of their software group and decided not to buy that brand at all?

Yes, the EU calls it "digital sovereignty" and is currently "in" with the EU.

It's ridiculous, but are we only saying that because we're on HN or is it because the portion of the userbase who thinks it's actually a bad thing is the larger one?

Mercedes is terrible for EVs. Adaptive Cruise Control for example is a paid feature with a recurring subscription. Don't encourage "Car as a Service" concepts.

2022 Dacia Sandero is a great car. Analog buttons, good build quality, well designed. And it’s cheap.

The keyword here is "in the EU".

Outside Western Europe, VW is priced like a premium upmarket brand (not quite luxury). Maintenance and general upkeep for a VW are easily two to three times the cost of an equivalent Japanese car.

Which wouldn't be an issue if the cars were actually built to their price point. But the VW cars we get here are shittier versions built in nasty factories. They break down if you look at them wrong. The build quality is nonexistent. They are absolutely an awful deal, no matter how you look at them. You also have to personally import parts from wherever they're available, because otherwise only the dealerships have parts and they are absurdly overpriced.

Also, European brands are afraid of exporting EVs. If you want an EV, you buy a Chinese car. There is no other option. It is as simple as that.

It depends which market you're in.

Unless, of course, said owner cared for the environment

And they lobbied governments to keep the tests a joke (e.g. test emissions on downwhill roads):

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/24/uk-franc...

Of course the governments probably lobbied for this stuff because it improves their car industry tax profits/employment numbers.

They all cheated and everyone knew it. It was the only way diesels could be so economical yet so powerful.

Been mostly interested in ev6. Just compared insurance cost and Polestar 2 was almost double. Born was also 50% more than kia ev4. Maybe different in the us if you are there?