nemonowan Wrote:Indeed. Unlike other items, safety regulations require a minimum of quality in the materials and engineering that go into making a car.
So the normal ways of forcing planned obsolescence upon consumers cannot be used.
But if nobody can access the software, only they can fix any problems that pop up, capturing that revenue stream. And if they decide that they won't fix problems in cars with unsupported versions of the software, you are out of luck.
Even worse, they can program it to start failing much sooner than the mechanics would.
*Jeapordy Jingle*
"What is Limp-Home Mode?"
Volkswagens already do this. Go into limp-mode at the drop of a pin. Some renaults also. The last car we owned - and it was an awesome car - was sold off because the gearbox liked to randomly declare it had a fault and go into limp mode. For no reason beyond phase of the moon - nobody could ever find anything wrong with the thing. The car had to be sold, because it resisted all attempts at fixing.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?