Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

[VP959]

Just heard that Subaru are doing the same recall, for the same reason, apparently they use the same wheels and bolts as Toyota. This does tend to support the view that the problem relates to the bolts/wheel/hub interface having a problem, rather than it just being a case of the the bolts not being tightened properly at the factory.

[llondel]

Of course wheels falling off would never happen to an ICE car would it? No, the steering wheels just come off in your hands on some Ford ICE cars in the US.......

Ford Recalling 1.4 Million Cars Due to Steering Wheels Falling Off

The nut holding the steering wheel is implicated in the vast majority of vehicle incidents.

[PHXPhlyer]

Just heard that Subaru are doing the same recall, for the same reason, apparently they use the same wheels and bolts as Toyota. This does tend to support the view that the problem relates to the bolts/wheel/hub interface having a problem, rather than it just being a case of the the bolts not being tightened properly at the factory.

From the article:
Toyota issued the recall last week for 2023 bZ4X all-electric SUVs, 2,700 of which are affected, the automaker said. Subaru is recalling all-electric Solterras, which were developed jointly with Toyota and have the same issue, Reuters reported.

PP

[OFSO]

"Starting this week, Teslas won’t be welcome in the Chinese resort town of Beidaihe. The electric cars are strictly banned on the streets of the coastal city for the next two months, as senior Communist leadership descends on the city for a secret conclave.

It’s not the first time, either. The city of Chengdu barred Teslas in advance of a June visit from President Xi Jinping, Reuters reported, while some military sites have similarly forbade Elon Musk’s flagship product. While no official reason was released, the bans seem to be out of concern that the vehicles’ impressive array of sensors and cameras may offer a line of sight into meetings of Beijing’s senior leadership."

Ludicruous item. Nothing to do with Tesla or other electric cars. Plenty of diesel and petrol cars have many cameras.

[VP959]

"Starting this week, Teslas won’t be welcome in the Chinese resort town of Beidaihe. The electric cars are strictly banned on the streets of the coastal city for the next two months, as senior Communist leadership descends on the city for a secret conclave.

It’s not the first time, either. The city of Chengdu barred Teslas in advance of a June visit from President Xi Jinping, Reuters reported, while some military sites have similarly forbade Elon Musk’s flagship product. While no official reason was released, the bans seem to be out of concern that the vehicles’ impressive array of sensors and cameras may offer a line of sight into meetings of Beijing’s senior leadership."

Ludicruous item. Nothing to do with Tesla or other electric cars. Plenty of diesel and petrol cars have many cameras.

Might well be an issue of the ability of the state to control car cameras, perhaps. Almost all car dashcams are made in China and many have apps that run from Chinese servers, so could well be under state control, especially within CHina. Tesla's have lots more cameras than most cars (mine has 7 cameras looking in pretty much every direction) but more importantly they are controlled from servers in the USA. It seems likely that the Chinese government doesn't trust US controlled cameras but has no issue with Chinese cameras that they have some degree of control over.

I was surprised a few years ago when I replaced our old analogue CCTV system with a new HD system made by Hikvision. All the reviews I'd read were favourable but a few months after installing the system I discovered that all the cameras, as well as the DVR, were communicating with servers in China all the time. The fix was to make the CCTV system stand-alone, on its own local network, but that wasn't as easy to do as it should have been, as the system complains if it cannot communicate with its Chinese overlords. I have no idea what China does with all the data it routinely grabs from all over the world, but as they go to the trouble of grabbing it they must see it as being useful.

[Undried Plum]

Tesla's have lots more cameras than most cars (mine has 7 cameras looking in pretty much every direction) but more importantly they are controlled from servers in the USA.

Teslacams have no audio channel. I always presumed that was because Tesla anticipated disquiet among Tesla owner that Uncle Sam would be able to earwig on every word spoken in every Tesla.

Not that the NSA would ever abuse such privileged access of course. Oh no.

[VP959]

Tesla's have lots more cameras than most cars (mine has 7 cameras looking in pretty much every direction) but more importantly they are controlled from servers in the USA.

Teslacams have no audio channel. I always presumed that was because Tesla anticipated disquiet among Tesla owner that Uncle Sam would be able to earwig on every word spoken in every Tesla.

Not that the NSA would ever abuse such privileged access of course. Oh no.

They do have audio, at least mine does, and a recent update made that two way audio when Sentry Mode is on via the app, so you can now yell at people who try and break in to your car when it's parked as well as just watch them.

[CharlieOneSix]

Does the Tesla allow you to download footage - in the UK - in the event of an accident? My EV6 will come with all round cameras but my understanding is that UK regulations won't allow recording/downloading although it's available to countries such as South Korea. It does seem daft that I may have to put the front and rear cameras from my Audi into the EV6.

[VP959]

Does the Tesla allow you to download footage - in the UK - in the event of an accident? My EV6 will come with all round cameras but my understanding is that UK regulations won't allow recording/downloading although it's available to countries such as South Korea. It does seem daft that I may have to put the front and rear cameras from my Audi into the EV6.

Yes, no problem. It records to a USB stick whenever the car is turned on and driving, just like any other dashcam, and records for 2 minutes when Sentry Mode is triggered when the car is parked, with that two minutes including the time before the trigger event as well as after it. I'm not aware of any UK regulations regarding dashcams and recording TBH, I've had one in every car I've owned since 2013 and wouldn't be without it. My only criticism of the Tesla dashcam is that the resolution isn't as good as some of the aftermarket cameras, but it's plenty good enough and because it records from multiple cameras it will catch things like people keying the car when parked (assuming that you can ever catch them).

[Undried Plum]

Mine is the older generation. No audio and no sentry mode. It will save a minute or so to memory, before and after an event, if you toot the horn or if you clobber something.

The modern 7 camera system is much more sophisticated. There's a Youtube channel devoted to that TeslaCam stuff. The cops and the insurance companies love it because it gives so many different views to any incident.

[CharlieOneSix]

Apparently whilst legal in the UK to record the all round cameras, from EV6 forums it seems Kia have chosen not to enable that in the EV6 for the European market.

This is a neat solution specifically for Kia/Hyundai cars for hardwiring a dashcam which doesn't involve hiding yards of cabling and piggy-backing fuses. It's powered by the rear view mirror auto dimming power supply, is hidden behind a small removable panel and it gets good reports from UK EV6 users. No sentry mode as it's only live when the car is powered up. Just ordered it from the US manufacturer......

Screenshot 2022-07-03 234540.jpg (61.63 KiB) Viewed 348 times

[VP959]

Slightly off topic, but by complete coincidence I see that the UK government has woken up to the Chinese CCTV problem that I encountered and mentioned earlier in this thread: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62003253

No specific mention of the cameras sending data to China but they very definitely do unless they are physically disconnected from the internet. I proved this beyond any doubt when I discovered that our fairly poor internet connection seemed to be carrying more traffic than it should have been. I installed a packet sniffer programme and after an hour or two of learning to use it found that the rogue data was between Chinese servers and the Hikvision CCTV system.

[Undried Plum]

I remember a couple of years ago a chum had bought the latest and greatest smart tv. In a phone call to myself he suddenly yelled WTF?! He had turned the sound down on the telly but had not switched it off.

Every single world that he spoke to me in that call was being transcripted on his screen. I did not believe him and so I told him a phrase to repeat and it popped up on the screen within a second or so of him doing so. I was pretty sure that the transcription circuitry is not located within the telly, so I suggested that he disconnect the telly from the hub. The transcription stopped.

He put the telly in its box and took it back to Curry's and told them to shove it up their arse.

I can't remember which Asian country that thing had come from. Mebbe Taiwan or South Korea or mebbe China.

It seems to me extremely improbable that Tesla has not given a back door to the NSA to monitor every bit of data transmitted by all Tesla cars and I do wonder whether the Shanghai Gigafactory-produced cars have got a locally installed datalink spur which is not intended for anticipating an order of a portion of sweet & sour pork with fried rice.

[VP959]

Some friends of ours remarked a while ago about the coincidences they kept seeing when adverts appeared that related to something they had been chatting about a short time before. I'm pretty sure that is just down to one of the devices listening in. It was happening far too often to be just coincidence. I've not seen the same thing, but then we don't have much in the way of smart gadgets, just a couple of PCs and a laptop and our TV is an older dumb one as we've no need for anything else, we don't get a TV signal so just use it as a monitor connected to a Freesat box.

[OFSO]

Old subject! Mention anything at all near your smart phone and see how long before the adverts for that thing appear. Or with google Home. And never mention aliens or area cinquante-uno or you'll see helicopters o'head that don't show up on FR24.

[John Hill]

Every single world that he spoke to me in that call was being transcripted on his screen. I did not believe him and so I told him a phrase to repeat and it popped up on the screen within a second or so of him doing so. I was pretty sure that the transcription circuitry is not located within the telly, so I suggested that he disconnect the telly from the hub. The transcription stopped.

That is a useful facility so that profoundly deaf can use a 'phone.

[4mastacker]

One for you car experts.

I was standing next to a parked Toyota when its engine started and there was no sign of the driver inside the car. The lady who owned the car turned up a few minutes later - the engine was still running - and she opened the car door, leant inside and switched the engine off. She said the car is a hybrid and the engine automatically starts if the car detects that the battery needs topping up.

I thought it was illegal (or compromise insurance cover) to leave a car with the engine running. I can't say I'm comfortable with cars which start without someone sitting in the driving seat. Is this kind of technology really sensible?

[G-CPTN]

An unoccupied Tesla was parked in our village square (it had been unattended for a considerable time) when a couple of random pedestrian visitors walked closely behind it - though probably not touching it.
The brake lights flashed once - I wasn't aware of any people connected with the vehicle in the area - any explanation?

[Wodrick]

A quick Goog seems to indicate that it is something to do with "Sentry Mode" activation.

[G-CPTN]

Thanks - makes sense I suppose.