if all you care about is rpm's and high level stuff, I absolutely agree. a $10 bluetooth dongle is more the sufficient. However, data about any particular sen

if all you care about is rpm's and high level stuff, I absolutely agree. a $10 bluetooth dongle is more the sufficient. However, data about any particular sensor becomes significantly more intersting if you look at the bigger picture comma.ai is presenting. with their openpilot platform (ie, the actual self driving code/product) it needs to know what those sensors are reporting. ie, is the radar reporting an object in front of you? panda+cabana allows joe user to identify (and report back to the project) what they are seeing on the CAN bus.. so it can be catalogged and added to the database for all the thousands of different vehicle makes/models on the road.