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New Toyotas will upload data to AWS to help create custom insurance premiums

150 points by mikro2nd 6y ago

tibbydudeza 6y ago
And also to the NSA.
calmworm 6y ago
This removes "New Toyotas" from my list of potential next vehicles, though it's likely just a matter of time before all new vehicles have a direct link with insurance companies.
- dingdingdang 6y ago
  Count me in, there's no way I would touch these things. And that's despite Toyota being one of my fav car brands :/
  - unknown2374 6y ago
    FYI, Toyota's cover-up on a major defect caused multiple deaths and hundreds of accidents in 2009 [0]. That's criminal. [0] https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-pay-12b-hiding-deadly-unintended-acceleration/story?id=22972214 https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-pay-12b-hiding-deadly-...
    - giancarlostoro 6y ago
      I think most Toyota drivers know about this one, it was a software bug, it's a shame they tried to cover it up, but the bug itself couldn't of been intentional. They were just trying to contain a shitty situation, they make otherwise reliable cars which is why people buy Toyota.
    - erikw 6y ago
      I don't think this is actually true. I have not been able to find any sources referencing an actual bug and patch. Toyota, NASA, and the NHTSA did not report any issues. Nevertheless, Toyota lost a jury trial with this rather hilarious quote available on wikipedia[1]: "Michael Barr of the Barr Group testified that NASA had not been able to complete its examination of Toyota's ETCS and that Toyota did not follow best practices for real time life critical software, and that a single bit flip which can be caused by cosmic rays could cause unintended acceleration. As well, the run-time stack of the real-time operating system was not large enough and that it was possible for the stack to grow large enough to overwrite data that could cause unintended acceleration." So... maybe the computer could have physically failed, or a stack overflow, or some other error? Regardless, I still feel like drive-by-wire is scary. The Revisionist History podcast also covers the unintended acceleration recall from more of a psychological perspective[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle... [2] http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game
    - namdnay 6y ago
      I thought the consensus was that it was floor mats getting stuck?
    - CraigJPerry 6y ago
      There’s quite a few scary stories in the automotive world. It’s quite unsettling. The GM handling of ignition deaths was upsetting to read about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_swit... Ford’s 2000s era people carriers with a penchant for self-immolation due to a wiring harness issue iirc. More recently the Bosch / VAG diesel gate stories that were in the news. Off setting that was the John Deere move to block aftermarket servicing because end users can’t be trusted...!
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  I'm basically a Toyota only guy, I have to say, I agree as well. It's a damn shame. This should be completely opt-in only.
  - Taek 6y ago
    Toyota has a history of getting things right. They may well respond to feedback here. In the meantime, their cars last forever so we can probably keep driving Toyota for another 20 years.
    - giancarlostoro 6y ago
      As long as I can turn off this AWS nonsense, I will be too. I really want to own a Lexus at some point but it's out of my pay grade currently. Lexus are also top quality as well.
- novok 6y ago
  Even toyotas sold today have cellular modems that track your location, it's called "toyota safety connect". There is no obvious way to turn it off either.
  - blahyawnblah 6y ago
    Fuse?
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    I imagine that you can still take the car to a mechanic and ask them to remove the sim card to disconnect the system
    - oneplane 6y ago
      if it's put in there with the intent to track you regardless of what you want they'll have provisions to make sure you don't disable it. I.e. not use a SIM card but use an eSIM or CDMA style authentication. Or make the ECU go in to cripple mode if it can't talk to the mothership over the cell connection.
    - bradly 6y ago
      At least for Volvo they are used for by their service mechanics as well, so you will want to make sure it doesn't void any warranty claims.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cma 6y ago
  Tesla and eventually others likely will use your plates to sell info about your driving regardless of which car brand you own. Your car doesn't have to report on you when there is a network of other cars with machine vision and radar that can.
- encom 6y ago
  Are there new cars sold today that are not connected to the internet?
- MVorlm 6y ago
  I have a "New Toyota", and I was asked before it started uploading data for insurance.
- m463 6y ago
  So here is how it works from a friend who worked at a bank. It turns out that a certain immigrant demographic has the property: many get a credit card, they immediately charge it to the max, they make the minimum payment forever. Another demographic: some of them get a credit card, immediately charge it to the max, they make 2 payments, then they never make another payment again. The way to do this right is to just spread the risk over everyone so that good people in the second demographic are not penalized by bad ones. The way it really works is: advertising heavily targets the first demographic, using their national language and excluding other demographics. So in regard to insurance, good drivers will think "this doesn't apply to me", and bad drivers will be excluded by making them go elsewhere.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    My understanding of how it really works is somewhere in between. Find a group of markers that are collective a very strong proxy for demographic 2, such as zip code, education, credit score, and they charge them higher rates or restrict enrollment.
- forgot_account 6y ago
  I'm starting to wonder if there will be a growing market for car shops to do what I've done to my Supra: Pull out the entire wire harness and replace it with an aftermarket Power Distribution Module system, ECU, and CAN-BUS controller. Remove all this monitoring and connectivity crap, but keep the best parts of a modern Japanese car: the bulletproof mechanical components. It's expensive and time-consuming, but also saves some weight.
- ekanes 6y ago
  Agreed. Though they hold their value/worth extremely well, which means you should be able to work with older, used models for quite some time.
OldHand2018 6y ago
Cars have been so well-built for so long that car companies doing this crap with data (remember that Ford's outgoing CEO talked about monetizing driving data) should cause people (that care) to just stop buying new cars. Bonus: you don't have to agree to forced arbitration for any defects you encounter!
- jkaplowitz 6y ago
  In much of the world, the forced arbitration clauses are illegal and unenforceable anyway for consumer contracts (though often not when the purchase is for business rather than consumer purposes). And there is a bill in Congress that would apply a similar approach to the US if the Democrats manage to take control of the federal government and don't lose their desire to enact the law once they gain the ability to do so. I admit I'm not sure what the situation would be if I buy a new personal Toyota in my current residence (Quebec, Canada - forced consumer arbitration is illegal) and then later import it into the US as part of a move there. But I'm hoping I'd avoid the trap. At least the current version of the congressional bill is retroactive in its restoration of access to the courts. I hope that stays true in any final version.
- TheGrim-888 6y ago
  The problem is that it's such a slim majority of the people that care. The sad truth is that the vast, vast, majority of people are completely uninformed. A significant percentage of them wouldn't even understand your concerns if you tried to explain it. All they care about is what vehicle has a big shiny entertainment screen, where the salesman has promised a low enough monthly payment. That's it. 99.99% of people buying a car don't care what the drivetrain is, what differentials are in it, what engine is in it, how anything works, nor do they care. I wonder what percentage of buyers know whether the car they just bought is a FWD/RWD/AWD/etc vehicle, or even know the difference. I think the sad truth is that because of this there's no market pressure to do things right. There's also the problem of regulation and vehicle manufacturers basically being forced into doing stuff like this as time goes by.
slipheen 6y ago
You can typically find a guide to where any given modem is and manually remove it, but it's increasingly difficult to do so and causes functionally downgrades.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Until their counter move in the cat&mouse game is to embed the radio into the SoC. Maybe find the antenna lead and cut it?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
protomyth 6y ago
So, how do I install a firewall on my vehicle?
- shoes_for_thee 6y ago
  Well that'll usually be installed by the factory between the engine and passenger compartment.
  - james_s_tayler 6y ago
    Ah touche hahaha
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
If the insurance companies wanted to confirm that everyone who hogged the left lane slowly in a Prius 5-10yr ago traded up to a Tacoma any salesman could have told them that for free.
tibbydudeza 6y ago
It reminds me of BMW wanting to charge for add on "options" that you paid for at delivery but after 2 years of ownership you need to re-up. rear view camera/park distance control/cruise control (SaaS). I guess with car sales going south they need to nickel and dime their remaining customers.
anm89 6y ago
What a nightmare. Avoiding owning a car starts to sounds better and better every day.
marta_morena_25 6y ago
I wonder how many people complaining here take their phone into the vehicle, or use Google Maps. Sure, the data from the car (whatever is included there) might give some additional insights, but these are very local (i.e. status of the car and perhaps lane assist) compared to what Google/Apple already collect anyway (i.e. the "big picture", which is far more valuable). At least here you get something tangible out of it: Lower insurance premiums (if they were higher, nobody would buy the freakin cars and I am pretty sure using this data for insurance quotes must be an opt-in anyway)
- Hamuko 6y ago
  >Lower insurance premiums (if they were higher, nobody would buy the freakin cars and I am pretty sure using this data for insurance quotes must be an opt-in anyway) They can just make the insurance premiums the same and just jack up the non-data backed premiums.
  - icedistilled 6y ago
    In fact, they will be forced to do that. They will slightly lower rates for the tracked drivers who are low risk, significantly raise rates for tracked drivers who drive like idiots according to their inscrutable algorithms. Due to competitive pressure these things will come to pass. If one company does that and it lets them lower rates or increase rates slower, more safer people will buy from them. The other companies will have riskier drivers, and have to raise rates, so the cycle will continue unless they all adopt the driving behavior rating.
- taftster 6y ago
  There are several things wrong with your post. For one, Google/Apple selling your driving data to an insurance company is not likely happening today. This would be the same type of mistreatment of personal information as it would be selling your health data to a health insurance company. Not that I know, but I highly doubt that personal driving data is being shared with insurance companies from big tech. If they are, this would be a huge privacy agreement violation and would cause a massive lawsuit action against said companies. You're also being misled to believe that these driving trackers will actually reduce costs for drivers. In fact, they only serve as a means to raise insurance premium on drivers that don't qualify for the absolute best rate. Did you ever run a stop sign? 5 MPH over the speed limit? Change lanes without signaling? This level of detail is possible with very accurate GPS and will only serve for the insurance companies to raise rates on most drivers. There is absolutely nothing good about this move from Toyota, and other auto manufactures will no doubt follow suit. This will likely be yet-another-erosion-of-privacy that only serves big business. You should not so easily desire a "you are the product" relationship with auto manufacturers.
kylehotchkiss 6y ago
Anybody know how to disable the 4G chip permanently upon buying a new car? Are they making ECUs require the 4G chip to be active?
- shakna 6y ago
  It's a difficult process that changes greatly from model to model, and often comes with... Unexpected... Functionality loss. Like for a particular VW model I'm thinking of, you need to disassemble the entire front of the car to get at it, and it disables the seat warmer for no obvious reason.
  - bleepblorp 6y ago
    Unless the car is phoning home to enable options you've paid for, you might be able to evade anti-functionality issues by replacing the antenna with a dummy load (resistor) rather than by removing the modem entirely.
taftster 6y ago
And here's the thing. These types of driving habit trackers (not necessarily new in the auto-insurance industry) are touted as a means to reduce the cost of insurance for good drivers. But what qualifies as a "good driver" is likely to be more like 10% of drivers. For everyone else, this won't reduce the insurance costs at all. It's frankly just a way for insurance companies to extort more profit from drivers. I don't want a black box in my car of any type, even if I already qualify for the best possible insurance rates. Your driving habits are a huge privacy concern and we should all guard them very carefully.
- mr_toad 6y ago
  Insurance isn’t without competition. If a group of customers are being overcharged relative to their measurable risk, then that’s an opportunity for a competitor.
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  > For everyone else, this won't reduce the insurance costs at all. It will likely raise it to subsidize things, somebody else has to pay your premium... Companies are never in the business of making less money.
  - james_s_tayler 6y ago
    "Companies are never in the business of making less money" That's just a perfect way to word that. Gonna save that one for later.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    >It will likely raise it to subsidize things, somebody else has to pay your premium I don't know what this means, but an insurance company can be incentivized to lower premiums as a means to win new business. If an insurance company offered me lower premiums in exchange for monitoring my driving, I might do it. I already have dash cams to ensure I don't get found at fault if it isn't my fault.
    - 6y ago
canada_dry 6y ago
Part of the slippery slope that insurance companies have been trying to get customers to willingly adopt... Just install this safe driver app to receive up-to 15% off your rate! Soon: our company's insurer now requires all employees to install this exercise monitoring app on their phone! And finally: to be eligible for insurance you must submit a saliva sample.
- Someone1234 6y ago
  > Soon: our company's insurer now requires all employees to install this exercise monitoring app on their phone! Not soon. My employer already offers a 10% premium discount program, but you have to take part in a monthly "healthy living" program that encourages you can hook in your smart phone/watch/etc (you earn "points" towards your discount, not doing so hurts your point totals and you need to do something else privacy invading instead). It is operated by a third party rather than my employer, but that doesn't protect your privacy in the broad context, just protects you from additional workplace discrimination.
closetohome 6y ago
I would say "hard pass" on this, but at some point in the future, it will no doubt be significantly more expensive to acquire car insurance without this kind of oversight. Ideally there would be some legislation in place that precludes charging people extra for retaining their privacy, but I'm not holding my breath.
jdhn 6y ago
To paraphrase Charlton Heston, you can pry my my manual transmission, non-infotainment having car from my cold, dead hands!
tobyhinloopen 6y ago
This and the DLC are the worst trends in new cars.
Someone1234 6y ago
Insurance companies want to double dip: They want to sell insurance and profit off of that, and then profit off of selling your personal location/habit information on the back-end. Even if they aren't doing it today, they want to be positioned to be in the "data business" tomorrow. It will start out as "opt out" before becoming normalized/expected. Even putting aside the fact that modern vehicle's electrical systems are already stretched thin and this is yet another constant battery drain. The privacy implications of this cannot be ignored even if the data is "anonymized" (not least of all because multiple sources of "anonymized" data can be combined to bypass it entirely).
- donmcronald 6y ago
  And you can be guaranteed the car manufacturers aren't going to be selling them data that would let them do statistical analysis on the vehicles. I think it'll be super anti consumer. All those systems will be used to "prove" the driver is at fault for everything. It'll never be a mechanical malfunction or an infrastructure issue. It'll always be the "bad" driver that causes accidents.
balls187 6y ago
1 year from now: "Toyota AWS keys compromised due to misconfigured S3 bucket."
- ryanisnan 6y ago
  No it would be more likely that "Millions of Toyota drivers driving data leaked due to misconfigured S3 bucket"
mulmen 6y ago
My parents installed one of the addon driving monitors in their car to get an insurance discount. It lasted about a month. Apparently they drive like maniacs.
novok 6y ago
Need laws to force cars to go into airplane mode and for there to be no loss of non-networked functionality if you remove their modems or go into said airplane mode.
- james_s_tayler 6y ago
  "cars to go into airplane mode" That sounds so funny and ridiculous.
viburnum 6y ago
Cars kill 35,000 people in America every year. America has over twice the fatality rate of other rich countries.
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  Adjusted per vehicle mile, or per capita? Is that also adjusted for differences in types of driving (city/highway)? I don't doubt your numbers, just want to make sure I have more clarity before I remember it.
Press2forEN 6y ago
Just tell me which rectangle of silicon to drill out.
apazzolini 6y ago
I didn't see it in the article - does anyone know which model year this will take effect from? I'm in the market for a new 4Runner, but that may switch to a used model instead.
- herman_toothrot 6y ago
  I'd like to know this too, same reason. The article sorta makes it sound like current vehicles are already equipped with the hardware.
adrr 6y ago
I wonder if you can use CCPA deletion request to remove all the data.
metric10 6y ago
I wish insurers weren't so heavy handed with this technology. If it's possible to tell if someone is a "good" or "bad" driver via this technology, why not at least just tell the driver without the big brother BS? Many drivers might change their habits based on this information. I know insurers have apps that you can install on your phone or ODBC modules you can install. Does anyone know of any way to collect this data privately without reporting it to an insurer?
bvanderveen 6y ago
Just go buy a pre-2012 Toyota, take it to a reputable independent Toyota-specific shop in your area, and say "make it good, boss". Pay him whatever he asks. Then go find an insurance broker, ask them to put you in touch with someone who can provide you with an agreed-value insurance policy. Insure the vehicle for purchase price + what the shop changed you. Get regular oil changes at Jiffylube, and take the car into the Toyota guy once a year. Although it may not be flashy, you'll have a reliable, efficient ride for many, many years. New cars simply aren't worth the creepy factor.
modeless 6y ago
Tesla is doing this with their new Tesla insurance product. But at least they won't be sending the data to other insurers, since they want to keep it for their own use.
- ra7 6y ago
  Tesla CFO just yesterday bragged about the amount of data that's available to collect from the car for insurance purposes [1]: > “We’re working now on what we call Version 2 or we can call it the first version of our telematics product. And so really ultimately where we want to get to with Tesla Insurance is to be able to use the data that’s captured in the car, in the driving profile of the person in the car to be able to assess correlations and probabilities of crash and be able then to assess a premium on a monthly basis for that customer. And what makes this very exciting for us is the amount of data that is available with the customers’ permission to use is, it’s not available in any other product or any other vehicle in the world. So this gives us a unique advantage in terms of information.” [1] - https://electrek.co/2020/08/18/tesla-expand-insurance-business/ https://electrek.co/2020/08/18/tesla-expand-insurance-busine...
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  Even if they're limiting the data, it still makes me want to not buy a Tesla.
lvs 6y ago
This surveillance capitalism has to be stopped.
flukus 6y ago
Surely this will be illegal in Europe thanks to the GDPR? At the same time it demonstrates why laws like the GDPR are needed.
zepearl 6y ago
I just bought a Volvo (but I didn't get it yet) => apparently all Volvos have an embedded "Event Data Recorder": This vehicle is equipped with an "Event Data Recorder" (EDR). Its primary purpose is to register and record data related to traffic accidents or collision-like situations, such as times when the airbag deploys or the vehicle strikes an obstacle in the road. The data is recorded in order to increase understanding of how vehicle systems work in these types of situations. The EDR is designed to record data related to vehicle dynamics and safety systems for a short time, usually 30 seconds or less. Etc... The article is here https://www.volvocars.com/ph/support/manuals/xc90/2016/introduction/introduction/recording-data https://www.volvocars.com/ph/support/manuals/xc90/2016/intro... (same for other models). Personally I'm OK with that - it's not an ongoing recording of how I drive, the data is not pushed out of the car, and it might actually help defending myself if I have an accident and I think that I'm not guilty.
- bradly 6y ago
  > Its primary purpose.. But what about its other purposes? Form the article linked: > Volvo may be forced to disclose information of this nature to the police or other authorities
  - zepearl 6y ago
    Yep - and at the top the article states: The EDR is designed to record data related to vehicle dynamics and safety systems for a short time, usually 30 seconds or less. I'm personally OK with that.
- abawany 6y ago
  I believe these have existed in vehicles for quite a while and have been used as evidence for/against the driver. According to [1], 85% of all vehicles in 2010 were expected to already have these things installed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_data_recorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_data_recorder
  - zepearl 6y ago
    Thank you, until now I was totally unaware of such systems. But good to have things stored locally than to have them uploaded anywhere to then be used for some analysis (puah, probably a point to be discussed). Personally I'm OK if used for&against the driver (from a technical perspective, not as souce of abolute truth) if the duration of the recordings are short.
djsumdog 6y ago
I'm going to keep my dumb, manual transmission, non-Internet enable, 2006 WRX for as long as humanly possible.
pruthvishetty 6y ago
Cue: Tesla insurance.
mrfusion 6y ago
Is this something you can turn off?
senectus1 6y ago
This is how automated driving becomes mainstream. Insurance companies will classify Automated drivers as "Best drivers" and insurance for those sorts of cars will be really low compared to even blemish free human drivers.
Allower 6y ago
Err, how do they know who is driving? Seems that would be rather important and very difficult to do without privacy warning bells ringing.
rayhendricks 6y ago
This is bullshit and is designed to enable Amazon to allow Toyota and its insurance “partners” to extract more money out of the average American driver. Remember how Kroger/Safeway/friends started their loyalty programs? Just give us your purchase data + a unique identifier and we will only charge you the normal price not the jacked up price. This is the same thing. 20 years from now this will be normal because most older cars will be off the road. My guess is Give it 5 years and we’ll find out that the algorithm is unfairly targeting minority neighborhoods and jacking up insurance rates too.
lykahb 6y ago
It's interesting to see that most of the discussion here revolves around effectiveness and economic impact of tracking. Ten years ago the talking point would be about invasion to privacy. The personal privacy is vanishing not only in practice, but as a value of the society as well.
rangibaby 6y ago
Maybe this will lead to speed limit reform in Japan. There is a legal requirement that the police need to prove that someone is definitely speeding, so police and automated speed cameras both allow speeding 15-20km over posted speed limits, which means that de jure speed limits are all set 20km under the de facto speed limit.
propogandist 6y ago
Hyundai and Genesis have been doing this with their vehicles. They offer a 3 year complimetary connected service program, which includes terms that allow mining of car telemetry and GPS data, which is then sold to data broker VeriRisk, who resells to insurance and other industry. All this only screws the driver over and most people simply do not know this is happening. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hyundai-motor-america-selects-verisk-for-usage-based-insurance-300630938.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hyundai-motor-ameri...
webninja 6y ago
I really hope they manage to separate the brake and gas pedal technology from the onboard computer. To the best of my understanding, there’s a central processing unit that controls everything and can receive remote commands. Hacking it is literally the perfect way to remotely and unsuspiciously assassinate people. The 15CY (2015+) vehicles are all interconnected like this.

150 points by mikro2nd 6y ago

And also to the NSA.

This removes "New Toyotas" from my list of potential next vehicles, though it's likely just a matter of time before all new vehicles have a direct link with insurance companies.

dingdingdang 6y ago
Count me in, there's no way I would touch these things. And that's despite Toyota being one of my fav car brands :/
- unknown2374 6y ago
  FYI, Toyota's cover-up on a major defect caused multiple deaths and hundreds of accidents in 2009 [0]. That's criminal. [0] https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-pay-12b-hiding-deadly-unintended-acceleration/story?id=22972214 https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-pay-12b-hiding-deadly-...
  - giancarlostoro 6y ago
    I think most Toyota drivers know about this one, it was a software bug, it's a shame they tried to cover it up, but the bug itself couldn't of been intentional. They were just trying to contain a shitty situation, they make otherwise reliable cars which is why people buy Toyota.
  - erikw 6y ago
    I don't think this is actually true. I have not been able to find any sources referencing an actual bug and patch. Toyota, NASA, and the NHTSA did not report any issues. Nevertheless, Toyota lost a jury trial with this rather hilarious quote available on wikipedia[1]: "Michael Barr of the Barr Group testified that NASA had not been able to complete its examination of Toyota's ETCS and that Toyota did not follow best practices for real time life critical software, and that a single bit flip which can be caused by cosmic rays could cause unintended acceleration. As well, the run-time stack of the real-time operating system was not large enough and that it was possible for the stack to grow large enough to overwrite data that could cause unintended acceleration." So... maybe the computer could have physically failed, or a stack overflow, or some other error? Regardless, I still feel like drive-by-wire is scary. The Revisionist History podcast also covers the unintended acceleration recall from more of a psychological perspective[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle... [2] http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game
  - namdnay 6y ago
    I thought the consensus was that it was floor mats getting stuck?
  - CraigJPerry 6y ago
    There’s quite a few scary stories in the automotive world. It’s quite unsettling. The GM handling of ignition deaths was upsetting to read about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_swit... Ford’s 2000s era people carriers with a penchant for self-immolation due to a wiring harness issue iirc. More recently the Bosch / VAG diesel gate stories that were in the news. Off setting that was the John Deere move to block aftermarket servicing because end users can’t be trusted...!
giancarlostoro 6y ago
I'm basically a Toyota only guy, I have to say, I agree as well. It's a damn shame. This should be completely opt-in only.
- Taek 6y ago
  Toyota has a history of getting things right. They may well respond to feedback here. In the meantime, their cars last forever so we can probably keep driving Toyota for another 20 years.
  - giancarlostoro 6y ago
    As long as I can turn off this AWS nonsense, I will be too. I really want to own a Lexus at some point but it's out of my pay grade currently. Lexus are also top quality as well.
novok 6y ago
Even toyotas sold today have cellular modems that track your location, it's called "toyota safety connect". There is no obvious way to turn it off either.
- blahyawnblah 6y ago
  Fuse?
- tomc1985 6y ago
  I imagine that you can still take the car to a mechanic and ask them to remove the sim card to disconnect the system
  - oneplane 6y ago
    if it's put in there with the intent to track you regardless of what you want they'll have provisions to make sure you don't disable it. I.e. not use a SIM card but use an eSIM or CDMA style authentication. Or make the ECU go in to cripple mode if it can't talk to the mothership over the cell connection.
  - bradly 6y ago
    At least for Volvo they are used for by their service mechanics as well, so you will want to make sure it doesn't void any warranty claims.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cma 6y ago
Tesla and eventually others likely will use your plates to sell info about your driving regardless of which car brand you own. Your car doesn't have to report on you when there is a network of other cars with machine vision and radar that can.
encom 6y ago
Are there new cars sold today that are not connected to the internet?
MVorlm 6y ago
I have a "New Toyota", and I was asked before it started uploading data for insurance.
m463 6y ago
So here is how it works from a friend who worked at a bank. It turns out that a certain immigrant demographic has the property: many get a credit card, they immediately charge it to the max, they make the minimum payment forever. Another demographic: some of them get a credit card, immediately charge it to the max, they make 2 payments, then they never make another payment again. The way to do this right is to just spread the risk over everyone so that good people in the second demographic are not penalized by bad ones. The way it really works is: advertising heavily targets the first demographic, using their national language and excluding other demographics. So in regard to insurance, good drivers will think "this doesn't apply to me", and bad drivers will be excluded by making them go elsewhere.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  My understanding of how it really works is somewhere in between. Find a group of markers that are collective a very strong proxy for demographic 2, such as zip code, education, credit score, and they charge them higher rates or restrict enrollment.
forgot_account 6y ago
I'm starting to wonder if there will be a growing market for car shops to do what I've done to my Supra: Pull out the entire wire harness and replace it with an aftermarket Power Distribution Module system, ECU, and CAN-BUS controller. Remove all this monitoring and connectivity crap, but keep the best parts of a modern Japanese car: the bulletproof mechanical components. It's expensive and time-consuming, but also saves some weight.
ekanes 6y ago
Agreed. Though they hold their value/worth extremely well, which means you should be able to work with older, used models for quite some time.

OldHand2018 6y ago

Cars have been so well-built for so long that car companies doing this crap with data (remember that Ford's outgoing CEO talked about monetizing driving data) should cause people (that care) to just stop buying new cars. Bonus: you don't have to agree to forced arbitration for any defects you encounter!

jkaplowitz 6y ago
In much of the world, the forced arbitration clauses are illegal and unenforceable anyway for consumer contracts (though often not when the purchase is for business rather than consumer purposes). And there is a bill in Congress that would apply a similar approach to the US if the Democrats manage to take control of the federal government and don't lose their desire to enact the law once they gain the ability to do so. I admit I'm not sure what the situation would be if I buy a new personal Toyota in my current residence (Quebec, Canada - forced consumer arbitration is illegal) and then later import it into the US as part of a move there. But I'm hoping I'd avoid the trap. At least the current version of the congressional bill is retroactive in its restoration of access to the courts. I hope that stays true in any final version.
TheGrim-888 6y ago
The problem is that it's such a slim majority of the people that care. The sad truth is that the vast, vast, majority of people are completely uninformed. A significant percentage of them wouldn't even understand your concerns if you tried to explain it. All they care about is what vehicle has a big shiny entertainment screen, where the salesman has promised a low enough monthly payment. That's it. 99.99% of people buying a car don't care what the drivetrain is, what differentials are in it, what engine is in it, how anything works, nor do they care. I wonder what percentage of buyers know whether the car they just bought is a FWD/RWD/AWD/etc vehicle, or even know the difference. I think the sad truth is that because of this there's no market pressure to do things right. There's also the problem of regulation and vehicle manufacturers basically being forced into doing stuff like this as time goes by.

slipheen 6y ago

You can typically find a guide to where any given modem is and manually remove it, but it's increasingly difficult to do so and causes functionally downgrades.

dylan604 6y ago
Until their counter move in the cat&mouse game is to embed the radio into the SoC. Maybe find the antenna lead and cut it?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

protomyth 6y ago

So, how do I install a firewall on my vehicle?

shoes_for_thee 6y ago
Well that'll usually be installed by the factory between the engine and passenger compartment.
- james_s_tayler 6y ago
  Ah touche hahaha

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

If the insurance companies wanted to confirm that everyone who hogged the left lane slowly in a Prius 5-10yr ago traded up to a Tacoma any salesman could have told them that for free.

tibbydudeza 6y ago

It reminds me of BMW wanting to charge for add on "options" that you paid for at delivery but after 2 years of ownership you need to re-up. rear view camera/park distance control/cruise control (SaaS). I guess with car sales going south they need to nickel and dime their remaining customers.

anm89 6y ago

What a nightmare. Avoiding owning a car starts to sounds better and better every day.

marta_morena_25 6y ago

I wonder how many people complaining here take their phone into the vehicle, or use Google Maps. Sure, the data from the car (whatever is included there) might give some additional insights, but these are very local (i.e. status of the car and perhaps lane assist) compared to what Google/Apple already collect anyway (i.e. the "big picture", which is far more valuable). At least here you get something tangible out of it: Lower insurance premiums (if they were higher, nobody would buy the freakin cars and I am pretty sure using this data for insurance quotes must be an opt-in anyway)

Hamuko 6y ago
>Lower insurance premiums (if they were higher, nobody would buy the freakin cars and I am pretty sure using this data for insurance quotes must be an opt-in anyway) They can just make the insurance premiums the same and just jack up the non-data backed premiums.
- icedistilled 6y ago
  In fact, they will be forced to do that. They will slightly lower rates for the tracked drivers who are low risk, significantly raise rates for tracked drivers who drive like idiots according to their inscrutable algorithms. Due to competitive pressure these things will come to pass. If one company does that and it lets them lower rates or increase rates slower, more safer people will buy from them. The other companies will have riskier drivers, and have to raise rates, so the cycle will continue unless they all adopt the driving behavior rating.
taftster 6y ago
There are several things wrong with your post. For one, Google/Apple selling your driving data to an insurance company is not likely happening today. This would be the same type of mistreatment of personal information as it would be selling your health data to a health insurance company. Not that I know, but I highly doubt that personal driving data is being shared with insurance companies from big tech. If they are, this would be a huge privacy agreement violation and would cause a massive lawsuit action against said companies. You're also being misled to believe that these driving trackers will actually reduce costs for drivers. In fact, they only serve as a means to raise insurance premium on drivers that don't qualify for the absolute best rate. Did you ever run a stop sign? 5 MPH over the speed limit? Change lanes without signaling? This level of detail is possible with very accurate GPS and will only serve for the insurance companies to raise rates on most drivers. There is absolutely nothing good about this move from Toyota, and other auto manufactures will no doubt follow suit. This will likely be yet-another-erosion-of-privacy that only serves big business. You should not so easily desire a "you are the product" relationship with auto manufacturers.

kylehotchkiss 6y ago

Anybody know how to disable the 4G chip permanently upon buying a new car? Are they making ECUs require the 4G chip to be active?

shakna 6y ago
It's a difficult process that changes greatly from model to model, and often comes with... Unexpected... Functionality loss. Like for a particular VW model I'm thinking of, you need to disassemble the entire front of the car to get at it, and it disables the seat warmer for no obvious reason.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Unless the car is phoning home to enable options you've paid for, you might be able to evade anti-functionality issues by replacing the antenna with a dummy load (resistor) rather than by removing the modem entirely.

taftster 6y ago

And here's the thing. These types of driving habit trackers (not necessarily new in the auto-insurance industry) are touted as a means to reduce the cost of insurance for good drivers. But what qualifies as a "good driver" is likely to be more like 10% of drivers. For everyone else, this won't reduce the insurance costs at all. It's frankly just a way for insurance companies to extort more profit from drivers. I don't want a black box in my car of any type, even if I already qualify for the best possible insurance rates. Your driving habits are a huge privacy concern and we should all guard them very carefully.

mr_toad 6y ago
Insurance isn’t without competition. If a group of customers are being overcharged relative to their measurable risk, then that’s an opportunity for a competitor.
giancarlostoro 6y ago
> For everyone else, this won't reduce the insurance costs at all. It will likely raise it to subsidize things, somebody else has to pay your premium... Companies are never in the business of making less money.
- james_s_tayler 6y ago
  "Companies are never in the business of making less money" That's just a perfect way to word that. Gonna save that one for later.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  >It will likely raise it to subsidize things, somebody else has to pay your premium I don't know what this means, but an insurance company can be incentivized to lower premiums as a means to win new business. If an insurance company offered me lower premiums in exchange for monitoring my driving, I might do it. I already have dash cams to ensure I don't get found at fault if it isn't my fault.
  - 6y ago

canada_dry 6y ago

Part of the slippery slope that insurance companies have been trying to get customers to willingly adopt... Just install this safe driver app to receive up-to 15% off your rate! Soon: our company's insurer now requires all employees to install this exercise monitoring app on their phone! And finally: to be eligible for insurance you must submit a saliva sample.

Someone1234 6y ago
> Soon: our company's insurer now requires all employees to install this exercise monitoring app on their phone! Not soon. My employer already offers a 10% premium discount program, but you have to take part in a monthly "healthy living" program that encourages you can hook in your smart phone/watch/etc (you earn "points" towards your discount, not doing so hurts your point totals and you need to do something else privacy invading instead). It is operated by a third party rather than my employer, but that doesn't protect your privacy in the broad context, just protects you from additional workplace discrimination.

closetohome 6y ago

I would say "hard pass" on this, but at some point in the future, it will no doubt be significantly more expensive to acquire car insurance without this kind of oversight. Ideally there would be some legislation in place that precludes charging people extra for retaining their privacy, but I'm not holding my breath.

jdhn 6y ago

To paraphrase Charlton Heston, you can pry my my manual transmission, non-infotainment having car from my cold, dead hands!

tobyhinloopen 6y ago

This and the DLC are the worst trends in new cars.

Someone1234 6y ago

Insurance companies want to double dip: They want to sell insurance and profit off of that, and then profit off of selling your personal location/habit information on the back-end. Even if they aren't doing it today, they want to be positioned to be in the "data business" tomorrow. It will start out as "opt out" before becoming normalized/expected. Even putting aside the fact that modern vehicle's electrical systems are already stretched thin and this is yet another constant battery drain. The privacy implications of this cannot be ignored even if the data is "anonymized" (not least of all because multiple sources of "anonymized" data can be combined to bypass it entirely).

donmcronald 6y ago
And you can be guaranteed the car manufacturers aren't going to be selling them data that would let them do statistical analysis on the vehicles. I think it'll be super anti consumer. All those systems will be used to "prove" the driver is at fault for everything. It'll never be a mechanical malfunction or an infrastructure issue. It'll always be the "bad" driver that causes accidents.

balls187 6y ago

1 year from now: "Toyota AWS keys compromised due to misconfigured S3 bucket."

ryanisnan 6y ago
No it would be more likely that "Millions of Toyota drivers driving data leaked due to misconfigured S3 bucket"

mulmen 6y ago

My parents installed one of the addon driving monitors in their car to get an insurance discount. It lasted about a month. Apparently they drive like maniacs.

novok 6y ago

Need laws to force cars to go into airplane mode and for there to be no loss of non-networked functionality if you remove their modems or go into said airplane mode.

james_s_tayler 6y ago
"cars to go into airplane mode" That sounds so funny and ridiculous.

viburnum 6y ago

Cars kill 35,000 people in America every year. America has over twice the fatality rate of other rich countries.

edmundsauto 6y ago
Adjusted per vehicle mile, or per capita? Is that also adjusted for differences in types of driving (city/highway)? I don't doubt your numbers, just want to make sure I have more clarity before I remember it.

Press2forEN 6y ago

Just tell me which rectangle of silicon to drill out.

apazzolini 6y ago

I didn't see it in the article - does anyone know which model year this will take effect from? I'm in the market for a new 4Runner, but that may switch to a used model instead.

herman_toothrot 6y ago
I'd like to know this too, same reason. The article sorta makes it sound like current vehicles are already equipped with the hardware.

adrr 6y ago

I wonder if you can use CCPA deletion request to remove all the data.

metric10 6y ago

I wish insurers weren't so heavy handed with this technology. If it's possible to tell if someone is a "good" or "bad" driver via this technology, why not at least just tell the driver without the big brother BS? Many drivers might change their habits based on this information. I know insurers have apps that you can install on your phone or ODBC modules you can install. Does anyone know of any way to collect this data privately without reporting it to an insurer?

bvanderveen 6y ago

Just go buy a pre-2012 Toyota, take it to a reputable independent Toyota-specific shop in your area, and say "make it good, boss". Pay him whatever he asks. Then go find an insurance broker, ask them to put you in touch with someone who can provide you with an agreed-value insurance policy. Insure the vehicle for purchase price + what the shop changed you. Get regular oil changes at Jiffylube, and take the car into the Toyota guy once a year. Although it may not be flashy, you'll have a reliable, efficient ride for many, many years. New cars simply aren't worth the creepy factor.

modeless 6y ago

Tesla is doing this with their new Tesla insurance product. But at least they won't be sending the data to other insurers, since they want to keep it for their own use.

ra7 6y ago
Tesla CFO just yesterday bragged about the amount of data that's available to collect from the car for insurance purposes [1]: > “We’re working now on what we call Version 2 or we can call it the first version of our telematics product. And so really ultimately where we want to get to with Tesla Insurance is to be able to use the data that’s captured in the car, in the driving profile of the person in the car to be able to assess correlations and probabilities of crash and be able then to assess a premium on a monthly basis for that customer. And what makes this very exciting for us is the amount of data that is available with the customers’ permission to use is, it’s not available in any other product or any other vehicle in the world. So this gives us a unique advantage in terms of information.” [1] - https://electrek.co/2020/08/18/tesla-expand-insurance-business/ https://electrek.co/2020/08/18/tesla-expand-insurance-busine...
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
Even if they're limiting the data, it still makes me want to not buy a Tesla.

lvs 6y ago

This surveillance capitalism has to be stopped.

flukus 6y ago

Surely this will be illegal in Europe thanks to the GDPR? At the same time it demonstrates why laws like the GDPR are needed.

zepearl 6y ago

I just bought a Volvo (but I didn't get it yet) => apparently all Volvos have an embedded "Event Data Recorder": This vehicle is equipped with an "Event Data Recorder" (EDR). Its primary purpose is to register and record data related to traffic accidents or collision-like situations, such as times when the airbag deploys or the vehicle strikes an obstacle in the road. The data is recorded in order to increase understanding of how vehicle systems work in these types of situations. The EDR is designed to record data related to vehicle dynamics and safety systems for a short time, usually 30 seconds or less. Etc... The article is here https://www.volvocars.com/ph/support/manuals/xc90/2016/introduction/introduction/recording-data https://www.volvocars.com/ph/support/manuals/xc90/2016/intro... (same for other models). Personally I'm OK with that - it's not an ongoing recording of how I drive, the data is not pushed out of the car, and it might actually help defending myself if I have an accident and I think that I'm not guilty.

bradly 6y ago
> Its primary purpose.. But what about its other purposes? Form the article linked: > Volvo may be forced to disclose information of this nature to the police or other authorities
- zepearl 6y ago
  Yep - and at the top the article states: The EDR is designed to record data related to vehicle dynamics and safety systems for a short time, usually 30 seconds or less. I'm personally OK with that.
abawany 6y ago
I believe these have existed in vehicles for quite a while and have been used as evidence for/against the driver. According to [1], 85% of all vehicles in 2010 were expected to already have these things installed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_data_recorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_data_recorder
- zepearl 6y ago
  Thank you, until now I was totally unaware of such systems. But good to have things stored locally than to have them uploaded anywhere to then be used for some analysis (puah, probably a point to be discussed). Personally I'm OK if used for&against the driver (from a technical perspective, not as souce of abolute truth) if the duration of the recordings are short.

djsumdog 6y ago

I'm going to keep my dumb, manual transmission, non-Internet enable, 2006 WRX for as long as humanly possible.

pruthvishetty 6y ago

Cue: Tesla insurance.

mrfusion 6y ago

Is this something you can turn off?

senectus1 6y ago

This is how automated driving becomes mainstream. Insurance companies will classify Automated drivers as "Best drivers" and insurance for those sorts of cars will be really low compared to even blemish free human drivers.

Allower 6y ago

Err, how do they know who is driving? Seems that would be rather important and very difficult to do without privacy warning bells ringing.

rayhendricks 6y ago

This is bullshit and is designed to enable Amazon to allow Toyota and its insurance “partners” to extract more money out of the average American driver. Remember how Kroger/Safeway/friends started their loyalty programs? Just give us your purchase data + a unique identifier and we will only charge you the normal price not the jacked up price. This is the same thing. 20 years from now this will be normal because most older cars will be off the road. My guess is Give it 5 years and we’ll find out that the algorithm is unfairly targeting minority neighborhoods and jacking up insurance rates too.

lykahb 6y ago

It's interesting to see that most of the discussion here revolves around effectiveness and economic impact of tracking. Ten years ago the talking point would be about invasion to privacy. The personal privacy is vanishing not only in practice, but as a value of the society as well.

rangibaby 6y ago

Maybe this will lead to speed limit reform in Japan. There is a legal requirement that the police need to prove that someone is definitely speeding, so police and automated speed cameras both allow speeding 15-20km over posted speed limits, which means that de jure speed limits are all set 20km under the de facto speed limit.

propogandist 6y ago

Hyundai and Genesis have been doing this with their vehicles. They offer a 3 year complimetary connected service program, which includes terms that allow mining of car telemetry and GPS data, which is then sold to data broker VeriRisk, who resells to insurance and other industry. All this only screws the driver over and most people simply do not know this is happening. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hyundai-motor-america-selects-verisk-for-usage-based-insurance-300630938.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hyundai-motor-ameri...

webninja 6y ago

I really hope they manage to separate the brake and gas pedal technology from the onboard computer. To the best of my understanding, there’s a central processing unit that controls everything and can receive remote commands. Hacking it is literally the perfect way to remotely and unsuspiciously assassinate people. The 15CY (2015+) vehicles are all interconnected like this.