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It has become illegal to make and sell cars with the electronics feature set of 1980. E.g. every new car now will have to have reversing camera, event data rec

It has become illegal to make and sell cars with the electronics feature set of 1980. E.g. every new car now will have to have reversing camera, event data recorder, drowsiness and distraction detection, lane-keeping assist and advanced emergency braking. I'm not sure if it's practical to do that with "no onboard computers other than simple microcontrollers" - of course there are some microcontrollers that rival the computers I grew up with, but the complexity of the involved software is inherent in the required functionality. And since you have to pack the car with all these sensors, cameras and compute power anyway for safety reasons, all the privacy-invasive features don't require much if any extra hardware cost.

ziddoap 4y ago
>It has become illegal to make and sell cars with the electronics feature set of 1980. Where are you that this holds true? That it's illegal to not include those things? I very recently bought a brand new car (within 2022) and while it does have a reverse camera, it does not have drowsiness/distraction detection, nor lane-assist, or any advanced braking tech (outside of ABS), etc.
- lazide 4y ago
  Everywhere in the United States for backup cameras at least, since 2018 - https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/02/backup-cameras/572079002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/02/backup-...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- stonemetal12 4y ago
  In the US, backup cameras became mandatory in May 2018. In the EU, drowsiness/distraction detection becomes mandatory this year.
  - ziddoap 4y ago
    >In the EU, drowsiness/distraction detection becomes mandatory this year. Fascinating, thanks. I was unaware. Do you know if there is any sort of standard that they follow? Or do manufacturers decide for themselves on what counts as drowsy/distracted behavior?
    - stonemetal12 4y ago
      I am unaware of the specifics, but the law says " Since DDAW systems assess the physical state of the driver through indirect means, it is not possible to fully test those systems through a set of defined tests or with a programmable machine, which reproduces human behaviour. .. The vehicle manufacturer carries out validation tests with human participants, either in a simulated environment or in a test vehicle, and present to the approval authorities" So it sounds like they left it vague enough for manufactures to do their own thing.
  - mlsu 4y ago
    Interesting, I did not know about the Driver Drowsiness and Attention Warning (DDAW) thing. Some googling yields this link (PDF warning): https://circabc.europa.eu/sd/a/7f9912b5-e180-43ab-b9da-82ddfb1cde8a/20200701%20MVWG%20DDAW%20draft%20technical%20req.pdf https://circabc.europa.eu/sd/a/7f9912b5-e180-43ab-b9da-82ddf... DDAW ‘means a system that assesses the driver’s alertness through vehicle systems analysis and warns the driver if needed’ So the primary purpose of the system is to alert the driver when they are drowsy. Data not accessible, or available to 3rd party. Only held long enough for assessing drowsiness and during activation/deactivation cycle They are mandating that data is only held for as long as it takes to activate the alarm (?). But I can see such data being a very very juicy target for insurers and police: wouldn't it be quite useful to pin the cause of an expensive accident on driver drowsiness? It's not likely we will have such protections in the US. I really don't like this. Why is it useful if your car beeps at you when you doze off? You're either going to recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and decide to power through. If you're the type to pull over, you're not really going to be helped by a machine telling you you're tired; if not, you're probably going to drive anyway, because you have to be somewhere. I guess under the best possible case, your car makes it annoying for you to drive drowsy, which might deter that behavior a bit. But in the worst case, every car accident will be financially catastrophic for all parties, because the insurance company will deny any claim -- arguing that you were impaired. You'll have little recourse, because you were probably "very alert" instead of "extremely alert" according to this system. Ugh.
deleted 4y ago
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ziddoap 4y ago

>It has become illegal to make and sell cars with the electronics feature set of 1980. Where are you that this holds true? That it's illegal to not include those things? I very recently bought a brand new car (within 2022) and while it does have a reverse camera, it does not have drowsiness/distraction detection, nor lane-assist, or any advanced braking tech (outside of ABS), etc.

lazide 4y ago
Everywhere in the United States for backup cameras at least, since 2018 - https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/02/backup-cameras/572079002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/02/backup-...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
stonemetal12 4y ago
In the US, backup cameras became mandatory in May 2018. In the EU, drowsiness/distraction detection becomes mandatory this year.
- ziddoap 4y ago
  >In the EU, drowsiness/distraction detection becomes mandatory this year. Fascinating, thanks. I was unaware. Do you know if there is any sort of standard that they follow? Or do manufacturers decide for themselves on what counts as drowsy/distracted behavior?
  - stonemetal12 4y ago
    I am unaware of the specifics, but the law says " Since DDAW systems assess the physical state of the driver through indirect means, it is not possible to fully test those systems through a set of defined tests or with a programmable machine, which reproduces human behaviour. .. The vehicle manufacturer carries out validation tests with human participants, either in a simulated environment or in a test vehicle, and present to the approval authorities" So it sounds like they left it vague enough for manufactures to do their own thing.
- mlsu 4y ago
  Interesting, I did not know about the Driver Drowsiness and Attention Warning (DDAW) thing. Some googling yields this link (PDF warning): https://circabc.europa.eu/sd/a/7f9912b5-e180-43ab-b9da-82ddfb1cde8a/20200701%20MVWG%20DDAW%20draft%20technical%20req.pdf https://circabc.europa.eu/sd/a/7f9912b5-e180-43ab-b9da-82ddf... DDAW ‘means a system that assesses the driver’s alertness through vehicle systems analysis and warns the driver if needed’ So the primary purpose of the system is to alert the driver when they are drowsy. Data not accessible, or available to 3rd party. Only held long enough for assessing drowsiness and during activation/deactivation cycle They are mandating that data is only held for as long as it takes to activate the alarm (?). But I can see such data being a very very juicy target for insurers and police: wouldn't it be quite useful to pin the cause of an expensive accident on driver drowsiness? It's not likely we will have such protections in the US. I really don't like this. Why is it useful if your car beeps at you when you doze off? You're either going to recognize that you're falling asleep, and pull off the road to rest, or recognize that you're falling asleep and decide to power through. If you're the type to pull over, you're not really going to be helped by a machine telling you you're tired; if not, you're probably going to drive anyway, because you have to be somewhere. I guess under the best possible case, your car makes it annoying for you to drive drowsy, which might deter that behavior a bit. But in the worst case, every car accident will be financially catastrophic for all parties, because the insurance company will deny any claim -- arguing that you were impaired. You'll have little recourse, because you were probably "very alert" instead of "extremely alert" according to this system. Ugh.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]