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It is amazing how Volkswagen keeps messing up. I am currently in the market for a new car, an EV specifically. Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for
by moooo99 4mo ago
It is amazing how Volkswagen keeps messing up.
I am currently in the market for a new car, an EV specifically. Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for many reasons, among them the excellent driving assist implementation.
I got an offer from a dealer three weeks ago and was going to order the car, then the API for the community integration got turned off. I decided to hold back and see what comes from it. Now this, which ultimately - since I am a GrapheneOS user - makes me completely cancel my plans.
I really do not understand VWs thinking here. It would cost them little to nothing to continue not blocking the the inofficial API and not block GrapheneOS (or other non Play Protect androids) users. It would have no adverse effects on the average Joe, but it would gain a lot of support and enthusiasm from heavy users, differentiating from other brands. Not to mention the fact that it is the USERS data in the first place
- OsrsNeedsf2P 4mo agoVW is obviously not thinking that any noticable portion of the userbase uses Graphene, and someone (somewhere) is going to get a promo by making VW infra adhere to "standards" or something
- echelon 4mo agoI don't use Graphene, but now I'm out of the market for a VW. Vendor lock-in to Play services is ridiculous. A car is a big purchase, and ideally not something I discard after a few years. I'd like it to not treat me like a second-class citizen and renter who can't make decisions over how to extend the life of my purchase.
- riedel 4mo agoActually we need to force our European governments to use services that do not depend on foreign services (ie. Google or Apple). Then I guess it will only then become obvious to them how crazy the situation has become. The company's have done their thing to ensure that the average guy wouldn't even try escaping their lock-in. So chances are becoming smaller and smaller to hope for a critical mass of users to complain.
- J-Kuhn 4mo agoYes, the EU calls it "digital sovereignty" and is currently "in" with the EU.
- znort_ 4mo agowhich is why shaming them is a valid attempt to get them to "think". it has worked in the past (particularly with bmw!). specially because no car really supports grapheneos, but it can be used in any car supporting regular android provided google play is installed which ensures google's certification and validation is being preserved. if i get this right bmw is actively blocking this, which would be just a dick move.
- y-c-o-m-b 4mo ago> Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for many reasons You should definitely reevaluate how you constructed your list. VW has a history of being scummy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal) and their ICE cars are notorious for being unreliable compared to the Japanese car-makers. To be fair, EVs do change the equation a bit, but given their scandal plagued past, there's no way I would put them at the top of any list.
- jstanley 4mo agoThe emissions scandal is completely different, because in that case they were illicitly making the car work better for its owner.
- bogeholm 4mo agoUnless, of course, said owner cared for the environment
- bluGill 4mo agoSaid owner cares about their experience above the environment. Sure people care about the environment, but it is always lower than all the other factors in their personal list of things they worry about. That is why so many rich fly private jets to environment conferences. People put Greenpeace and similar bumper stickers on their SUVs that never go off road and rarely have more than one person inside. They care about the environment, but only when it doesn't impact anything else in their life.
- plqbfbv 4mo ago> Sure people care about the environment, but it is always lower than all the other factors in their personal list of things they worry about. Emissions scale with performance, and inversely of fuel efficiency. So the environment may not be the most important point, but I'm pretty sure fuel efficiency is high on the list when you're picking a compact or long-range car that is supposed to be fuel efficient. Also, by advertising as compliant to green specs something that wasn't, means people may have been swayed to purchase irregular cars despite them not being really green, only due to the fact that they may have received rebates and contributions for the purchase, regardless of whether "being greener" ranked high on their decision metrics.
- bojan 4mo agoSame here. I'll be in a market soon and I had my eyes on a VW i4 or a Škoda Enyaq, but this makes me seriously reconsider. I really wanted to support local industry and buy a European product this time, but they are making it seriously difficult (no, don't get me even started on Stellantis).
- joe_mamba 4mo agoGo with Dacia, though their EVs seem to have very low range.
- abyssin 4mo ago2022 Dacia Sandero is a great car. Analog buttons, good build quality, well designed. And it’s cheap.
- isoprophlex 4mo agoPossibly the single ugliest recent car though
- nickserv 4mo agoAnd yet still has more personality than the latest Ferrari.
- WarOnPrivacy 4mo ago> Possibly the single ugliest recent car though I checked it out. It seems like the 100th indistinguishable car design in our sea of nearly identical cars. This to say that the "est" part of ugliest confuses me a little.
- kolmogorov 4mo agolooks completely generic. I googled it expecting a new Fiat Multipla or Chrysler PT Cruiser and I was disappointed.
- bogeholm 4mo ago
- this_user 4mo agoGerman companies, especially old school industrial ones like VW, have a very hard time understanding open platforms. The view everything through the lense of liability and compliance first. Their thinking is that if someone runs their app on a custom ROM and uses that to manipulate the app in any way, and that causes some extremely hypothetical damage, that they might be held liable for not having prevented this situation. Obviously, the chances of that are virtually zero. But they'd rather make their product worse than assume with any kind of risk, even if it is virtually zero. That is simply the way in which German enterprises operate.
- user3939382 4mo agoVW didn’t seem too concerned with compliance when they were rigging their pollution tests.
- xenocratus 4mo agoThey'd have you know they actually cared a bit too much about said compliance itself.
- CuriouslyC 4mo ago*appearance of compliance
- Obscurity4340 4mo agoThe Lady doth comply too much!
- this_user 4mo agoI mean, the only reason they did it was to be able to comply with the requirements of the test. But the reality is that every once in a while you have a scandal like this or something like Wirecard, and it happens, because the culture is such that absolutely nobody thinks it possible. That includes officials and regulators whose first instinct will often be to come after the people trying to expose the scandal, as has happened in the case of Wirecard.
- gslepak 4mo agoI'm kinda glad that it's VW blocking GrapheneOS users in a cynical way. When my parents got a VW Jetta they never stopped complaining about it and never bought one again. So it tracks that they'd also be the car manufacturer to block GrapheneOS and stomp on their user's privacy. It's an easy market to win at this point. The bar has been lowered so much. Already have a nice car? Just don't display utter disdain for your user's privacy and you get our $$.
- oaiey 4mo agoI think there was no specific thinking in that space at all. They went for attestation of the app for security reasons of the API and their testing only runs on normal android and iOS devices. Consequently, they realized later this and write a response pointing to their tested platforms. So understanding why they drop it is IMHO easy. Understanding why they use only attestation based API despite and forcing their third party ecosystem out is stupid. Companies do not understand open communities.
- Lio 4mo agoI've had the same Golf since I bought it new in 2014. I like my Golf, so it should be an easy sale for VW to sell me a replacement. However, VW just seem to make gaff after gaff. Collecting information they shouldn't, exposing information they shouldn't have to hackers via lax security practices. How many rakes can a company step on? Now, they're blocking GapheneOS? They've got two hopes of selling me another 'Dub. (Bob and No).
- scns 4mo ago> How many rakes can a company step on? All of em.
- askvictor 4mo agoOr, for the Australians: Buckley's and none
- port11 4mo agoThey appear to have no clue about what customers want. We’ve had VWs in the family for as long as I can remember. After I sold my Polo, a car I truly liked, that was the last of it. Nobody wanted the crazy touch dashboards, data collection, emissions nonsense, etc. Just make the damn car you’ve always made. Be reliable.
- EspadaV9 4mo agoI've had a Golf from new since 2016. I love it. It's the only car I bought new (only car I've ever bought actually), and wanted one since renting cars when I lived in the UK (had no need to own a car (cycle/public transport), so only rented as needed). I recently started looking for at EVs just to be prepared in a few years and know where things are at, and I honestly doubt I would get an VW car now. Unfortunately, I'm not expecting there to be anything much better, with most companies locking things down more and more, adding more tracking, etc.. Perhaps it'll just be better to buy a several year old EV.
- Hikikomori 4mo agoWhat else was on your list? Haven't looked seriously but WV, kia, Polestar has been on my list.
- moooo99 4mo agoI've test driven pretty much all VW brands (that fall within my budget) and thus far, the Cupra Born has been my favorite. I have test driven the Kia EV4 and EV3, but I am not a huge fan. I do not enjoy the look of the EV3 and while the EV4 was a nice drive, I kept bumping my leg against the direction selector (which is below the handle for the wipers; But this is a huge nitpick since I am fairly tall, so not really an issue for 99% of drivers). The main issue with Kia across the board is that their are so darn expensive for insurance. At my current provider, the EV4s insurance would have been 500 EUR more expensive than an roughly equally priced Cupra Born. Not a huge SUV fan, but the Skoda Elroq and Skoda Enyaq were very nice vehicles as well
- Hikikomori 4mo agoBeen mostly interested in ev6. Just compared insurance cost and Polestar 2 was almost double. Born was also 50% more than kia ev4. Maybe different in the us if you are there?
- moooo99 4mo agoNo, located in Germany here.
- Hikikomori 4mo agoWeird how much cheaper kia is on sweden then.
- jp191919 4mo agoNot sure if Tesla is on your list, but FWIW Tesla app works fine on GrapheneOS
- moooo99 4mo agoIndeed it does, but Tesla is firm on my no buy list
- dzhiurgis 4mo agoInsane take for HN. It's either Rivian or Tesla. Zeekr is getting up there too, but Tesla is going to be leader for ages - most car availability, easiest to service, most hackable software, best in class privacy, tons of third party options.
- moooo99 4mo agoI am in Germany, so even if I was in the market for a truck (which I am absolutely not), Rivian does not have vehicles here. Beyond the politics involving Tesla, I just do not like the car. I had a Test ride with a Model Y and it just was not a good experience. I hate the touchscreen centered everything, etc. Beyond that, I just want a compact vehicle, which Tesla simply does not offer. Given Tesla‘s features like the Live camera access and their allegations of employees sharing pictures recorded with the interior cameras of the car, I have as little trust in Teslas privacy promises as with any other manufacturer. They‘re also very expensive in insurance
- dzhiurgis 4mo agoI guess if small car is more important than actually hackable smart cart - then I get you. Rivian will be bringing R2 across the world FWIW. I'm dealing with my parents Kona EV right now and I can't help but cringe how out dated it feels. Three buttons just to start the car and I need to lock it myself. FFS. And that's on top of myriad of reliability issues. I get it, Tesla has a bad omen for some who mingle deep in far left. But from technical standpoint it is incredibly well executed. Its touchscreen is second to none. Climate is easier to use than hardware buttons on many cars. It can be intimidating at first, simply because people assume you'll be fiddling with it all the time, but it's simply not the case.
- nicce 4mo ago> I got an offer from a dealer three weeks ago and was going to order the car, then the API for the community integration got turned off. I decided to hold back and see what comes from it. Now this, which ultimately - since I am a GrapheneOS user - makes me completely cancel my plans. Make sure that dealers know why you changed your mind.
- hydrogen7800 4mo ago>Make sure that dealers know why you changed your mind. "Some nerd couldn't use their nerd phone." What incentive does a dealer have to know or care about this?
- LollipopYakuza 4mo agoAs a dealer, it would be frustrating especially because it is so silly. Basically, if they report any of this to HQ, it would be along the line of "I am losing the sale of a whole car over some stupid app block".
- sowbug 4mo agoYou could make a similar argument about voting in democratic elections. It's still important to vote.
- unethical_ban 4mo agoWhat is the risk of letting them know that someone lost trust in VW's features due to a boneheaded decision of their software group and decided not to buy that brand at all?
- theeyescanner 4mo agoNet Promoter Scores is the only thing that the marketing department cares about. So fill out that customer satisfaction survey, give them a 1 out of 5, and say why. Passives (2-4) are not even considered lol.
- sufficientsoup 4mo agoWhat incentive does a dealer have to know or care why a sale fell through? Bizarre question
- miohtama 4mo ago[flagged]
- theeyescanner 4mo agoUh the driving assist is pretty bad for north american roads. I wonder if Germany has immaculately painted and well maintained roads? My buzz loves trying to jerk the steering wheel when it can't figure out how the lanes work.
- moooo99 4mo agoI have had some fairly challenging trios and the travel assist did a very good job, even at autobahn construction sites (which we have plenty of). No clue how much vehicle generations affect this performance tho. Since they were rentals, all the vehicles were pretty new
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- HDBaseT 4mo agoLet me get this straight, you are considering buying an EV, or any modern car for that sake, but you care about privacy (by using GrapheneOS). You are driving the biggest trojan horse of spyware ever created. You voluntarily drive around with that thing spying on you AND me. I hate parking at a parking lot now because every car and its 300 cameras are spying on me, putting my face, car and appearance in a database used to track everyone around you. I genuinely don't know how people like you sleep at night knowing you're raping everyone around you by enabling mass privacy violations. Grow a spine.
- ActorNightly 4mo agoIts simple really VW is for people that can't afford a BMW or Audi. BMW/Audi is for people who can't afford a Porsche Porsche is for people that can't afford a Ferrari. Once you understand that ladder, just stay off of it, and its all good.
- aucisson_masque 4mo agoYou're speaking of a company that made special programs to cheat on CO2 emissions during car inspections.
- Kyuren 4mo agoIt's just a direct security risk for them no. Less control can lead to unpredictable behavior from their cars in the future. Why would they want to allow the environment which enables that.
- amelius 4mo agoCompanies just don't realize how personal computing is. An analogy is trying to make users wear certain clothes when they use your product, and then asking why it doesn't fly.
- snarfy 4mo agoI can't even consider them after diesel gate. When I start thinking about it, it's quite sad how many car brands are terrible. I own two Mazdas. Still terrible but the least I could find.