As much as I tend to agree philosophically, could it not result in people making changes that endanger other road users?

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chneu 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, one can do that anyway. There is basically no real way to stop folks from modifying their cars. It can be made more difficult, sure.

This is about selling tools and access. It's another profit pipeline for car OEMs.

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dr_kiszonka 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Perhaps it is also about liability. Otherwise, we would have people installing OpenClaw on their Teslas.

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fc417fc802 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Then why wasn't it a problem before? People have always been able to install aftermarket or possibly even hacked together physical parts. If there was liability you'd expect some sort of shield blocking access to, for example, the hydraulic system for the brakes.

As it turns out though blatant irresponsibility is quite rare (depending on your definition anyway) since people have a strong self interest in not endangering their own lives or wallets. It's similar for homeowners - many states explicitly carve out a requirement that insurance companies cover DIY modifications that are within reason and this generally works out since you have a strong vested interest in not destroying your own house regardless of any insurance policy.

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lmm 34 minutes ago | parent [-]

> Then why wasn't it a problem before?

It is. Thousands of people have died because of aftermarket headlights. Harder to assess, but probably much larger, is the number of excess deaths from nitrous oxide etc. emitted by modified cars.

	▲	pastage 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There are about 3000 deaths per year in Sweden attributed to position from cars, and 300 physical accidents. So it is a really big issue, but it is almost impossible to make people understand that their car use and modification mains people. Modified cars can release 1000x more polution, on streets with 800 daily cars that will have an affect.

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jazzyjackson 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t think that’s the reason, seeing as a car is already endangering everyone around it by existing. More likely about keeping the tooling to diagnose issues proprietary and expensive.

	▲	auggierose 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Obviously, they are both very good reasons. Just because you don't like one of them, doesn't mean the other one doesn't suddenly exist anymore.

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stephen_g 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That kind of thing is always the stated justification but never the real reason.

Almost invariably when that excuse is trotted out, there are are usually many things that are much more common that are also far more dangerous. For example, texting while driving or driving with bald tires in the wet are both 100x more dangerous than anything almost anybody would do by modifying the car's software.

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RockRobotRock 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Four 9/11s worth of people die every year from drunk driving. If we can't even get that under control, I don't see why being able to modify your own car is a big deal.