I'm not arguing that the modem should be mandatory, or that you shouldn't be able to control what it does. But forcing car vendors who want to built in a modem to make this modem do an automatic emergency call by default, that seems quite sensible. Even more sensible would be if the modem did nothing unless you allow it, except when it detects that crash, but... profits.
The eCall functionality isn't exactly trivial, and due to its safety use there are probably some rather strict regulations around it. In practice this has led to many car manufacturers opting to use dedicated off-the-shelf modules for them, which are completely separate from all the connected infotainment stuff.
However, early modules were built around 2G/3G cellular technology, and cars with those were still sold well into 2025. Not a huge surprise, because its application doesn't require 4G/5G data speeds. Buuuut many countries are now actively retiring their 2G/3G networks, leaving those cars unable to place emergency calls, and with a functioning eCall module often being legally required it would mean some 2-year-old cars would no longer be road legal...
When I talked to the dealers, they said that the speedometers only have to be accurate +/- 10% according to the SAE specifications.
After DieselGate I assumed that the high reading was to game the fuel consumption game.
Never again, VW auto group…
I believe the requirement is only one way - they can read high by a certain % but they cannot read low. Which makes sense. But that means in reality they will usually read a little high.
I guess you just filter it out after a while but it definitely makes me think I need to do some research before getting a new car any time soon.
Positive side effect: No expensive photos will be taken, too.
There's a precise spot where the camera picks up a speed sign, every single time. There is no speed sign at all there. It must be some AI hallucination.
- beeps about the speed limit, especially if it misses a sign. For example every time starting on a parking lot it keeps the 5 kph even after multiple turns
- warns about leaving the lane, including trying to stay on the lane by slightly couter steering while ignoring yellow construction lines
- Sometimes when moving off from a standstill in a queue, it triggers all "careful you're about to crash into something"-warnings. I suspect it's detecting exhaust gasses from a car in front?
- You must not, ever, touch the turn signal to announce your will switch lanes soon, while there is still a car next to you. You'll get a loud, obnoxious warning tone. This one is especially annoing as it makes sleeping as a passenger on the autobahn basically impossible.
Which people often do when sharing the driving on long drives. So, another case of it making driving more dangerous, if the spare driver can not rest properly.
My sister-in-law has to reconfigure all of the cars safety settings every time she turns the car on as they reset to their seemingly maximal defaults upon boot.
Absolutely agree! After a few minutes you realise you forgot to disable one of the 'features' and then get distracted trying to do that.
Lane keep assist is broken and dangerous
Auto high beam assist is broken and dangerous
Auto cruise control is broken and dangerous
Collision detection-avoidance is broken and dangerous (thinks you're going to crash quite often in our narrow, built-up areas in the UK)
Speed sign detection is broken
Hell, even automatic wipers, after all these years, is far from perfect. I feel they should have had to prove themselves with that before being given anything more important
But some personal examples:
- Auto high beam assist saw a car at a side junction, turned off high beam, then turned back on, mimicking a 'flash' to let the car out, which they acted on by pulling out. I had to brake hard to avoid them. I was doing 60 mph
- I was on the motorway and a stranded vehicle was on the hard shoulder and the driver decided to exit from the side closest to my lane. I went to move over slightly to give space and avoid him, and the lane assist pushed me back towards him (there was too much traffic for me to change lanes)
- Driving in built-up areas with lots of parked cars and narrow sections, the collision avoidance has pre-activated with huge beeping warnings that massively distracted me, causing me to actually nearly hit something
These were all different modern (but not high end) vehicles
Auto cruise control doesn't take into account vehicles in other lanes etc. It encourages disengagement in dangerous situations/surroundings. It is by definition dangerous
edit: and speed sign detection is probably the most broken. The constant beeping and flashing. I mean, I don't have to explain that do I? Distraction -> danger.
Uh. I guess you've not many US highway miles under your belt. If nothing else, it's a very common nighttime signal to let passing truckers know that they've room to get back in the rightmost lane. I can't imagine that the signalling situation is much different in other places that have a large population of generally-decently-skilled drivers.
> If someone flashes you, you should make your own determination whether it is safe to perform a manoeuvre...
Sure. The operator of a vehicle is ultimately the person who's responsible for its safe operation.
Having said that, few drivers are interested in killing their fellow travelers. Especially at night, determining the "time of arrival" of oncoming traffic, or the distance between the end of your bigass trailer and traffic behind you can be quite difficult. If it's customary in your area to use headlight flashing to indicate to traffic ahead of you that it's safe for them to perform whatever maneuver that they may be uncertain about, then it's not unreasonable to assume that the driver that uses that signal isn't attempting to kill you with misinformation.
Automatic high-beam-togglers don't really care about anything, [0] so that's definitely one piece of malfunctioning tech that makes the roads less safe.
[0] ...yet!
But I'm kinda' surprised by the cruise control, I don't think I ever drove a car, even a rental, where cruise control wasn't at least "genuinely useful". Even the non-automatic one. How does it "not take into account vehicles in other lanes"/ what makes it dangerous?
Personally, I just developed a strategy for dealing with too-bright-incoming-lights: just focus on the right edge of the road - that takes my eyes off the lights, and it's where the danger lies anyway. With that, late-commuting vehicles are a lot less of a nuisance than people who just have poorly tuned low beams or simply keep high beams on always. And those problems/ people are unrelated to the "automatic commute" technology - arguably the tech improves things on that front, even in the not-so-great implementations.
The driving aids can be annoying (especially when there are works on highways or similar and you need to drift beyond lines but lane assist wants to keep going in that direction) but they actually saved me from crashing the car in the parking!
I completely did not see a small wall behind the car and the car emergency broke before I made major damage.