Germany makes a big ruckus about their local industry struggling to compete with Chinese manufacturers, but meanwhile the Volkswagen Group stumbles from one scandal to the next. As far as I'm concerned, if that's the way you do business, go bankrupt. I know all big manufacturers have their warts and flaws, but VW continues to be the frontrunner year after year.
Don't forget that other manufacturers collect the same data, they just didn't have a collection of blunders that allowed access. No malicious intent this time, but it clearly highlights that companies need to learn to put policies in place to make double sure PII is actually protected to the degree the law already requires. We also need laws that force companies to make opting out of this kind of data collection much easier, or to make it opt-in in the first place.
I'm hallucinating, but IIUC, there is a philosophical loophole that makes tracking a car through factory installed means is a total wild west; because you don't know who owns or drives the car, but a car is sold to dealerships and resold to households to be used and maintained by anyone, you technically wouldn't know if it's driven by humans, just what you made seem to be doing something. Is that (still) correct?
More importantly also give people a way to check and use that date. Is my employee using the car personally (a violation of the laws allowing me to deduct the car)? did my employee really use the correct route? is my wife cheating on me? Did my kids really go to the library or were they racing across town?
the above is all I can come up with. For many none of that applies and so the data can only be used against us.
> ... need to learn to put policies in place to make double sure blablal is actually tralala.
no. they already have too many policies. and this and that. adding one more is how we got there. (of course they have policies for making sure PII is kept safe.)
As you've brought China into this, which is the greater scandal?
1) VW Group collects data on its customers.
2) Chinese-made vehicles have potential two-way telemetry and control (we don't know, it's closed-source), and we've just allowed tens of thousands of 1.5-tonne, potentially autonomous vehicles with goodness-knows-what sensor packages, plenty of demonstrated ability to kill, injure, catch fire or block critical infrastructure, and backdoors to a not-exactly-friendly foreign government, unfettered access to our streets.
I'm not saying Chinese EVs are a Trojan horse, but I can hardly think of a more effective way to do it, if they wanted to. Even assuming there's no "actor" component and they do nothing more than passive data-gathering, that's still.. huge.. right?
2) is ridiculous speculation and fearmongering. Why shouldn't I feel the same about Tesla's or any other car?
I don't care how much media tries to brainwash us that China is my enemy, facts are that there are way more tangible proofs of all us being consistently spied by US-led agencies, we have proof that from dams to electrical grids the US has one button methods to create chaos in most of the world, and yet, people consistently go into these far fetching anti Chinese speculation when the proof is that the spying, meddling boogeyman is in Washington.
This all feels like the usual US exceptionalism, where the only country that is exceptional and allowed to ignore rules is US, and others cannot.
> 2) is ridiculous speculation and fearmongering. Why shouldn't I feel the same about Tesla's or any other car?
The idea expressed is the notion that one should be afraid of this "special threat" posed by Chinese-made vehicles... which is utter nonsense and fearmongering.
It seems like you and the OP are in agreement here.
EDIT: Fixed my bad Engrish and grammar in the second-to-last paragraph
Because Tesla isn't owned and controlled by a foreign government and military rival. (OK, Elon is a little too cosy with Putin for my liking, but not to that extent).
I think it's reasonable to be sceptical about whether a state that brings us disposable vapes, TikTok and throwaway fast fashion has our best interests at heart.
> Because Tesla isn't owned and controlled by a foreign government and military rival.
Musk going into bed with AfD puts him on an “adversary radar” for me, an immigrant in Germany. So hold your horses. US is cool until it isn’t. Political goals decide who US likes and this can change from one election to another.
1) Imagine how biased you are, to throw such ridiculous arguments: China did not invent disposable vapes, those are even banned in their country, it did not invent algorithm-driven video social media and even less fast fashion (Zara was the first huge brand popularizing it, and the clothes were made in Spain).
2) Musk is literally a member of the next cabinet. And you have no clues and are probably delusional if you think Tesla vehicles aren't sharing their data with US agencies. It's obvious this happens.
3) China is not my military rival. Not sure why do you believe that, unless you live in the strange american exceptionalism where US has to be the biggest military dog in the world and if there's another country that could threaten this position it has to be limited.
It has never attacked my country or any of my allies, whereas I can remember many of my allies putting their foot, colonising and fighting China and its neighbours.
Unless you're ultra-wealthy and particularly powerful, you should be skeptical that most any State has your best interests at heart... and even those rich and powerful folks tend to get swatted down if they become too much of a nuisance.
Isn’t Musk an unelected part of the US government now?
He’s also talking about interfering in my country by giving huge sums of money to a wacky Spode-a-like conman that’s already taken billions out of our economy.
To my mind we should be skeptical of all foreign interference no matter where it comes from.
I was writing from a US-aligned perspective. If you view the US as a hostile power, then yes the same - to some degree - applies to Tesla. Although I think they're not as good at covering their tracks for something like that.
> If you view the US as a hostile power, then yes the same - to some degree - applies to Tesla.
Times change. Your allies of today are your foes in a decade. You don't know.
Still, there's billions and billions of spying devices and US-controlled electronics.
And I'm not making this up, we know for a fact NSA has put backdoors and hacks in both commercial routers and chips that are used everywhere in the world.
Yet you americans think it's fine if you do it, and it's also fine to speculate about other countries maybe doing it, and going into these crazy scenarios where Chinese EVs start ramming people.
Give me a break.
Such comments do nothing but remind me that US exceptionalism, the idea that the US can play by a different playbook is a huge danger and menace to world peace. It will keep pissing off allies and non-allies alike.
The worse part here is, that overpriced EV's are donated by EU taxes, companies can ask about 8000 EUR per vehicle. Same for photovoltaic panels, made only in China. Buying stuffs on market is one thing. Twisting market by government, is another story.
They don’t really think about competition. That’s an arena for power fights, empire building and incompetence on every level. Think about software and Cariad disaster. Cars were a byproduct. Germans associated them for generations with good life and bought without thinking. I would say, until Golf 5 the cars were brilliant, advertising fun and I would buy one. But now… just another expensive car brand.
state-owned company where the 2 families owning the majority of shares block using the earnings to do any investment. The only thing were the state-stake comes into play is in not crushing unions in Germany (which they don't mind doing in the US) and not letting the whole enterprise fail (which it should ...)
as a person working in consulting for a few years now, i have to say - i am not surprised. at all. neither the negligence wrt to data protection laws as well as regarding it security. it's all just a big show with fancy charts showing how smart a solution will be. in the end nowadays it is often implemented by folks who barely speak an intelligible version of english (and certainly not german). i probably wouldn't be as frustrated about this if i was at least among the chosen ones benefiting financially of this bloated nonsense.
