I'm looking forward to the "how to hack your Tesla to 100% operational functionality using a raspberry pi 9 and this dongle, run your car with your phone!" youtube videos (or whatever streaming service steps over its flaming corpse to replace) it in the next few decades
Companies should be required to maintain a stash of plans and source code which is automatically released upon the company stopping operations, unless the IP is bought.
This is not just something that can impact EVs. NFC door locks, smart infotainment, displays for gauges. None of that is EV specific these days.
These cars were clearly not designed to work without cloud connectivity and or an authenticated account. That seems bonkers. China is huge and has lots of remote areas. How were these cars going to work when they couldn’t phone home?
IMHO, a lot of cars have gone way overboard with “smart” features, but this manufacturer’s problems are the result of cutting corners and not designing for some common use cases.
Cars are the tip of the iceberg. What about smart home appliances, like garage door openers, or door locks? They all come with their stupid apps, and once the company is dead, suddenly your home stops working.
We really need mandatory standards: post APIs for client-server connectivity and make the connection URL configurable.
cars? what about all those charging stations that don't have payment by card and require you to setup an account through a mobile app like what kind of cuntery is that.
As long as the car isn’t dependent on an Internet connection or the manufacturer’s server and the ports aren’t proprietary, I think you’re good. I expect a car to have these.
Sono Sion shut down, and good luck even getting your money back. Of course and shamelessly, Sono Motors and their CEOs get to continue to cruise through it. Wait EV startups out until they release is my advice, too much of an industry and competing markets locking new competition out. The only incentive to purchase into them, paying less, is also what puts your money at risk.
Sono Sion wasn't even Chinese. it was fully German. The dangerous thing about Chinese EVs is that they are much more certain to deliver, and that gives more of a false sense of security that they will continue to maintain and conform to regulations.