With respect, I beg to differ. You could be right about the speed of regulation. But I'm not convinced. You can do whatever you like with your vehicle. But I'd thank you to be circumspect about it, so that we don't all lose the features we have today.
L5 is still a long way away: we haven't even seen a C2C drive yet. It'll take even longer for regulators to approve the technology. NHTSA is already on Tesla due to previous accidents. True, anyone savvy enough to pour sand out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel can figure out how to defeat the existing nag. But talking about it online? My friends, this is why we can't have nice things.
Here's how I fear this might play out:
- Consumers post online about defeating AP safety measures, aka hacking the nag
- Accidents make the news, forcing NHTSA to do something
- NHTSA requires new safety hardware: for example an interior camera monitored by software
- Overnight mandatory software update disables AutoSteer permanently on vehicles that can't be brought up to NHTSA requirements. Say this covers any vehicle without an interior camera: HW1 and HW2. Sorry, there is no upgrade path
- Overnight mandatory software update disables AutoSteer temporarily on newest vehicles, which have an interior camera. Tesla announces AutoSteer will be re-enabled pending software updates
While I appreciate the OP's perspective, from a practical standpoint, you've hit the nail squarely on the head.
I find the current nag approach to be less safe than the previous iteration - and have communicated this and the details for, and examples of why to Tesla both verbally and in writing. With that said, the only thing worse than the current nag would be some sort of draconian prohibition of the functionality. Do I think this is a probable outcome? Certainly not. A possible outcome edging toward that 51% probable threshold? Certainly.
The first lawsuit was just filed within the past week concerning the EMS vehicle (fire truck) that was struck by a driver who claimed to have AP engaged. Unfortunately, their brain was apparently not similarly engaged at the time. The point here, according to a friend familiar with insurance litigation, is that as a possible result of the lawsuit, Tesla may now be forced to disclose more details concerning their current software.
That just brings us closer to some sort of aforementioned draconian solution - and the takeaway from all of *that* is that yes, threads like this are probably ill-advised. Informative for those who choose to live their lives one way, and anathema to those who choose to live their lives in another.
The propensity for people to do stupid things (see fire truck collision now being blamed in part upon AP, when for all we know, the driver may have been texting/eating/farding* - aka engaged in yer garden variety distracted driving) is doubly frustrating if one of the outcomes of the inevitable (at least in California) subsequent litigation is some sort of further restriction upon what few AP features we have today.
TLDR version (too late, I know): I appreciate the efforts of the OP and others, but wouldn't shed a single tear if this thread were to magically vaporize overnight due to... gremlins. It's not so much an endorsement of security through obscurity (which isn't, but that's another matter), as much as it is an appreciation of the sense inherent in not poking the litigious bear of over-regulation.
I'm perfectly fine looking out for myself. I don't need extra help (excessive regulation) in doing that, and the phrase quoted above, "this is why we can't have nice things" very much does seem to apply at the other end of the spectrum as well.
