Toyota, The Cloud, and Insurance Premiums

[widebody911]

Toyota has expanded its collaboration with Amazon Web Services in ways that will see many of its models upload performance data into the Amazonian cloud to expand the services the auto-maker offers to drivers and fleet owners

https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/18/aws_toyota_alliance/

[stevej37]

State Farm has been doing the same for the last 5 years.
I opted out of it. Lower premiums if you let them install their 'box'

[GH85Carrera]

Amazing. I guess the few good drivers will benefit. Lots of really bad drivers will be paying more. Hopefully it will know when the driver is texting and reading email and not driving.

As I don't own any Toyotas I don't care personally. Let the screaming from Toyota drivers commence.

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by stevej37

Lower premiums if you let them install their 'box'

Several companies have some form of this. Are you really getting lower premiums, or is everyone else paying more for not playing along, like with those store "club" cards? How long until it's mandatory?

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

As I don't own any Toyotas I don't care personally.

First they came for the Toyotas, and I did not speak out—
Because I did not drive a Toyota.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by widebody911

Several companies have some form of this. Are you really getting lower premiums, or is everyone else paying more for not playing along, like with those store "club" cards? How long until it's mandatory?

It will be fun when they try to plug them into my 911 and they go looking for the OBD2 plug. Same for my 1986 El Camino.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Lots of really bad drivers will be paying more.

No. They won't. That's not the end goal.

Toyota GM and Mazda is with a major consortium teamed up with Hollywood DRM against "right to repair".

It is a direct threat against small shops and aftermarket parts.

[RWebb]

The end goal is... Total Information Awareness

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by john70t

No. They won't. That's not the end goal.

Toyota GM and Mazda is with a major consortium teamed up with Hollywood DRM against "right to repair".

It is a direct threat against small shops and aftermarket parts.

Which is just one step in the end-state where you don't own your car, but rather pay for the privilege of driving it. Like software and other industries, they eventually want to move to the "as-a-service" model

[vash]

not my toyota. i cant even play music from my personal devices, it still has a CD player.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by widebody911

Which is just one step in the end-state where you don't own your car, but rather pay for the privilege of driving it. Like software and other industries, they eventually want to move to the "as-a-service" model

I bet in 20 years the fully autonomous car will be on the road. Few people will "own one" and just pull up an app on their cell phone, and a car will appear and take you where you want to go. No more cars to pay for, no more maintenance or insurance or car expenses except for the trip you take.

There will be multiple levels of service. The really low price will be a well used car that may take a while to show up, mid range gets to you faster, high level will be a really nice leather interior and real clean and very prompt pickup and delivery. And of course the premium level will be the limo level and virtually instant service.

House will not have garages.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

I bet in 20 years the fully autonomous car will be on the road. Few people will "own one" and just pull up an app on their cell phone, and a car will appear and take you where you want to go. No more cars to pay for, no more maintenance or insurance or car expenses except for the trip you take.

i.e. a taxi, but now without a driver.
(that can still be done today.)

I don't see any upside in personal freedoms though. You won't just be able to just instantly hop in the car and go across country at a whim's notice. Always a wait. Always depending on somebody and something else. Suppose there is a dire emergency such as a vascular or bloodletting event where minutes count, but you live out in the country on a crappy dirt road which no company wants to service? Maybe they don't go outside a certain radius. Maybe your plans change and you need to go to the other side of town but their system won't allow that. Maybe they simply refuse the call because they don't like neighborhood. Maybe all their vehicles are busy across town at the moment. Maybe you have a bad credit score. Maybe you smoke in the car. There are numerous flaws in having the population completely dependent on a limited number of certified companies for travel.

The privacy issues and potential for discrimination are too vast to even begin to discuss..

No upsides in safety either. Machines only know what they are programmed to do and are limited to sensors which are functioning correctly. Snow and certain weather conditions will play havoc on those and you will be stuck inside a death trap. There have been innumerous accidents with Teslas on auto-pilot already, some in completely opaque conditions, which have been hushed up by the media. Meanwhile Toyota had the book thrown at them for a few throttle problems with unknown origins. Maybe those Prius' were hacked. It's been shown that this is quite possible.

As for job losses, there are many business networks and entire communities are dependent on everything involved with personal vehicles. What happens when they go away or are banned by the government. Automation is already replacing human workers in so many sectors. Even MS is delving into AI news reporting. And the electronics and programs controlling all these machines? Will they be 100% American made and dependable? Look at monolithic farming and food production. One bug will shut the entire system down. A forced conversion to such a society will create more instability at this point I would hazard a guess.

[GH85Carrera]

No doubt like the invention of the automobile, the change to AI driver-less cars will change almost everything.

And renting a car to drive cross country is nothing new, it is common even now.

I will keep my manual cars for as long as I can drive them. I just bet that the day of buying a new car is limited, and the government will be happy to be able to track everyone's movements as they use a cell phone to call a taxi and all the information is logged as to where you are going and when. It is not a great thing, but it is coming like it or not.

[john70t]

Skid marks or other on the seats. That lingering vomit smell that won't go away. Disease. Rips and exterior damages that are applied to your credit card but you were not even involved. The list goes on. And to simply get a dependable ride to work a person has to join research review club and spend half an hour each day making sure there isn't gong to be a problem. How much more complexity do we really need.

[island_dude]

I am two 2020 Toyota's that have all this stuff installed. I am in the demo phase with both cars for the connected services. I have zero interest in an insurance company every seeing my driving data aggregated or not. I might have to opt out of all of it if that is what it takes to avoid that.

The NAV on the Toyota is not super. I like the Garmin features far better. They don't have a decent POI database so they have to offer a separate paid service called "destination assist" YOu basically use the emergency services interface to call a person and have them find where you are trying to go and set your NAV up to take you there. I would much rather search on my phone.

The connected App is kind of nice. It tells you where your car is, and if it's locked up etc. You can see mileage and fuel level. You can lock, unlock and start the car if you like. I also gives you "trip" reports. These come with a safety score. My experience is that if you drive in a normal urban setting it is hard to get a decent score. Some times I see how low I can make if with sudden stops, hard acceleration and tight corners. If this stuff is going to be shared with insurance companies, they can go suck it. The car obviously has no idea why you stopped hard so it just dings you. There is exactly zero chance I would even entertain the idea to have this data be recorded and associated with me personally for insurance purposes.

When the trial is up, I'll probably turn off all of it at the end of the year...