Cars are computers. All those fancy features run on software. Software can be patched to get rid of unpleasant functionality.
It’s not always easy, but it’s doable, and the more of these stupid features they add, the more people spend time working on undoing them.
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I was wondering more about the off shutoff.
tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Oh, sorry. American cars are require to ship with a feature that shuts the engine off at stop lights, and restarts it when you take your foot off the brake. It’s done to supposedly help the environment, which it doesn’t do in the least and is also incredibly irritating.
So car hackers reconfigure their cars to disable that feature.
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Got some studies for that? Cause everything I’ve seen suggested that FAS, forced auto-stop, does help.
clegko@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It only helps when people leave it on.
It’s a small sample size, but literally everyone I know that owns a car with that feature turns it off immediately after starting the car every time they get in it.
grayman@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It adds wear and tear to a car. The hot engine no longer has coolant running through it, hot oil drains off, etc. This is especially bad for turbos. So now the engine wears out sooner, which means the car is replaced sooner. Pulling a car out of service adds a huge amount of production resources, energy, and waste to an individual’s footprint.
There are also calculations that can be done to determine how much fuel is saved. More fuel is burned at startup. You have to be stopped and off for a minimum period of time to reduce fuel consumption. That time is heavily dependent on many factors. But it’s been found that generally you’re not saving fuel unless you’re at a light just as it turns red.
The wear and tear is the biggest issue. The worst thing you can do to an otherwise normal working engine is take it from 0 to 5000+ rpm in such short time.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Can you show me the law that states auto start stop is a requirement?
tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s not explicitly required by law, but that doesn’t make it any less mandatory. It’s one of those “we’re not saying you have to, we’re just saying we’ll beat you up if you don’t” rules federal agencies (EPA, in this case) love so much.
Car and Driver explains some of the reasoning here, though they forget to mention efficiency standards that are explicitly mandated.
caranddriver.com/…/automakers-increasingly-offer-…