Users of early Nissan Leaf and e-NV200 vehicles in the UK will no longer be able to remotely set off-peak charging routines or climate control schedules
This is why I stick with old used cars, what it says on the tin is what I get and that won’t change.
Older cars are far more unsafe though, I witnessed a near head on accident just the other day and went to help the occupants so I got to see it up close
Both vehicles were about the same amount of fucked up, except one was older. I’d peg it as a 2000-2005. The occupants of the older one were pretty messed up injury wise, though they did survive. It had standard airbags.
The other vehicle, I’d peg around mid to late 2010’s, the occupants walked away without a scratch, and their vehicle interior looked like a freaking bounce house
Yea, I’ll risk some manufacturer taking away my heated seats in exchange for the higher vehicle safety of a newer vehicle
That’s a variable among brands and models of cars, largely.
If the older car had been a different model, it would be a different outcome.
My 2006 car has airbags all over the place, and they’re of the variable-deployment variety… Becuase it’s a brand/model that made their cars this way.
Using “less safe” as a metric is kind of silly at this point. The safety of vehicles since the 90’s is just unbelievable. I witnessed a head-on impact in about 1994, with one car that had airbags (so it was newer at the time, hut using airbags of that era, before variable-deployments tech). That driver walked away too - the car was clearly totalled.
It really depends on the scenario. As a driver, you are the single greatest influence of safety in a car.
As someone who’s been driving for 40 years, I’ve had exactly 2 accidents - both on my motorcycle, from other drivers not seeing me. So there’s the odds of being in an accident to consider too. And both of those situations I consider avoidable by me.
None of my cars have been in accidents - I’ve avoided quite a few.
Once again a misleading headline: No, Nissan isn’t evil trying to force people to buy a new car (Edit: well maybe a bit, see replies). Those older cars rely on 2G connectivity, which is soon to be shut down in the UK, so they are sunsetting support for the features relying on it…
TL;DR: The 2G network they rely on is shutting down.
soon to be shut down in the UK,
In 5+ years. Seems a bit premature.
Well this isn’t really true. The 2G network won’t be shut down for another 6-10 years. They are using it as an excuse to turn off their servers and save some money without supporting people they have already taken money from.
I’m not in the UK so I don’t really know, I’m just saying the headline is misleading, and I’m just summarizing the article. Yes, I checked again, the article does mention the networks won’t go down immediately, so maybe Nissan is a bit evil, or maybe there’s something else the article isn’t saying.
As a UK Nissan Leaf owner I’ll explain, they basically have given up on existing customers. They don’t really care about us anymore. The app works okay and does the bare minimum but it is clunky and slow. They have a new app for all models over 2019 or 2020 and it works better and is significantly easier for them to update and maintain.
The 3G service in the UK will go first as the 2G service provides a lot of emergency failover. The 2G network has around 10 years of service left and even then will probably be left on longer.
They want rid of as many old app users as possible so they can save money on server and development costs, the problem is that even modern 2018 Leaf version still uses the crappy app and have 3G cellular which will fall back to the 2G side when the 3G goes (before the 2G cellular is fazed out) so to blame it on 2G is disingenuous as they still have to support the app for the 3G models and still have to use those on the 2G network as the 3G will go first. I looked at upgrading the module to a 3G or 4G but there is no point because even if you do that they are pulling the app functionality for the car rather than the signal.
There is an ODB add on by open vehicles that will restore the service and is actually loads better but is a bit of a janky hack. https://www.openvehicles.com/ we may do this if we really miss the functionality and desire a £250 solution with a £2 monthly connection fee. We shall see.
So Nissan maybe not evil. But certainly not being honest and transparent.
Maybe not evil but not exactly good either. It’s a computer in a car, they could offer the owners to buy a replacement part that works on (n+1)G.
True, but maybe not physically possible. I doubt that the 2G module is a separate piece of hardware
I guarantee it’s a separate piece of hardware. The leaf is sold all over the world and needs different hardware to work on all the different radio frequencies. There would be at least four or five different cell radio modules for the leaf.
I think we already shut down most of the 2G and 3G in the USA, so those would already be offline here. It happened to my (gas) car already that was using the 3g network for its OnStar type service. But I had already disconnected it myself so it didn’t matter
3G still exists specifically for stuff like this (though more for remote monitoring devices, since this is a consumer device requiring a consumer account, it doesn’t work).
It’s just that as a consumer, you can’t buy into 3G - there’s no way to get service on 3G.
One car in my family is 3G only, and reports a cell connection everywhere we go (it just can’t use it).
The oil/gas/pipeline (water) sector uses 3G monitoring devices all over the place.
Cars needing internet for functionality. What a great idea.
They really should make a easy path to update the 2g modem module to a 5g, but you know… Sales. Next thing you know car manufactures will be sunsetting support for an entire car because they no longer support updates to people with an out of date phone. So lazy and short sighted.
I hope when I next buy a car someone can’t later decide I’m not allowed to use my windscreen wipers, or the seat position controls or whatever.
