This one’s not about cars that need a charge. It is about cars that automatically accept charges. Instead of tossing some coins or handing some bills to an attendant manning a toll both, your car just debits your bank account. It can do so because your car will be connected to your bank account via Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) “technology” – there’s that awful word again – and you can read all about the latest/pending elaboration of it right here.
But what is “V2”? The acronym refers to connected vehicles that are an integral part of the so-called “Internet of Things.” They are vehicles that are the diametric opposite of the truly autonomous vehicles we have been driving since the invention of the first cars more than a century ago until beginning – roughly – about a decade ago.
Autonomous cars are under our control. They cannot be controlled by anyone (or anything) else at a distance.
Connected cars are just that. They receive and transmit signals containing data about themselves – and about you – to what can perhaps best be visualized as a kind of Hive Mind, which receives and transmits its own signals in return. This is how they are controlled – and this is how they control you.
The idea is presented as something helpy-helperson and innocuous. These connected cars will help planners improve traffic flow and ease congestion via such things as “smart” – another one of those words – traffic signals and variable speed limits, etc.
In fact, they will be used to geofence and control the movements of the population by knowing exactly when, where and how people are moving. Geofencing uses data collected via GPS, WiFi and cellular data, which connected cars constantly emit, to determine where they are (and where they are headed) in real time, as they move. These connected cars are also capable of being externally controlled, via the same means; i.e., via instructions sent over the air to the computers that control the connected vehicles.
The computer, in turn, controls pretty much everything in a modern, connected car – including acceleration and braking. The computer – not your right foot – decides whether the engine revs and the vehicle accelerates and the computer can apply the brakes even if your foot never touches the brake pedal. Steering can also be controlled by the computer (here’s a look into that).
You may have heard that the “kill” switch the Biden Thing ordered must be installed in all new vehicles is not-to-worry anymore because Trump canceled it. He didn’t. This is not Trump’s fault. The reason why he could not cancel it is because it has already been standard equipment in connected cars since they began making them – which was about a decade ago. If your car can receive “updates” or has GPS/WiFi then it is connected. If it has drive-by-wire throttle, “brake assist” and LKAS, then its acceleration, braking and steering can be controlled externally.
That’s the truth and facts – as Clover (the EPautos mascot) used to say.
Now, back to the latest elaboration of this V2V “technology.” It will be used, according to those who have looked into the nitty gritty, as a means of automatically debiting the connected vehicle’s owner for his use of toll roads, a la E-ZPass. Except no E-ZPass. More finely, no way to avoid the E-ZPass, because it will be embedded in the connected vehicle.
An article about this in Motor Trend – once upon a time a publication run by Car People who were instinctively wary of things that Car People are instinctively wary of – practically orgasms about the “technology” in an article headlined Your Car May Soon Be Able to Pay Its Own Tolls:
“If you’re old enough to remember stopping to toss change into a big basket or exchange bills with toll booth attendants, then you’ve probably regarded E-ZPass as a huge leap forward. But the system isn’t nationwide, the toll-tags don’t always work in a glovebox or through a heated windshield, and there can be lots of ‘friction’ in billing, dispute resolution, etc. A recent SAE standard, J3217, promises the next big upgrade to automatic toll collection—built-in C-V2X (cellular vehicle-to-everything) communications that promise greatly improved convenience, reliability, and privacy.”
Italics added. It is hardly necessary to explain why.
Well, maybe it is.
The same “technology” that can be used to debit your account for using a toll road can just as readily be used to debit your account for a variety of other things. For anything, actually. How about the mileage tax many states are playing around with that will be piled onto the motor fuels and registration/license taxes we already pay? Every mile costs such-and-such, automatically deducted from your connected bank account. Same goes for traffic fines – which will be inescapable because a connected cars knows – like an evil Santa Claus – when you’ve been naughty. Every instance of “speeding” will be known as soon as it occurs – and you could be dunned accordingly. The insurance mafia is also no doubt on the verge of orgasming over the prospect of not only being able to know everything about how you drive but also to adjust your rates accordingly – immediately – and deduct the amount from your connected account.
They will probably require vehicles to have this “technology” – and forbid those that do not have it from using “public” (i.e., government-owned) roads.
Frank Herbert – the author of the Dune books – was a prophet. He foresaw a war against the “thinking machines,” as he described them. It was a much more literary term than “connected” and “V2V.” But it amounts to the same thing.
Smash the machines.
Better yet, just don’t buy one.
. . .
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So now they have the ability to link to your bank account to pay a toll that you have to pay to drive on a road that has already been built with your tax dollars any way. Then you have to pay taxes on the fuel to drive the car, that you paid taxes on too, to drive the roads that you paid taxes on. On top of that you pay for a license to be able to drive the car you already paid taxes on as well and a sticker that says the vehicle can be driven after you’ve paid all this other, stuff. And Newsom in California also wants to charge you by the miles you drive. That would be a one time deal for me as I would drive out of the state and never come back. Of course others will follow suit. I think I’m getting the picture Eric, they don’t want you to drive they just want your money!!!
That’s it, Watchman!
I wish this realization/understanding would dawn more broadly…
On the heels of your article, Eric, here is one I read from the “News With Views” website. Titled “The Kill Switch Trap”. It is a length article, I realize. It reminds me of that saying “If You Are Not Paranoid, You Are Not Paying Attention”. https://newswithviews.com/the-kill-switch-trap/
I am not paranoid enough. Gotta change.
What’s sobering is that the new cars of today will become the used cars of tomorrow. Just by expiring (i.e. wearing out, as all mechanical things do) and the resulting turnover, connected cars will be the only cars available before long.
Can’t debit the account if it’s empty.
Or if you don’t tell them what account to debit.
Or if you figure out how to block the signal. Perhaps some judicious application of tin foil? Tin foil. Not just for craniums anymore!
“Can’t debit the account if it’s empty.”
No problem. It will be deducted from your social security/wages as you earn it.
“Or if you don’t tell them what account to debit.”
‘Your’ (it won’t really be yours) car will not start without a validated source of funds.
“Or if you figure out how to block the signal.”
See above.
The EU is already introducing in-built breathalyzers that immobilize your vehicle until you satisfy that device that you have not drunk any alcohol.
A report to the mother ship should you test positive is a feature, not a bug, so ‘appropriate fine’ can be levied.
But do not fear! A solution to all this is at hand!
You will own nothing and go nowhere, and you will be happy!
If cash is eliminated, and currency goes digital, you will not have the option of draining your bank account. Nice, huh?
Morning, Shadow!
It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? I sometimes think It would be smart to convert just about everything I have in cash into silver or gold and keep no more than perhaps a couple hundred bucks in the bank. But if they do impose digital, they will also likely make it illegal to transact using metal. Then what? I wish we could somehow round up the relative handful of evil people behind all of this – there are perhaps ten thousand of them – and offer them up to Moloch. It’d be a party.
As others have mentioned here, I think the black market will develop and thrive, especially when the dollar crashes, and if/when gold and/or silver become non-existent, or TPTB try to seize it. Such as FDR did back in the day. The Feds knock down or destroy one black market? Another one will pop up, thrive, and take its place. You can bet that for every Big Brother piece of crap they put in our vehicles, there is some computer nerd with an IQ of 200 will be able to find a way around this junk none of us want. Hell, said computer geeks will profit handsomely for their skills. Maybe that is a job that AI or robots will not take over? At least we can hope?
Interestingly, I’ve read elsewhere that the people whose job it is to know these kinds of things (intel) think the number of people who would have to be sacrificed to Moloch is in the hundreds, maybe as low as 100. The rest are just followers.
That gives me real hope for the future.
That contradicts basically ALL of human history.
You can kill a LOT of people and the resistance may go underground, perhaps, but it never dies. It can also galvanize their resolve by creating martyrs, and it can potentially result in exodus or outright revolt. But you cannot kill an idea, and you cannot kill enough of its adherents to cause extinction. “Best” (scare quotes because it’s terrible) you can ever do is temporarily make it appear to have disappeared. No one cares what’s officially favored or disfavored. Everything of actual importance comes from the bottom up, not from the top down.
Here ya go, hoping these catch on as digital rears it’s totalitarian head:
https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/gold/goldback-currency
Hi Sparkey!
I actually have one of those; but there’s no place I can find to spend it…
Oh yes you will. Ani I guarantee-damn-tee you that’s what people will do.
Something else will become money, instead of the digital. Not sure what—cans of tuna? Cigarettes? 9mm cartridges? Silver rounds? Jugs of Tide? Doesn’t matter what it is. The black market will informally agree on whatever, and then everyone will drain their bank accounts to buy as much of that thing as possible and then use it to conduct transactions. Off the record, off the books. Untraceable, untaxable.
TPTB will end up shooting themselves in the foot on that one. All it takes is a few people to get smart & it won’t take too long.
Jesus Christ, how can anyone not see this coming a mile off?
Maybe the great lesson of 2020 is that the new currency substitute will be toilet paper.
Toilet paper: wipe away your worthless dollars!
And when TPTB cottonelle on to what’s going on and try to crack down, the black market will just switch to something else.
“ Steering can also be controlled by the computer (here’s a look into that).” Lying by omission
https://www.balkanweb.com/en/alkool-dhe-droge-detaje-te-reja-nga-aksidenti-ku-humben-jeten-7-tifozeve-te-paok-ut-media-rumune-shoferi-ishte-nen-efektin-e-lendeve-narkotike/#gsc.tab=0
There is no proof that the Romanian tragedy was caused by LKA.
Pathetic how Eric is trying to link this tragedy to LKA with zero proof.
Antoine,
I used the incident to make a general point about what LKAS absolutely can do.
Keep trolling you useless fuck. No one wants to read your shit . Please take a long walk on a short pier .
Come to Commie Kannada you can off yourself here with big brothers help.
I know I often refer to aviation. I’m one of those nuts who used to go to the airport just to watch planes takeoff and land. If I have one regret is that I didn’t get into the industry when I was young, instead of telecommunications. But when I was a kid I only saw pilots and stewardesses, not realizing there’s millions of people supporting that flight to see grandma in Tampa.
One thing that the FAA hangs its hat on is the commercial aviation safety record. Flying is the 2nd most safe form of transportation, just a little worse than elevators. You’re more likely to be injured on the moving sidewalk going to your gate than you will be cruising along at 30,000 ft. Most of this is due to the entire culture. Everyone is focused on doing everything safely, because mistakes will kill you. But the FAA’s contribution is constant monitoring and logging, as if recording that a part is broken somehow fixes it or that knowing the last known position of the plane will keep it from ramming into the side of a mountain.
The highway people want the same thing for highways, because they believe the FAA’s logging and monitoring and micromanagement is what makes flying safer. They ignore the black smudge of General Aviation incidents because that doesn’t fit the narrative, and because every time a new mandate is proposed for GA the “community” fights it tooth and nail. And because the insurance mafia has made GA so expensive, it consists of lawyers and doctors and other rich folks who aren’t going to let some bureaucrat tell them how to spend their money. That’s not to say there isn’t innovation. A few weeks ago King Air N479BR initiated an automatic landing after the Garmin Autoland system detected the “cabin altitude” (pressurization) exceeded safe levels.
But here’s the thing. GA is expensive and rare. Automobiles are cheap (mostly) and ubiquitous. Even if it were possible to apply aircraft-style automation and monitoring, it won’t make driving any safer. If anything it will be worse. And the reason is simple: In the sky you can easily make way for each other. On a road you have no control over anything but speed. Even on a two lane road the lane you’re in is one way and one speed. An empty road with no one else is about as safe as aviation, the only thing that might happen is you fall off the road. But most roads are overloaded, as they were designed with a much smaller population in mind, or traffic patterns that fit the expectations of the time (before that big box strip mall was built), and because government builds the roads they have no feedback mechanism other than “traffic studies” that capture a moment in time. The planners only know the existing infrastructure’s status. There could be a far better way to fix traffic problems and make roads safer, but instead of 500 different solutions tried by entrepreneurs, or even 50 different solutions by 50 different states, we get one solution shoved down from on-high. Even worse, because setting up a system to handle a few thousand flights a day is hard enough but setting up a system to handle hundreds of millions of vehicles moving independently and without filing plans and intent, that’s far too expensive for any single entity, and so the crony capitalists come out of the woodwork to pretended they can handle the job.
That’s not to say it won’t work. It will be great a generating revenue for the highwaymen. Because the only variable on a road is speed. The road goes where it goes, it’s one way. If you’re on the road you’re either moving or stopped. How fast you’re moving is the only thing you can control, and they want to wrest that control from you too. But it won’t make driving any safer, just more lucrative for the highwaymen.
First step in any successful GA experience is spend over $10k and lotsa time joining the club with a private pilot license.
Second step is rereading the above and turning tail if you cant join the club.
Without being in duh club you are an outsider viewed as a temporary disposable slave. Club membership opens doors faster n agent Smart.
Telecom industry salarys were almost double since “flying” is sold as a passion playground. “When are you guys gonna get real jobs” per Aviator film. . .
Only about 5% of people in GA are compensated due to meritocracy. One with ppl and IA might make double that of a genius EE wiring skylink into Gulfstream.
War is a racket after all.
I saw it for 45 years. Now you do too.
Oh I know. When I got my part 107 drone certificate a few aviators suggested “Hey, now you can get your sport rating.” Oh, sure because I have an extra $20 grand laying around to get me the privilege of being able to fly the 10 or so days a year when the weather is Goldilocks.
No thanks, I’ll stick to the little stuff.
Thanks for the update, @Eric. I knew it was coming, but didn’t think it would happen quite this fast. Got my 2000 daily driver, my ’88 backup, and my ’72 backup to the backup in good running order. Have to tell Mrs. Steve she’s probably not getting a new car, maybe ever. She will just have to make do with the ’86 or the ’81, I guess. (Other than the ’86, none have enough value to be worth getting rid of, even if I wanted to.)
Same here, Steve!
It’s a very odd thing to be a car journalist – a guy who test drives new cars – who has zero (I mean no) interest in owning one of them. I used to lust after a lot of them. But now? I think the last one that instilled any feelings of desire in me was the 2023 Hellcat Challenger – three years in the rearview now.
A quick read of the standard seems to imply they’ve considered the opt-out possibility.
It’s more than just automated toll plaza, which they can already do reasonably effectively with the RFID tags or plate readers.
The standard implies the reason for this is broadly road use. Your car will have or be retrofitted with a transponder to be allowed on roads.
You can thank the EV for this since they had an oh-shit moment when they realized they were collecting road fees based on the fuel pumps and EVs were circumventing that.
All of us keeping our old cars won’t be allowed past on-ramp gates. Think the RFID reader you use to get through the subway station or something like that.
Hi Jerome-
I think so, too. I think it is sound policy to assume the worst when it comes to “technology” at this point.
I’m old enough I don’t need to be out on interstates anymore. If there ever arose a movement of younger people who object to becoming serfs, which I doubt, I would happily join it.
“ Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” AC Clarke
“ Any sufficiently advanced act of benevolence is indistinguishable from malevolence”
The problem is not the technology, it is the wicked and flawed humans employing it.
Until the technology users begin rigidly enforcing their rights, the group of collectivists using it against them will continue to do so.
Your data is your private property. The various databases used to bombard you with advertising and mulct you on behalf of government are all using your stolen property against you. EULAs are in express denial of your right to property. You have as much right to use the copy of Windows you bought as you do the Mustang or the Ruger you bought. In neither case may you copy and sell it, but you may certainly use it for your private purposes including non commercial copying.
The point is, it’s up to people to enforce their rights. And without scrupulously honest legal systems of impeccable integrity, (the closest we get is an honest jury system), the only recourse is guerrilla action. Remember, people break down into only two groups- those who believe some have the right to rule others, and those who don’t. Monarchy, democracy, communism all accept that some have the right to rule. Republicanism is a watch keeper kind of government which concerns itself with public things. Unfortunately, most Republicans have no understanding of this, nor any cohesive philosophy.
I share articles like this on Facebook, and guess what happens? Nothing. They are ignored. A lot of what government does is very hard to fight. Battles like these are winnable, but nobody cares. My newest vehicle is a 2013, and I’m perfectly fine with that. People are enslaving themselves to impress people they don’t even know. These same people are cheering for armed goons in the streets, too stupid to know it has nothing to do with immigrants and everything to do with creating a militarized police/surveillance state. I get more disgusted with people every day. If they want to be monitored and controlled slaves, fine. But they’re taking us down with them.
Amen that Russ –
If only ,more of us just would refuse to have anything to do with this “technology,” then we wouldn’t get rip-tide’d along with this “technology.”
Eventually, the powers that shouldn’t be will make it impossible to find the replacement parts necessary to repair our tech free vehicles. That’s where this is headed.
Exactly! Seeing the majority not only accepting, but DEMANDING their own enslavement (because laziness), makes me want to become a hermit. Not a big fan of the idea, but it’ll be a cold day in hell, before I voluntarily hand myself over to the cult.
These people demand enslavement because they are too lazy and do not want to be responsible as a price for freedom. They are in for a fatal reality check when they realize how dear of a price laziness will cost them.
These people are sick. They probably played SIM City in their youth and now want to control the world.
Sadly, some people want to be taken care of cradle to grave. I had one student in a driving class who had no interest in learning proper car control. She insisted, at the ripe old age of 16, that we’d have driverless cars in a few years so she didn’t need to learn.
Just another reason to keep driving my antique cars.
Exactly Landru,
Mine aren’t antique yet but the newest is an ‘03 Corolla, hopefully I can keep it running until I can no longer drive it. All the recent snow and attendant road salt are making it difficult to.
They’ll find a way to limit their use. First it will be ‘but we can’t allow you on the interstate because your car is not connected and therefore not safe’. Then County roads, etc….
I find it interesting that a camara with a solar panel showed up in the weirdest place on a suburban County road. It is not pinging radar. All I can assume at this point is it’s located at the town line between two towns, one pretty big, one pretty small. It’s on the bigger towns side. The bigger one’s cops likely are monitoring who’s coming and going………….
I’ll have to ask our smaller town’s Chief if he knows what it is.
Read my mind about calling cops about cops. . .
I can see onw day in the not-too-distant future where any vehicle that is not connected will not be allowed to be on the road. Or, you will not be able to fix your non-connected vehicle because you can no longer find/ buy parts. Thus, ensuring humanities enslavement.
One thing leads to another — from the Motor Trend
articlescreed:‘In 2022, SAE published J3217, which spelled out how the same cellular modems cars increasingly employ to manage in-car telematics and WiFi can also serve as the in-car transponder for electronic fee collection and myriad other V2X saaaaafety purposes.’
Nobody asked for telematics. Now it is escalating to directly picking our pockets. Nobody asked for that either, except for Big Gov and frayed-collar automotive stenographers such as ‘Frank Markus,’ a tax collector for the welfare state who asserts that C-V2X offers ‘greatly improved convenience, reliability, and privacy.’ Such a deal, such a deal!
‘Markus,’ who probably is on the take from vendors cited in the article, weeps crocodile tears that all of us can’t access this wonderful new graft: ‘Given the many other saaaaafety benefits C-V2X can support, we can expect this hardware to soon be included in most new vehicles. Note that there is enough unique hardware to prevent over-the-air-updating of vehicles currently fitted with cellular modems, sadly.‘
So this is an advertorial: NOTED.
Ink-stained wretch ‘Markus’ offers a parting shot: ‘We look forward to a day when any car can ply any toll road anywhere and enjoy frictionless payment—with improved saaaaafety as a lovely [sic] side benefit.’
Speaking as an ex-Motor Trend subscriber, I look forward to a day when regime ‘auto journalists’ wave cardboard signs seeking donations at the Walmart parking lot entrance, after the terminally anti-consumer auto industry finally croaks for good. Two legs good, four wheels b-a-a-a-a-d-d-d-d!
‘Frank Markus,’ a tax collector for the welfare state who asserts that C-V2X offers ‘greatly improved convenience, reliability, and privacy.’
Gee, I’m not sure how having your bank information being part of paying tolls increases my privacy compared to dropping quarters into the hopper to pay tolls but keep talking Frank as people are dumb enough to believe you.
I agree, Landru –
Markus ought to be embarrassed. But he’s well-paid not to be.