We need a Linux OS and DE for cars
i use carch btw
KDE Plasma Car: can use Customize Panel to move around physical parts of the car (HELP the steering wheel is inside the engine somehow HOWDOIFIXTHIS)
this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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Removing smartphone integration from its vehicles opens the door for GM to grow its in-vehicle subscription revenue. Yep π©
Could it be money?
It's money, isn't it?!
It's not money. The executives of these companies revealed the reason they are doing this is because they believe they can provide a better end user experience. They wouldn't lie would they?
Nooooooo that's totally unlikely. It's probably just for our best!
So, by utilizing built-in systems, the car manufacturers would indeed be able to collect more data about how you use the systems in place, while also possibly getting more money out of you through subscriptions.
Money.
There I wrote the whole article in one word.
I can't wait to get a rental car that doesn't allow me to use my own maps.
You want the Rental+ package for an extra $39.99, which enables the car's built-in Garmin.
The big question is why we started adding computer operating systems to our vehicles to begin with. But the answer is still the same as ClydapusGotwald states...money. I'm starting to think the answer to most of the worlds woes is...money. Maybe money has been the problem all of this time. Fuck money. We can utilize our resources and feed and house everyone without that shit but then there wouldn't be any space billionaires and we need them to save us all. /s
The big question is why we started adding computer operating systems to our vehicles to begin with.
Originally, automakers tried to shoehorn proprietary subscription services into their vehicles for GPS and roadside assistance and satellite radio. But the opt-in for these services was scant, because they were obnoxious to set up and overpriced relative to - say - a TomTom or a cell phone's core features. And you could get after-market integration added to your vehicle through its entertainment system, so why bother with the clunky manufacturer options.
CarPlay and AndroidAuto were concessions that automakers began to adopt because they sold more vehicles that way. Reversing this out will likely have the same effect it did the first time - by driving people to foreign car companies like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Kia.
I already see Kia cars on the road fucking everywhere. And moves like this will only accelerate the trend, I'm sure.
why we started adding computer operating systems to our vehicles to begin with.
Because fuel injection operates better than even the most high tech carburetors across a wider range of environments. And if you have more sensors and active feedback you can better control everything from emissions to warm up time. Everything trickles down from racing / luxury vehicles. Once you have processors involved, might as well do fancy things with them inside the cabin too.
A lot of the dash / center console nonsense is consumer cost cutting, but frankly it should've been separate from the start. Any budget phone is a better GPS / media platform than a half-baked system by a vehicle manufacturer. At this point it should just be a USB-C or bluetooth connection so the device without the bargain basement processor can do the heavy lifting for a user interface.
At this point it should just be a USB-C or bluetooth connection so the device without the bargain basement processor can do the heavy lifting for a user interface.
But that's what car play and android auto are
No those are links between two separate systems. I just want to use my phone screen and the car's speakers / power.
Oh gotcha, a simple head unit
It's not about money, its about power. Don't be so naive. You don't have to whitewash these horrible people. They want to help out the baby killers to spy on you. That's all it is.
Nope, itβs money. Only some of them care about power. They all care about money.
They don't care about money. Only poor people care about money. Once you get a certain level of wealth it snowballs forever (fiat currency).
If Ford cared about money or GM or whatever. They would make a decent car, and try to build their brand. Yet there hasn't been a single positive development in cars in at least 20 years. Maybe more airbags but only because it's legally required. Everything else has been pure degeneration. Even the slightly better fuel economy has come at the much greater cost of reliability as new vehicles will rarely even last half as long as older cars because of stuff like the start stop technology filling the oil with water and the terrible paper thin designs needed to meet fuel economy requirements.
The idea that you think these people care about money is laughable. Money can't even buy anything anymore. Not to mention that the gold standard was removed nearly a century ago. An average home is like 450k and the taxes on it are honestly worse. You will never own a single piece of property in the world. The rich have so much power that they can get 2% interest loans while you can only get maybe 5-6% if you are lucky. So you see even the money is set up for power. To make sure you and everyone else never has any or can ever own anything, but you must work daylight to dark to survive, while their accounts increase while they sleep, having never produced a single valuable thing in their life.
You are just applying your poor person mentality to a world where that doesn't exist. You want money because to you, money is a way to escape a life of servitude to corporations, but even that is an illusion.
Why do you think Elon musk spent billions to acquire Twitter? Why buy a company that has nothing of actual value outside of some IP and data, when the U.S economy has not grown in 50 years? Money? Fuck no. Power, influence, protecting his billionaire pedo friends from citizen justice. These sorts of things.
Money itself is about power. Every aspect of it from the ground up is designed to facilitate the mass stealing of value from the working class, and putting it into the hands of a small class of managers. Money is a treadmill to keep you desperate and silent. You think America has private healthcare because of money? Fuck no, it's because it's just another screw to turn to manipulate you. Another thing you will be without if you are out of work for a month or two from an injury. We have been in a post scarcity world for nearly 100 years. 90% of the people on the planet wouldn't have to work rn and we could have an even better standard of living, but that won't happen because they are afraid of what people will do when they aren't desperate, trying to make it from one week to the next as their wages drop year after year, and also because people in countries without women's autonomy and rights will have billions of little parasitic humans that they have no way to take care of. At this point humans are mostly becoming a liability. The more you have, the more they destroy the environment and compete for the same limited amount of resources allocated to the poor and working classes. Most jobs today simply exist so that they have leverage on you, nothing more. You know what leverage is about? Power! You guessed it.
Wake up sheep.
Knobs are better
Why buy a new car? It would be cheaper to build your own car at this point. You can also spend money on reliability and strength, instead of surveillance. There is absolutely no way in hell I'd ever buy a new car. The culture has deteriorated too much and the people making cars don't give a shit if the American economy implodes because no one has a car. America is about to become Cuba.
Why buy a new car? It would be cheaper to build your own car at this point.
Edison Motors (in British Columbia, Canada) can do a full EV conversion on any pre-1995 vehicle (few complex electronics that require futzing with) for $15k-$50k CAD depending on the type of vehicle and its power requirements.
Pick up a late-80s Type II VW Jetta and itβs likely to be at that lower end.
Pick up a late-70s dent side Ford F-350 dually, and itβs likely to be closer to that upper end.
Still, youβre looking at half to a quarter of what a new vehicle costs.
Great. If you ignore that you still have a 40-50 years old car at that point. It's not like EV was the only invention over the past 5 decades.
How long until they start putting some kind of DRM in cars that prevents you from just installing an aftermarket android auto head unit?
Most cars are basically bricks without the main unit, for example the air conditioning is set using proprietary commands on the can bus from the fancy touchscreen. Or setting all the options of the adas, sensors and so on
They've been trying that for a while. They do it by routing critical cat functions through the radio that don't need to go through there.
This. Of course, you could just mount a cheap tablet in front of the head unit and be done with it.
Daaaamn. The closest thing I could think of was my friend's 96 (98? Whenever the EK body started) Honda civic that had the factory alarm and remote locks in the radio. He ended up splicing some wires and shoving the factory radio into his glove box or something to get around it.
Or an aftermarket floor mat or air filter?
So manufacturers can bill you monthly for the same features...
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