Today’s Morning Dump is going to focus on the differences between countries. What is acceptable, predictable, or reasonable in one culture may not be acceptable, predictable, or reasonable somewhere else. While a debate over surveillance rages in the USA, Toyota is testing a kind of Dark Knight-esque system in its home market that allows authorities to view your car’s cameras.
You’d think the United States and Canada would have a lot in common, sharing both a large border and a predilection for the comedy of Eugene Levy. A trade war has highlighted the differences, although the worst crisis has been temporarily averted.
Large German public companies tend to have a lot of stakeholders to deal with, sometimes including state governments, and this can create both a necessary tension in order to reach helpful compromise and a slowness to react to emergencies. ZF’s new CEO is going to have to overcome those if he wants to save the company.
And, finally, when American car companies want to set speed records they tend to use sports cars or purpose-built streamliners. Czech automakers? Famously, they use sedans.
I Don’t Think This Would Work In The USA
“I know this is a difficult project in terms of privacy, but we can’t use all this valuable data to serve society unless we take a step forward. This project has allowed us to take a step forward,” explains Toyota’s project leader Masato Koike.
The project he leads is one that uses the many cameras built-in to Toyota’s cars to help emergency operators (in Japan this is 119 instead of 911) identify what’s happening at a scene. As Toyota’s in-house magazine reports:
The system has already been used at actual accident scenes. In some cases, it has led to faster deployment of fire trucks, and the results are starting to show.
“Could we use the dashcams in cars driving around town as the eyes of the fire department?”
That idea, from one Toyota employee, is what gave rise to Drive Recorder 119.
Now, through the cooperation of many people, that challenge to shape the future is ready to make a major leap forward.
Practically, this isn’t a complicated issue. Almost all communication between the people involved in an emergency and dispatchers is via voice. While that’s reasonable in many situations, you can imagine how having the ability to see the extent of an accident might help a dispatcher better assign resources in response.
In many cities, particularly in places like London, there are surveillance cameras everywhere and anything that happens in a public space is likely to be accessible to local authorities.
For now, most of the use has been limited to Toyota’s futuristic city, which itself feels a little like a surveillance state already. Car owners also have to consent to allow their cameras to be taken over by authorities in emergency situations.
Could this work in the United States? That’s a harder pill to swallow here, and some of that probably has to do with the reaction to the expansion of Ring cameras and, in particular, to Automatic License Plate Reading (ALPR) technology like Flock, which the ACLU rightly calls “mass surveillance technology.” After the police tracked and confronted journalist Joel Feder from The Drive, awareness of the risks of ALPR tracking seems to have widened.
As a side note, Joel is an old friend, and I’m not 100% sure he shouldn’t have been arrested for something. He has too much energy. It’s suspicious!
The United States And Canada Pause Trade War, Briefly
President Trump has backed off his threat to hike tariffs on Canadian goods to nearly 50%, stating that “I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL! ”
Is there a deal, though? The Canadians aren’t quite so convinced according to this Bloomberg report:
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney wasn’t as definitive, stopping short of saying they had a deal. Neither side said whether earlier sticking points such as auto tariffs and lumber will be resolved.
“Substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done,” Carney said in a statement. “While we continue this work, Canada remains focused on building a stronger, more independent, and more competitive economy at home.”
While there are many issues, the primary one seems to be about automobiles. The United States wants a 15% tariff on Canadian-built cars, although with some reduction for American content. Even if the effective tariff is therefore only 9-10%, that makes it a little harder for companies to justify building cars in Canada and exporting them to the United States.
At that point, it’s maybe net cheaper to build cars in South Korea or even Japan.
ZF Friedrichshafen Blew Its Cash On Electrification. Can It Survive A Rebuilding?
ZF is one of those companies that makes just about everything, but is known, at least in the United States, for gearboxes. Above is the inimitable 8HP transmission used by engineers who wanted to throw insane amounts of power at a vehicle that could still be considered a daily driver or a luxury car.
That’s the old world. The new one looks very different and, having over-invested in electromobility, the company has to decide what it wants to be. Per this Manager Magazin report, ZF ‘s new CEO Mathias Miedreich would like to not be so reliant on cars:
To stop the downward spiral, Miedreich has conducted a radical assessment in recent months and is now discussing an equally radical restructuring strategy with the management board and supervisory board – albeit with a rather unoriginal title: “ZF North Star”.
Manager Magazin was able to review a draft of the plan, which has not yet been communicated in detail internally. According to the 13-page document, Miedreich intends to downsize ZF by 2028. He plans to shrink the company and set a future revenue target of 35 billion euros. He intends to discontinue unprofitable products and units and close further plants. Miedreich will adhere to the plans of his predecessor, Holger Klein (56), to eliminate or relocate up to 14,000 jobs in Germany. And – in a revolutionary move – he even mentions a partial IPO as a strategic option.
If the plan succeeds, Miedreich can reach stage two by 2028. He wants to transform ZF into a new company that is only dependent on passenger cars by a maximum of 50 percent. A bit more of a technology company than an automotive supplier – something that rival Bosch already is today.
I have a Bosch dishwasher and it rules. Maybe ZF can make a nice fridge.
My Favorite Landspeed Racer Is Obviously This Škoda
My favorite Bonneville is Hugh, and my favorite speed racer has to be this 2001 Octavia vRS, which managed to hit 227.080 mph on the salt flats. From the company:
The project was masterminded by Škoda UK, with the record-breaking car ‘borrowed’ from the press fleet before being extensively modified for the task of breaking the existing record of 216 mph. Following its requisition, the production-spec Corrida Red Octavia vRS 2.0 TSI was subject to a complete strip-down and rebuild. Under the regulations set out by the Southern California Timing Association, only a certain number of modifications were permitted. Adding to the challenge was the fact that the Octavia’s 2.0 TSI engine was so new at the time that very few motorsport or high-performance upgrades were available from external suppliers.
The fastest press car ever? Maybe. In addition to setting the record for a Škoda (the first of its kind) it also held the class record for ten years. In celebration of the 15th anniversary of this achievement, Škoda sent out more photos of the car. I love them.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Frank Beard, the beardless drummer for ZZ Top, passed away yesterday. While “Sharp Dressed Man” wouldn’t make my top 15 songs from the group, this video features The Eliminator, aka a heavily modified 1933 Ford Coupe. If your curious, my favorite ZZ Top song is probably “Jesus Just Left Chicago,” though “La Grange” has a special place in my heart. The band came to prominence in Houston around the time my mom was starting to go to shows, and she fondly remembers seeing them play garages and other small venues. RIP to a legend.
The Big Question
Would you allow the cameras in your car to be used by an emergency dispatcher?
Top photo: Toyota Times/YouTube
No doubt this idea came from the team of scientists in the Science Patrol. Even AI knows:
The Science Patrol: An elite scientific defense team based in Tokyo tasked with fighting giant monsters and alien threats.
“ZF Friedrichshafen Blew Its Cash On Electrification.”
I have always said for years that massive investments in the BEV is very totally wrong way to go regardless of whether the governments mandate the full BEV. You can can force the manufacturers to go BEV, but you can’t force the consumers to buy the BEV. Many of BEV sales are inflated by the tax credits, rebates, and such. More and more insurance carriers are having second thoughts about the exorbitant cost of battery replacements. More and more people are having second thoughts about the safety of battery with penchant for thermal runaway, producing toxic clouds and continuing for hours.
Look at what happened to CAFE in the 1980s. It was supposed to force the manufacturers to come up with fuel-efficient passenger cars or pass the “gas guzzler tax” to the consumers. Yet, many people started buying the SUVs and pick-up trucks with V8 engines as they weren’t counted toward CAFE. So, what did the manufacturers do? They shifted to offering more SUV models and manufacturing more SUVs, which made the CAFE pointless.
Mercedes-Benz USA didn’t anticipate the sudden growth of grey-imported 500 SEL, SEC, and SL in the US when Americans found the 3.8-litre V8 severely underpowered and horrendously slow. MB USA decided to fuck with CAFE and offered the official import of S-Class models with 5-litre V8 engine.
Ooh, that first line stings. Do we know if the Silverado EV is really cancelled yet or do they want to add more breathing room after the F150 Lightning was cancelled to avoid “copying”…
I have a source within Toyota (dealership) who says all cars with cameras automatically take images in accidents or with high G moves, etc. These images and other data (brake/ accelerator input) are used by insurance companies in claims. Declining to provide this will hurt your chances in a claim. And a leased vehicle’s images may be used without the drivers consent, as the dealership owns the vehicle.
Thumbnail should have been a photo of Godzilla?
Saw the ZZ Top boys many many times since 74.
Never disappointed at all.
RIP boys.
Any institution with power will eventually become twisted from its original purpose, typically for more power.
Do not give them more power by being able to watch everyone everywhere, it will be used for evil sooner or later.
Oh ZF… bought TRW for too much $, then Wabco. Went nuts on EV, feet first into a murky pool… Nevermimd the Zepplin foundation tie in, Board has ties with the local city it’s headquartered in (Friedreischafen). Wish them the best but I’m sure the brass will argue about the it at the Forum (HQ) on the top floor for who knows how long… will be good to see from afar…
Makes sense, since they’re on the opposite side of the globe.
I have a lot to say today.
Re. TBQ: No.
Re. Tariffs: TACO
Re. ZF: good luck. (Manuals, please.)
Re. Skoda: cool!
TBQ: Nope.
But then, I don’t have any cameras in my car. After an airbag theft (those things are PRICEY!), I have contemplated, but have not installed, a dashcam that would double as a security camera. And if such a device recorded a malefactor stealing from my car, at that time, I’d share it with police. But allowing just general access? No way.
8HP is a very unfortunate name for a “transmission used by engineers who wanted to throw insane amounts of power at a vehicle that could still be considered a daily driver or a luxury car”
Nope. I’ll break my cameras first.
“So let’s not be afraid today to acknowledge what it is that we’ve achieved. Seven years ago there was literally nothing. Now there’s definitely something. And we delivered that something out of nothing. Let us take that achievement with us going forward towards a future beyond Deliverance, wherever that actually means.” – Ian Fletcher, Head of Deliverance for the 2012 Olympic Games (Hugh Bonneville in Twenty Twelve)
If you wanted a ZZ Top song with automotive references, you could have gone with Nationwide! A V8 Ford and a new Cadillac (with a fine fox in front and three more in the back).
Or Chevrolet .
I will confess that I am annoyed with the backlash and vandalism Flock is enduring these days. I am generally not a paranoid person and there is no shortage of positive contributions these things make: apprehension of people who have done dangerous/fatal things, stolen cars and kidnappings. However, I do think that there should be some oversight on how this technology is used and do what can be done to prevent misuse by jealous cops stalking their exes and the ICE creeps. My car doesn’t have any cameras that would be of use, so that’s a moot point.
Re: WILTWWTMD, years ago, I was doing a project in LA and staying at a hotel near Whiskey A Go Go on Sunset Blvd. and walked a few doors down to get some dinner. Parked out front was a cool custom car and I when I sat down at the bar, I realized I was sitting next to Billy freaking Gibbons. I really like their music, but I left him alone. When I see a celebrity, my first instinct is to just let them do their thing in peace. I figure that at the end of the day, they’ve had enough recognition and adulation. RIP Frank.
There is oversight:
“The town of Stow, Massachusetts, said it is moving to fire officer Jason Rogers, and the Stow Police Department said it is moving to criminally charge him for allegedly using Flock surveillance cameras to get information about someone they know.
Police said officer Jason Rogers improperly accessed information about someone he knows on at least five occasions and ran vehicle information through Flock Safety and Criminal Justice Information Services “for no legitimate law enforcement reason,” police said.
The town has initiated proceedings to fire Rogers, and the police department filed a criminal complaint seeking charges against Rogers, with the case being forwarded to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, police said.
Rogers has been on leave since the department learned of the alleged misuse, according to the Stow Police Department.”
Who watches the watchers? There will never be enough oversight because oversight costs money and a company won’t waste money in oversight unless there is a risk of getting sued.
Even in a government use without checks on power it will someday become corrupted and used for power.
The problem here, and the problem with Flock in general (which happens to be outside of Flock’s control), is that only the kidnappings will actually draw the appropriate response from Law Enforcement and the Judicial apparatus. But these days hoodlums can steal a car, get drunk, crash into 5 other cars putting people in the hospital and get let out with just a slap on the wrist because both the DA and the judge are corrupt scumbags uninterested in actual justice. You can have all the video in the world of criminals doing criminal things, and it just doesn’t matter. They’ll be out on the streets in hours on a tiny or non-existent bail and reoffending tomorrow. Like if we’re going to have a creepy surveilence state, open and notorious crime should disappear, but no, it’s the worst of both worlds.
Flock cameras are the most unamerican things ever, they should never have been installed. We do not need to become that aspect of China.
TBQ. I don’t have a problem with anyone using any camera attached to any of my cars.
That might change if I ever go through the effort to install backup cameras in these old things.
ZZ Top. There’s a great documentary on them from before Dusty and Frank passed. Just a cool band with a cool story.
My wife generally doesn’t like the same music as I do, but during the documentary, the trio would just jam on some songs that they did and it was pretty much a live recording of their jam session being cut into the documentary. All 3 were no longer young, but it was still exceptionally well played and tight.
Great band and quite a loss to the music industry to see Frank Beard pass away.
PS, one of the fun things was that after they did a huge chaotic tour, all 3 decided to quit music. Each went a different direction, I think Dusty ended up working at an airport for example. Then they decided to get back together, almost without planning. Each of them had grown a full beard. When Frank walked in and saw Dusty’s and Billy’s beards, he decided to shave.
TBQ: abso-flippin-lutely not. Never in a million years even. US justice system is so plagued with corruption from top to bottom that you couldn’t pay me to say yes. And that’s before we get into the whole data harvesting that would happen anyway.
I find it interesting that Japan seems to have a higher trust in authoritative figures, but here if there’s a hint of power it’s guaranteed to be abused these days.
What’s funny is the Japanese justice system is corrupt in its own special way too. You definitely do not want to be a defendant in the Japanese justice system.
100% this. The high conviction rate has little to do with the skill of Japanese detectives, a lot to do with the skill of the police and prosecutors at gaming the system. Not to mention a very flaky grasp of the concept of habeas corpus.
On the other hand, Japan feels like a very low-surveillance country. Very few speed cameras, and the ones that are give you a lot of leeway. The recent case of the young British tourist who disappeared for two days in Yokohama is an example of how little CCTV there is even in dense urban centres. So long as allowing emergency services to use in-car cameras is the owner’s choice, I don’t think many Japanese people would have a problem.
Japan has a higher trust in their community in general, not just government. The normal way to reserve a seat at a cafe there is to just drop your laptop and bags at the table while you order at the counter- the idea that someone would steal it is unthinkable. And God help you if you litter in public…
TBQ: nope, I work with insurance guys and lawyers and what they’ll do with any footage after the fact of any given accident isn’t always in the best interest of those involved.
ZZ Top, one of my all-time favorite bands. Got to finally see them live in the summer of ’94. “Eliminator” on vinyl was the first album of theirs I got to listen to as a kid followed by “Afterburner” with it’s space-shuttle-fied version of their ’33 Ford blasting across the cover.
I had no idea they had made music before Eliminator until reading the book Christine by Stephan King where he had song lyrics about cars at the beginning of each chapter. Reading one from “The Mexican Blackbird” (“drive that ‘ol Chrysler to Mexico boy”) led me down a rabbit-hole of trying to find out where it came from thus leading to the discovery of all the music they made before Eliminator. And this was pre-internet, so it involved real effort, or at least a trip to the mall and a conversation with the dude behind the counter at Musicland.
La Grange will likely remain one of my favorite songs from any band for all time, but a close second in ZZ’s library would have to be “My Head’s in Mississippi”, which features a pretty close riff to that of La Grange (and yes, I’m also a fan of John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen”). Hard to pick out specific other favorites – whether it’s old, new, Mtv-era, bluesy, crunchy-riff rock, synth, etc.; their music always makes me smile.
“My Head’s in Mississippi” comes off of the album “Recycler”, which is still my favorite album-cover from the band. Tough to beat the the artist’s rendering of their other well-known custom car “Cadzzilla” surrounded by stacks of vintage iron and the band members standing proud. I still remember Kurt Loder on what I believe was MTV’s “The Week in Rock” asking if the name of the album meant the band had turned over a new leaf for these “Texas gas-guzzlers”, to which they replied “I don’t think anyone’s going to remember ZZ-Top as the band with a message”.
Message or not – they’re always going to remembered for their music, it’s just so damn good. Sad news about Frank… Rust In Peace buddy.
TBQ: Bold of you to assume any of my cars have cameras
No, too many fascists.
If you wrote that line in your screenplay, it would get rejected for being too on the nose evil. How do people say shit like this with a straight face?
Their audience knows there’s a fairly significant delta between peoples’ stated principals and their actual behaviors. You’re being tracked online every day in terms of browser behavior; your phone is likely tracking your GPS location to some degree. Most people are advocates for some kind of registry – whether it’s a firearm registry, or DUI registry, or whatever else. You just moderate the sales pitch to hit the audience.
“With this technology, we can determine where a shooting happened, vehicles involved, and cut our response time in half – and can likely save hundreds of lives.”
“Gun violence is out of control – wouldn’t you like to know where the owners of registered firearms are in your province?”
“DUI’s are the leading cause of death on roads, and many individuals who cause these crashes are supposed to be using ignition interlock devices. With this new technology, we can determine if an individual on probation for a DUI is driving a vehicle equipped with such a device and if not, immediately seek civil forfeiture of the vehicle.”
I could go on in this vein. In reality, people get lit up about privacy, then step back and accept intrusions thereof in exchange for free stuff.
You don’t put your phone in a bag of chips? Always out your phone in a bag of chips.
“Gun violence is out of control – wouldn’t you like to know where the owners of registered firearms are in your province?”
There’s no registration in red states.
Oh, I know. “Province” is used there deliberately.
Everybody wants to keep track of “those people”, where “those people” are their ideological (as opposed to practical) foes, which is why the gap between program efficacy and expectations is likewise so big for most of these programs.
We need less of “those people” and more of “our people”. I miss Northern Exposure.
Large German public companies tend to have a lot of stakeholders to deal with, sometimes including state governments
I used to be a fan of the VW model, as it used to prioritize long-term progress over short-term gains. The last years have shown that it doesn’t make a big difference where the idiots on the board come from.
A bit more of a technology company than an automotive supplier – something that rival Bosch already is today.
It wouldn’t be 100 % correct to claim Bosch is actually a charity, but there is more than a kernel of truth to it.
And R. I. P., Frank. Give our regards to Dusty.
I’d NEVER let any of my cameras feed the collective surveillance hive mind.
London is a charmless hellscape where every move is tracked in real time, they boast about pulling up anyone’s location instantly, and avoiding a facial recognition camera is a crime. Apple’s Superbowl ad with intrusive spying cameras could have been a London tourism ad. They’re about a step away from tagging everyone with a version of China’s social credit score.
It’s “If YOU’RE curious” . . .
The ironic bit is that crime still happens all the time, in camera view, they just don’t have the manpower or the will to enforce the law all the time.
I remember one of the first times I visited London as a kid there was a bike frame chained to a surveillance camera pole, the bike was in clear view of the cameras, so it saw when the bike was stripped of all its parts and left just the bare frame chained to it.
Local government’s response?
Put a ticket on the bike frame.
Yep, the camera’s true goal was not to stop crime…
This is the actual problem with Flock. We are not lacking in evidence to put most prolific criminals away for a long time, we just lack the will. If you’re going to have a police state, you should at least get good policing, but the current situation is the justice system will throw the book at you if Flock catches you running a red or doing 5 over, but Mr. 10-convictions-out-on-parole-driving-a-stolen-Kia gets a free pass because he’s a nightmare to deal with and takes a comparatively enormous amount of resources to handle compared to people who actually pull over for the cops.
I don’t have anything with a camera, but if I did, and was driving along and something popped with an Amber Alert with a location relevant to where I am, and a tap Yes to share camera feed, I’d probably be OK with that. Incident by incident, with an opt in each time, not blanket access all the time
A) I see what you did there and B) mine is Bonneville, Oregon. It’s a lovely area to drive through.
That’s pretty cool, actually.
TBQ: I would rather there not be any cameras in or on my car, but hell no. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It is incredible to me just how many hits ZZ Top had. However, my favorite is more of a dark horse candidate: Gun Love is great.
TBQ: These are always hard to answer. I see the benefit and it is significant. But no. The government has just eroded all trust that these systems will not be abused. I’m not even talking about recent events, the government has done everything imaginable to erase all public trust going back to the cold war days.