EV tech protectionism, market regions, GPS, etc.

[qwk]

(split from the Chinese BYD EV thread)

Everyone does this.

Not everyone breaks patent laws, and straight out copies the design. Only the Chinese.

[Dan5]

Not everyone breaks patent laws, and straight out copies the design. Only the Chinese.

I remember consumer electronic companies are slow at shipping new items to China, I would assume cars would be just as hesitant, I really don't understand why they can't track the cars and ensure they don't make it to a reverse engineering facility, tracking thousands of cars with GPS inside is alot easier to track than millions of $200 blu-ray players. If I was a car company I would make sure the car did not leave the country/countries it was designed to be sold in- should be part of the purchasing agreement.
Something like " This car is only designed to be sold in the US/European union market. If it is transported to another country outside of the agreed upon area without prior approval we reserve the right to repossess said car and refund the owner the money" and "If the GPS is disconnected for a specified time we also reserve the right to repossess the car" and "If the car is reverse engineered all rights and money generated from the sale of the vehicle or part belong to our company".

If BYD reverse engineered a Tesla and sold it to Hertz in the US, the money would go to Tesla.

Not going to happen though- no way would anyone put such an agreement in and enforcing it would be problematic.

[Mookuh]

" This car is only designed to be sold in the US/European union market. If it is transported to another country outside of the agreed upon area without prior approval we reserve the right to repossess said car and refund the owner the money" and "If the GPS is disconnected for a specified time we also reserve the right to repossess the car"

The first part would be problematic if you want to travel further in your car. I know a number of people who would travel to turkey by car, which is definately outside the EU. Would I lose the car by doing that? Also Switzerland :P
The second part... I don't think I'd buy an automobile where I must not turn the GPS off. Less so because I want to turn it off, but moreso because it would indeed confirm to me that they are actively tracing me and don't merely have the option.

[Dan5]

The first part would be problematic if you want to travel further in your car. I know a number of people who would travel to turkey by car, which is definately outside the EU. Would I lose the car by doing that? Also Switzerland :P
The second part... I don't think I'd buy an automobile where I must not turn the GPS off. Less so because I want to turn it off, but moreso because it would indeed confirm to me that they are actively tracing me and don't merely have the option.

I was thinking more like "this car is forbidden to be sold in or transported to country X" were country X could be any country with blatant patent infringement. Turkey is not really a hot-bed of patent infringement like other countries
Actually we are already being tracked. If you look at your cell phone, anyone with any hacking or social engineering expertise could vaguely figure out where you are even without the GPS turned on- I would just call your number and look at my cell phone bill or look at facebook, twitter, foursquare, etc. I was talking about a very vague GPS signal that just sends a response back to the manufacturer "Warning car is within known patent infringement area please investigate" then they can investigate and build their case for either doing nothing, contacting the owner (if the car was stolen), repossessing the car, or taking legal action.

I was also talking about physically disconnecting the GPS/ tampering with the car internals, not just turning it "off".

[Mookuh]

I was thinking more like "this car is forbidden to be sold in or transported to country X" were country X could be any country with blatant patent infringement.

Fair enough. I get where you're going, but I would find it hard to enforce these things, as stated. Specifically, how are you gonna find the car when the GPS has been disabled?
On a broader range, I am irritated by how much these issues (criminality) are holding back humanity as a whole. But alas, where's a perfect world when you need one...

[vfx]

Fair enough. I get where you're going, but I would find it hard to enforce these things, as stated. Specifically, how are you gonna find the car when the GPS has been disabled?...

And are the GPS systems in the cars worldwide? Is it not cheaper to buy a half planet?

[Dan5]

And are the GPS systems in the cars worldwide? Is it not cheaper to buy a half planet?

You don't need to buy half the planet, just use the GPS satellite networks- the data stream back to the "central computer" just has to be latitude and longitude, very little band width- nothing fancy like street names.

If you see the signal go GPS signal go dead at Latitude XYZ.123, Longitude ABC.987 you can build up a case that someone is reverse engineering the car.

On a side note, I think the BYD is going to kill the Focus EV, Coda, and Leaf- same price ballpark, but more range and I like it more than the Focus, Coda, or Leaf designs

[daniel]

Something like " This car is only designed to be sold in the US/European union market. If it is transported to another country outside of the agreed upon area without prior approval we reserve the right to repossess said car and refund the owner the money" ...

I don't think it would be enforceable, in a country where such practices are tolerated. A company wanting to reverse engineer something (car, computer, whatever) could have an agent buy one here and then ship it there.

We already have patent laws, so if BYD (e.g.) were to put Tesla technology in a car and sell it to Hertz (e.g.) Tesla could sue for patent infringement. There's no need to demonstrate how the technology was obtained.

I think BYD bringing electric cars to the U.S. is a good thing, though I personally would not buy one until they had established a solid reliability and safety record. I knew a woman who imported plush animal toys from China. She said that the Chinese are entirely capable of making high-quality goods, but you just have to be extremely clear that that's what you want, because they assume that Americans want the cheapest products possible, since their main export customer is Walmart. The point is that there's no reason BYD could not make excellent cars. Only time will tell whether they choose to do so.

And I think there's nothing wrong with the appearance/styling of the car in domenick's post above.

[vfx]

You don't need to buy half the planet, just use the GPS satellite networks- the data stream back to the "central computer...

I understand the system but am not sure the billing is done for the use of satellites. Is there not a per satellite charge? So you pay for the use of the ones over North America to track cars anywhere in the Continental US and this saves money because you are not paying for the rest of the worlds satellites. I don't know how the fees work but if that's the case, a car company might opt out of global coverage if not needed on a daily basis.

[ggr]

I understand the system but am not sure the billing is done for the use of satellites. Is there not a per satellite charge? So you pay for the use of the ones over North America to track cars anywhere in the Continental US and this saves money because you are not paying for the rest of the worlds satellites. I don't know how the fees work but if that's the case, a car company might opt out of global coverage if not needed on a daily basis.

I'm having trouble following this thread, there seem to be multiple misconceptions. The GPS satellites (and their cousins Glonass (Russia) and Galileo (EU)) are in mid-level orbit, and do not appear stationary. So you can't point at one and say "that's the North American one". In an hour or so it'll be over Africa. Also these satellites only broadcast signals that allow a receiver to figure out where it is; there is no back channel and the system has no idea where you or anyone else is. If your position is somehow reported to someone, usually that is through cellular modems in the car (the roadster reports through the GSM Packet Radio System, which just happens to have the similar but different acronym GPRS). The map data is built into your receiver, or provided to it on CDROM, or over a 3G data link, but again nothing to do with the GPS system itself. So you can opt out of having map data for Mongolia, but any GPS receiver will still tell you your latitude and longitude when you're there.