EV (electric vehicle) News and Discussion

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Handle9

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#3530900 26-Sep-2026 10:49

fastbike:

GV27:

New Zeekr showroom opened last night on Great North Road.

7 GT, 8X, 9X there until Sunday.

Haha, you obviously did not watch the ABC documentary in the post above.

I did. It was a “yellow peril” hit piece. As a work of drama it was fine, as a piece of balanced journalism it wasn’t much good.

johno1234

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#3530903 26-Sep-2026 11:21

https://youtu.be/sItidMkTjQ0

This is very impressive. Once better battery tech arrives it should be very commercial.

RunningMan

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#3530910 26-Sep-2026 11:44

gzt:
I watched the first five minutes of the video. Significant physical access to the vehicle was required for the researcher to tap into the canbus.

They've had the vehicle for a couple of weeks to research, but there isn't any detail released that I see about the hack itself. Physical access may have just been to gather info on how the systems work, but they don't say what the entry point for the hack is.

It may or may not have been via the cellular connection, or could conceivably just be a bluetooth OBD dongle. Devil is in the detail, and the detail doesn't seem to be in that report.

Handle9

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#3530923 26-Sep-2026 12:32

The exact details of the hack aren’t super important to me. My issue with the show was the sole focus on China and EVs.

A broader and more nuanced discussion of connected vehicles would have been interesting. Instead I found it to be anti Chinese propaganda. If they had done the same exercise with some legacy manufacturers I suspect the result would have been very similar.

RunningMan

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#3530926 26-Sep-2026 12:50

Handle9:

The exact details of the hack aren’t super important to me.

On the contrary, I think the detail is very important. On the one hand if this is just plugging in a bluetooth or wifi OBD dongle and controlling a few things from a laptop across the road, well that could happen with any car made in the last 25 years.

The other end of the scale is a BYD specific security access via the cellular connection which would be more concerning.

Without that detail, we don't know if this is a genuine and significant issue, or just media fluff, potentially also with the issues you raise.

fastbike

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#3530949 26-Sep-2026 16:48

Handle9:

I did. It was a “yellow peril” hit piece. As a work of drama it was fine, as a piece of balanced journalism it wasn’t much good.

It was made in the context of 50% of new cars being sold in Australia coming from factories in mainland China, many controlled by folk high up in the CCCP. And all of them required under Chinese law to hand any data collected over to the Chinese authorities if asked. Call that yellow peril if you would rather throw mud than be geopolitically aware.

Of more concern to me was the Minister tried to side step what were genuine questions around the collection and use of data being collected, such as who was driving the car, where it was domiciled, journeys and length of stay at destinations etc. And that a car bristling with cameras can be sat outside the head of Australian military / security HQ with no questions asked, but the minute a journalist with a conventional camera turns up two policeman show up pronto.

I'd not conflate this with hacking into a car to control it - it's just that the meta data these appliances are generating has significant intelligence value to other powers especially as the world becomes a more volatile place. The hack to get siri to disclose enough info so the bank account could be hacked from the car was interesting although it would require access to the network, and the program did not disclose whether an insecure password or comms protocol was the vector.

The comments by the privacy professor were pretty alarming too - and nowhere was this limited to just cars from China.

So would I buy one of these. Trade off privacy for a cheap price ?

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dafman

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#3530950 26-Sep-2026 17:00

fastbike:

So would I buy one of these. Trade off privacy for a cheap price ?

Yeah, I will.

Last three cars have been Outback’s. Loved all of them, hence I kept going back.

But the value proposition just isn’t there for number four when I can pick up a higher-spec’ed Chinese car for approx $20k less.

(Chinese EV to add, to avoid to keep thread specific!).

kiwikurt

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#3531001 26-Sep-2026 17:36

dafman:

fastbike:

So would I buy one of these. Trade off privacy for a cheap price ?

Yeah, I will.

Last three cars have been Outback’s. Loved all of them, hence I kept going back.

But the value proposition just isn’t there for number four when I can pick up a higher-spec’ed Chinese car for approx $20k less.

(Chinese EV to add, to avoid to keep thread specific!).

I would agree. Slight thread drift but Outbacks have always been quite good looking. How about the current one? It gives real Pontiac Aztec vibes, if I'm being kind.

Handle9

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#3531050 26-Sep-2026 18:36

fastbike:

Handle9:

I did. It was a “yellow peril” hit piece. As a work of drama it was fine, as a piece of balanced journalism it wasn’t much good.

It was made in the context of 50% of new cars being sold in Australia coming from factories in mainland China, many controlled by folk high up in the CCCP. And all of them required under Chinese law to hand any data collected over to the Chinese authorities if asked. Call that yellow peril if you would rather throw mud than be geopolitically aware.

Of more concern to me was the Minister tried to side step what were genuine questions around the collection and use of data being collected, such as who was driving the car, where it was domiciled, journeys and length of stay at destinations etc. And that a car bristling with cameras can be sat outside the head of Australian military / security HQ with no questions asked, but the minute a journalist with a conventional camera turns up two policeman show up pronto.

I'd not conflate this with hacking into a car to control it - it's just that the meta data these appliances are generating has significant intelligence value to other powers especially as the world becomes a more volatile place. The hack to get siri to disclose enough info so the bank account could be hacked from the car was interesting although it would require access to the network, and the program did not disclose whether an insecure password or comms protocol was the vector.

The comments by the privacy professor were pretty alarming too - and nowhere was this limited to just cars from China.

So would I buy one of these. Trade off privacy for a cheap price ?

The show positioned this as being a Chinese EV story. The reality of connected cars is this is an issue across the entire industry, not just Chinese cars. There is a reason that Teslas were banned from Chinese secure locations.

As for the doomsday music, silly lighting, random PCBs and soldering stations, they were all very silly/needlessly alarming for people who had no idea what they were watching.

richms

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#3531051 26-Sep-2026 18:38

See it for what it is - bait for the elder people who scare easily and have no idea about technology. Crap like this just exists to drive interaction and that is why many people no longer trust legacy media.

Richard rich.ms

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