https://www.yahoo.com/autos/s/gm-ford-others-want-working-own-car-illegal-160000229.html

I'm all about restoring/enjoying NON computer cars. KEEP YOUR NEW JUNK! They can't monitor my usage or track my whereabouts, (yes your insurance company has access to this info, but supposidly can't use it) can't remotely override any electrical system's, injection is nice but I'd rather be BLOWN anyways. Security???? = 44mag.

New car electronic technology and its corresponding software is so prevasive and it is getting more so. A friend of mine at GM is working on vehicle cyber security.

That's right, Your car can be hacked and now car companies have to spend time and money to come up with ways to try to protect it. Furthermore, your new car will eventually require software patches, just like your Microsoft or Apple PC does, to protect against various vulnerabilities in the wild. So your car will have to be connected to a secure Wi-fi connection or directly to an authorized dealer to download the latest patches.Of course, you will be monitored by the OEMs for compliance (especially in case you sue them), charged for each patch outside the OEM/extended warranty period, etc. Big Brother will definitely be watching you!

Clearly the auto industry is trying to have its cake and eat it too with this idea. They want to shut out the Flash ECM tuners and aftermarket as a whole - claiming that alteration of the OEM SW is both proprietary and a safety issue.

So if the automotive industry tries to say that we don't own the cars anyway more, they are "right to use licenses only" instead, then I think we (as consumers) should play the PC commodity game, and we expect each generation of "car" HW/SW should significantly cheaper and more powerful that the previous one it replaces, and that a car generation is about 18 months or less long. Can you imagine the auto industry developing new car platforms in 18 months that are newer, better, and cheaper?

If this was a serious hard play by the automotive companies, I have to believe that opponents like SEMA would step up loudly against it.

with Frosty. I'm not so much against updates so long as it is like a perpetual software license, aka free updates. We're getting to this point where tech is so involved in everything that nobody really knows the next turn. Killing the aftermarket business is a bad choice, believe there will always be some sort of "API" for the aftermarket to get in to.