A lot of readers here, and on Reddit seem to be misunderstanding the situation.<p>The way I understand it, this car was taken in by a garage for 'seat installation'. I presume this means after market seats.<p>The car disabled itself during installation. The OP assumed due to an anti-temper device, but it could have been any failure mode. Most modern cars with airbags will have sensors in the seats to disable some of the airbags if there is no passenger sitting there. So it is no surprise that any type of work on the seats puts this system in an error state. Especially on high-performance cars it is not unusual that the car immobilises itself when the safety systems are in error state.<p>A certified dealership will have the computer interface and software to reset the fault mode. For those that do not have this software, Ferrari can remote into the car and reset it for you. This requires connectivity though. This is actually quite a common thing on luxury cars.<p>This has nothing to do with 'smart' modes, remote hacking capability or disabling a car while in motion. The fact that the manufacturer can remote into their cars, does not automatically mean that the car is vulnerable to remote hacking. This is, in fact, a safety system that kicked in.<p>The solution here was probably simple: bring the car outside, and let Ferrari do it's thing. Or trailer it to a certified dealership to have it reset there.
The updates are pretty hilarious as well. Basically even after sending the tech the car is still bricked at the moment.<p>Update 1: <a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9jim1/update_theyve_flown_a_very_italian_sounding/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9ji...</a><p>Update 2: <a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9qnh3/final_update_and_there_it_goes_boys_a_true_marvel/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9qn...</a><p>There was also a story a few years back that is kinda similar in issue. A rental car was taken into a rural area but they couldn't restart the car as there was no cellular signal for the app to re-enable the car. <a href="https://twitter.com/kari_paul/status/1229214223227478016" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/kari_paul/status/1229214223227478016</a>
Reading through it seems like people are misinterpreting this.<p>By my reading the car has an anti-theft device that was triggered by the installation of seats. There is a remote system to override the anti-theft device, but that doesn't work because it requires mobile reception.<p>It's kind of funny, but this doesn't really tell you anything about the dangers of "smart cars" or anything.
The bricking shows that all these “smart” cars with remote software control are liable to hacking (and potentially deadly accidents). We should have a choice to turn them off selectively.<p>The worst part is that car companies don’t understand software and digital security.<p><a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...</a>
This is not bricking. And really has nothing to do with smart devices. I assume this device could be recovered through the usual wired diagnostic port means, so the reception issue is an annoying situation but not anything close to “bricking”
The chances of attempted theft of a Ferrari are likely larger than the chances of someone installing a child seat so this looks like it was implemented ok, though the recovery could have been a bit more elegant.
So what happens if/when Ferrari stops supporting the remote hardware, or the mobile tech is no longer available (ie none of my 2g mobile network stuff works anymore because no telecoms company here does 2g anymore)
Here are the updates
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9jim1/update_theyve_flown_a_very_italian_sounding/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9ji...</a><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9qnh3/final_update_and_there_it_goes_boys_a_true_marvel/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/j9qn...</a>
I don't understand why in 2020 we cannot have transactional firmware updates. Download firmware -> swap out. Is that so hard? This automatically allows for rollback to last known good as well.
This has also been a problem with a number of ZipCar locations in Boston.<p>I've actually come across ZipCars that have likely never been used because they're placed in underground garages with no cell reception.
If you ever find yourself wanting a Ferrari, head over to your friendly neighborhood exotics workshop and have a look at the cars that come in.<p>"Quality" isn't a word I'd use around a Ferrari.
Wonder if there will be a market for gasoline-powdered, or at least non-network connected, cars in the future. This sort of scenario makes me want to never buy an electric car, ever.
Once drove a shared car into an underground garage with no reception. Cannot recommend it, had to pay the overnight parking and it took me quite some time to re-activate again.
Mobile devs are smiling while reading this headline: always assume network loss or unavailability at any time time, especially the worst time possible!
This is such a vague reddit piece it's very hard to understand if the car is truly bricked or just needs to be towed to a place with signal.<p>As a broader issue independent car repair garages are dying fast as more and more cars are manufactured with inaccessible DRM coupled with very expensive handshake hardware and software only dealers can own.<p>This is a huge problem quite aside from the issue of what happens when a vehicle being driven can't phone home because of grid shut off etc (happening a lot in California for example), resulting in these types of incidents.<p>I feel new vehicles should have owner ability to shut off all out and inbound electronic communication and still function satisfactorily. An earthquake or other natural disaster is going to immobilize a lot of vehicles in potentially obstructive places if we don't think this through.