Yeah, that’s a good way to summarize what people are mad about; they basically moved all of the calibration from onboard to offboard diagnostics, and then thwarted most efforts to access the offboard diagnostics.

Automotive is similar and I’m a bit worried for EVs; for ICE autos there’s enough emissions related regulation that some diagnostics and manuals are accessible, but for EVs there’s nothing much stopping a Deere style complete lockdown.

Exactly, go look at Lucid/Tesla and a few others for examples of how the car is a brick without the manufacturers sekret unlock codes and calibration software. If they decide not to help, you are out of luck.

Ah but you didn't buy the car, you bought a license to drive the car. You know, like CD or Playstation game.

Until some kind anon hopefully leaks it...