Automotive Technology
Introduction
Automotive technology is reshaping what a car is, from over-the-air software updates and driver-assistance systems to connectivity, electrification, and the data your vehicle collects. This hub is your evergreen guide to the tech under the hood and behind the dashboard, and to the debates over repairability, ownership, and privacy that come with it. The Auto Wire covers ADAS, infotainment, telematics, and the friction between automakers and the people who buy their cars. Use this page to understand how the technology works, where it is heading, and how it connects to safety, reliability, and the electric future.
Table of Contents
- The Modern Connected Car
- Driver-Assistance and Autonomy
- Infotainment and Connectivity
- Over-the-Air Updates and Software
- Data, Privacy, and Telematics
- Right to Repair
- The Future of Car Tech
- Latest News
- Related Guides
- Expert Resources
- Recommended Reading
- Frequently Asked Questions
The Modern Connected Car
Driver-Assistance and Autonomy
Levels of Automation
Limits of Self-Driving
Infotainment and Connectivity
Over-the-Air Updates and Software
Feature Subscriptions
Software-Locked Hardware
Data, Privacy, and Telematics
Right to Repair
The Future of Car Tech
Latest News
[DYNAMIC BLOCK PLACEHOLDER — auto-populate with latest posts tagged Technology / industry / Government Regulation.]
Related Guides
[INTERNAL LINK PLACEHOLDER — link to sibling hubs: Electric Vehicles, Car Safety, Vehicle Reliability, Traffic Incidents, Car Recalls.]
Expert Resources
[EXTERNAL AUTHORITY PLACEHOLDER — SAE International, NHTSA ADAS resources, manufacturer tech pages, Repair.org.]
Recommended Reading
- [Article placeholder] Jim Farley Thinks Your Car Is Too Dumb — /2026/06/22/jim-farley-thinks-your-car-is-too-dumb/
- [Article placeholder] Cops Are Using License Plate Readers — /2026/06/22/cops-are-using-license-plate-readers-to-stalk-their/
- [Article placeholder] Automotive Physics Lab — page ID 30736
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a connected car?
What are the levels of driving automation?
Is full self-driving available today?
What data does my car collect about me?
What are over-the-air updates?
Why are automakers charging subscriptions for features?
What is right to repair and why does it matter?
Can car software be hacked?
Are ADAS features standard on new cars?
Will my car become outdated as software changes?
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Latest News (Auto-Updating)
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AirPods and a Tesla’s Cameras Cracked This Georgia Car Theft
There’s a category of car theft that requires no skill whatsoever, and Forsyth County just produced a textbook example of it — along with an unusually modern ending. According to the account the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office published on its Facebook page, a woman stopped at a Primrose School in the Cumming area on Aug.…
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Stellantis Filed Three Backup-Camera Recalls in Three Months. The First Two Covered Only 75 Cars.
Stellantis didn’t tell federal safety regulators about a blank backup camera once this summer. It told them three times, under three different explanations, at three wildly different scales. The version that made headlines this week covers something like 900,000 vehicles in the United States and helped knock nearly 4 percent off the stock in a…
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Blame Yourself: America Lets the Fastest Drivers Write the Speed Limits
AAA says speeding is the new normal. The deeper story is that America sets speed limits from how fast drivers already drive, and every new car already knows the number.
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Hyundai Cut Crash Test Review Time By 90 Percent. That’s Not Even Close to the Interesting Part.
Hyundai’s AI numbers are big. The real story is a 2019 data infrastructure decision that most competitors haven’t made yet — and that seven-year head start is the actual competitive advantage.
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Reynolds and Reynolds Got a Manager to Sign a 66-Month DMS Extension. The Dealers Say It Wasn’t His To Sign.
Sixty-six months. That’s not a contract. That’s a sentence. A standard Reynolds and Reynolds dealer management system agreement already runs three to five years, with four percent annual cost increases locked in from day one. Now imagine someone signed your stores into an additional 66-month extension on top of whatever was already in place. Five…
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Why Driver-Assist Sensors Get Blamed for Repair Costs They Didn’t Cause
Every enthusiast has had the moment. Somebody taps your front bumper in a parking lot, the cover looks fine, and the estimate comes back north of three grand. Behind that painted plastic sits a radar module, a couple of ultrasonic pucks, maybe a corner lidar, and a camera up in the windshield header that now…
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Hyundai’s AI Numbers, Decoded: What 90 Percent Faster Crash Review Really Means
Automakers have spent three years announcing AI the way teenagers announce gym memberships. Hyundai Motor Group just did something rarer: it put numbers on the board, in public, with the specific workflows attached. Some of those numbers are more impressive than they look. Some are considerably less. The occasion was an internal showcase at the…
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Toyota And Hyundai Got Caught Tracking Drivers. GM Already Put A Price On It: $25 Billion.
Five years before Australian regulators opened a file on Toyota and Hyundai, General Motors stood in front of a room of investors and put a number on exactly what a modern car’s data is worth. Not a guess. A target, published in a press release and repeated in filings with U.S. securities regulators: $20 billion…
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Cars.com Just Had a Record Quarter – By Politely Admitting Fewer People Are Showing Up
Cars.com told investors this week that it just posted the fastest revenue growth in its history as a public company, excluding the freak rebound after the pandemic. Then, a few slides later, it told them something that should have been the headline instead: fewer people are actually visiting Cars.com than before. Management didn’t bury that…
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Tesla Takes Its Self-Driving Patent Fight To The Supreme Court
Somewhere in a filing cabinet at IBM in August 2015, five researchers wrote down an idea: put a number on how well the car’s computer is driving, put a number on how well the human is driving, compare the two, and hand the wheel to whichever one is winning. That idea is now three U.S.…
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Honda And Nissan Shared Car Software: What A Joint OS Would Really Change
Honda And Nissan Are Circling A Shared Vehicle OS — And Their Architectures Don’t Match Neither company has announced anything. There is no joint press release, no filing, no signed agreement on the public record as of this writing. What exists is a stack of official documents from both automakers over the past two years,…
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This State’s New AI Truck Cameras Aren’t Really About Safety. They’re About Lawsuits.
New Hampshire announced this week that its Department of Transportation is wiring artificial intelligence cameras into its state vehicles. Local coverage played it like a gadget story: smart cameras that spot crashes, log near-misses, and watch snowplows work through a storm. That’s the press release version. The real story sits one layer down, in a…