Optimal self interest is maximum fuel efficiency when cruising or lightly accelerating, and maximum power when flooring it. If everything is computer controlled, then it doesn't seem like there is a tradeoff here.
Besides altruism or avoiding repercussions, why would anybody choose to tune for emissions? It's a collective action problem. Maybe when slowing down / stopped, so a tailwind didn't leave you breathing your horrible exhaust.
Thinking a little further, inspections won't be able to prevent this modification if flashing is really easy - just revert before and restore the modifications afterwards.
My general stance is "fuck trusted hardware", because any contemporary implementation is likely to involve a foreign asymmetric key that makes it so someone else owns "your" hardware. But I do see a Free approach to it that involves time locks / hashing proof of work, and possibly logs changes. This way would provide some appropriate physical security and auditing, while not restricting any party in long-term possession of the device.
Besides altruism or avoiding repercussions, why would anybody choose to tune for emissions?
At least for petrol engines, ultra-high emissions usually means low fuel economy and performance, as optimum combustion means negligible CO and NOx (and unburned hydrocarbons). In other words, turning for those will decrease emissions to a low point, although maybe not to the point where the environmentalists are satisfied. The three points are quite close together.
With diesels the situation is somewhat different, since there's no throttle plate and the only thing that can be adjusted is the amount of fuel injected, and increasing that both increases power and emissions while decreasing fuel economy.
Emissions can benefit when you tune for something else, but I wouldn't call that tuning for emissions.
My point is that if you don't care about emissions, then there is nothing to trade off. A computer controlled system can be tuned entirely for mileage at low power output and also tuned entirely for power at the high end.
Besides altruism or avoiding repercussions, why would anybody choose to tune for emissions? It's a collective action problem. Maybe when slowing down / stopped, so a tailwind didn't leave you breathing your horrible exhaust.
Thinking a little further, inspections won't be able to prevent this modification if flashing is really easy - just revert before and restore the modifications afterwards.
My general stance is "fuck trusted hardware", because any contemporary implementation is likely to involve a foreign asymmetric key that makes it so someone else owns "your" hardware. But I do see a Free approach to it that involves time locks / hashing proof of work, and possibly logs changes. This way would provide some appropriate physical security and auditing, while not restricting any party in long-term possession of the device.