From your weight and facial expressions to your destination, cars collect a startling amount of data about you. Some of it may even raise your insurance costs.

  • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 hours ago

    Mine isn’t. I got a 2023 bolt and immediately upon taking possession, pulled the fuse that runs that shit. I could go behind the screen and remove the onstar module entirely, and I probably will to restore the nav and location-based charging at some point, but not a priority. Pulling the fuse didn’t disable anything I can’t live without, since my old car didn’t even have the stuff that gets disabled.

    I don’t use apps on my phone that connect to the car, and haven’t even synced my phone for calls. I have an old android I factory reset and created a local account on, which doesn’t have a sim card, just hotspot from my active phone, and I use that for the EV charge location apps, totally isolated from anything else because they, too, syphon data.

    I’d personally never buy a vehicle that couldn’t have all that shit disabled. It may still collect it, but if I cant intercept or prevent transmission of it, I wouldn’t buy the vehicle.

    I’m hoping that by the time I need to replace this one, we have at least started to invest in decent public transit that doesn’t take 3-10x as long as driving. It could happen. Else I’ll just never leave home because I won’t buy one.

    • Sineljora@sh.itjust.works
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      5 hours ago

      Repair shops upload stored data automatically when they have to purchase a software license to do work on your car.

      • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 hours ago

        Do you have a citation for that? With how shit search has become I’m struggling to find anything about it. All i get are right-to-repair articles and stuff about data access being a problem for repair shops (I assume thats in the same vein)

        Wonder how that works when I haven’t consented to any data disclosures, even implicitly. I didn’t set up any of those things, because I pulled the fuse, and no consent screens ever came up. None of the paperwork signed was for it, either, best I could tell.

  • Undearius@lemmy.ca
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    21 hours ago

    If you bought a Nissan, you’ve given them the right to collect data about your sexual orientation and history. It’s in their privacy policy.

  • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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    15 hours ago

    I’m unreasonably infuriated by this title format.

    My car isn’t spying on me. It doesn’t have any kind of wireless connectivity whatsoever.

    • scoobford@piefed.blahaj.zone
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      10 hours ago

      No can can transmit data without an antenna. I disconnect mine when I get a new car and just don’t install their app on my phone.

      Some cars have a “telemetry” fuse, but I’ve never trusted that. They don’t explicitly say which part of the car does the spying and the reporting.

      • prenatal_confusion@feddit.org
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        6 hours ago

        What antenna? The FM am antenna? There are probably multiple others hidden that are tiny (think mobile phones) if they want to so it without Our knowledge.

  • HarneyToker@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    As if I needed more reasons to keep repairing my shitbox from 2013. Japanese, no internet connection or infotainment integration. I could take out a 12 month loan for an engine replacement every year and it still wouldn’t cost as much as a car payment + full coverage insurance.

    • otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      19 hours ago

      That’s a false equivalency, though, as the former didn’t include matching insurance— nevermind that it’s generally illegal, IIRC, to drive uninsured. 😅☝🏼

      • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        19 hours ago

        The minimum insurance to cover legal requirements (and not damages to your own car) is pretty cheap tbf

        • otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 hours ago

          That isn’t the technicality, though, and while that cost may be “cheap” (and fluctuate by area/provider), that’s a qualitative judgement not a quantitative value.

          The first set lacked any mention of insurance (despite it being a pre-req for legal use of a motor vehicle on public ways), unlike the comparative second set that followed.

          If something is going to be “cheaper than” something plus another thing, and the add-on for emphasis is actually a requirement for the former, it doesn’t exactly work as a comparison or even as hyperbole. 🫡🤷🏼‍♂️🤓

          • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            4 hours ago

            It works because liability coverage should be basically the same for both vehicles, and insignificant compared to non-liability insurance for a new car. The latter is not a legal requirement, but it is much more necessary for a new expensive car because it would be much more difficult to cover the cost of replacing such a car out of pocket if something happened to it. If you can cover the cost of replacing your car yourself, then you can avoid paying the insurance company a premium for their service. Also if the new car is purchased with a loan that insurance is probably a contractual requirement.

            For these reasons these types of insurance are better considered separately, and the legally required insurance won’t affect the conclusion of the analysis of which car is a better financial decision, so it is reasonable to omit mention of it.

            • otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 hours ago

              While your logic seems sound on the surface, the simple omission of any insurance mentioned in the first set undermines the rationalization. Whereas, including “and minimum required insurance” to said set would correct the inaccuracy, if only slightly.

              Assumptions in formulae should always be clearly notated, if only to prevent their absence from otherwise implying a null/negative value. 🤓

              Good effort, though. 🖖🏼