Your car is spying on you.

That is one takeaway from the fast, detailed data that Tesla collected on the driver of one of its Cybertrucks that exploded in Las Vegas earlier this week. Privacy data experts say the deep dive by Elon Musk’s company was impressive, but also shines a spotlight on a difficult question as vehicles become less like cars and more like computers on wheels.

“You might want law enforcement to have the data to crack down on criminals, but can anyone have access to it?” said Jodi Daniels, CEO of privacy consulting firm Red Clover Advisors. “Where is the line?”

Many of the latest cars not only know where you’ve been and where you are going, but also often have access to your contacts, your call logs, your texts and other sensitive information thanks to cell phone syncing.

  • @friend_of_satan
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    62 days ago

    I’m sure there is a market for something like a 90’s era Civic or Corolla, but with an electric engine, and that’s the only difference.

    • @CeeBee_Eh
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      52 days ago

      If I could get an electric car with zero external connectivity, and the internals of an early 2010 vehicle. I’d be interested.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        Yeah and I think there would be a lot of people who would pay a premium to aftermarket privacy-ify their electric cars.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 day ago

          Yes, and all 10000 of those people worldwide will enjoy the absolute lack of range on a vehicle never designed to accommodate enough batteries. Or if you do fit enough batteries to make it useful, you ruin all other characteristics of the car by increasing weight too much.

          You want to keep an old car going in a useful manner, it’s not going to be an EV conversion, you’ll be getting your hands dirty. But at the cost of having a really outdated interior, you’ll get better ride quality out of an 80s Mercedes than you will out of a 2020 literally anything. And those OM604/5/6 diesels will last forever too. And I mean FOREVER.

          Otherwise you’ll have to find a manufacturer to build you a proper new EV without tracking. It’s gonna be hell, but maybe someone will pop up eventually. Will be a fun time explaining it to the customers: “Noooo, you can’t turn on heating from the app when it’s -30 outside, but that’s a good thing!” (though obviously a remote would fix that)

    • @[email protected]
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      2 days ago

      I think there’s other benefits like regenerative braking. I had that in a Prius and the brake pads got replaced like once every 100,000 miles.

      • @friend_of_satan
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        32 days ago

        Sure, but that’s part of the electric drive train. That doesn’t require spyware or a 27" touch screen.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 days ago

          100% but my point is that newer cars do have better engineering thats more than just batteries and an electric motor.

          And, yes it doesn’t require an internet connection or cameras/microphones inside the cabin.