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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

I do live in a house, could easily afford an EV and have plenty of solar to keep it charged. And I still don't have one because all of these EVs feel like the worst of the computer world applied to automotive. The last thing I need is a computer on wheels and I'm old enough that I know my current car is likely my last. For my kids it is different, and I'm sure that they'll go electric at some point but I hope that they'll be able to do so without buying a mobile privacy violation instrument.

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The Dacia Spring proves that it doesn't have to be the case. The base version doesn't even have a touchscreen, let alone internet connectivity. It is a cheap car, in every sense of the word, but is shows that not every EV has to be like Tesla.

The issue is the small actual range on the Dacia Spring. Great for grocery shopping and going to work in a city setting, bad for long journeys in the winter time. Basically what people want is exactly that type of barebones EV, but with more battery.

That’s genuinely nice that it doesn’t have the multimedia crap. They do also have an “extreme” model with touchscreen and connected services. At ~220km range it probably has about 100km in winter though. :-/

Good for them, and thank you for the tip!

>they'll be able to do so without buying a mobile privacy violation instrument.

Tell me you don't bring any mobile device when you ride/drive a car.

There is a slight difference between my mobile phone/carrier and the manufacturer of my vehicle, especially when the latter includes cameras, all kinds of telemetry and of course the near certainty over the longer term of compromise of all the data they hoover up.

Did you mean the former?

No, I meant the latter. Onboard cameras and telemetry are fairly commonplace on newer vehicles.

Phones have those also, and you are comparing cars to phones, so I thought you meant that phones had all those things...but I guess they both do?

There are more kinds of phones.

Not just commonplace, required by law.

Ironically society would benefit tremendously from “computer on wheels” because when you inevitably have a heart attack on the road your car won’t swerve onto oncoming traffic or crash into people.

Why is me having a heart attack inevitable?

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