Can I disable all data collection from my vehicle?
rivian.com
rivian.com
(https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/arti...)
>Nissan earned its second-to-last spot for collecting some of the creepiest categories of data we have ever seen. [Their privacy policy] includes your “sexual activity.” Not to be out done, Kia also mentions they can collect information about your “sex life” in their privacy policy. Oh, and six car companies say they can collect your “genetic information” or “genetic characteristics.”
Some laws require discussing very specific lists of categories of information they might have. I'm guessing this is a completionist CYA lawyer accounting for this.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140827195715/https://blog.uber...
There's another post on this article asking for an EV that doesn't: "need internet connectivity via wifi/esim at all? I'm looking for something really simple. A chassis, four wheels, an engine, airbags. Basically my current ICE car, just electric."
I'm hoping that they get a lot of good suggestions, but I'm not holding my breath.
^^ Not EV, but... :)
Someone with the requirements you outline is not in the market for any new car, regardless of powertrain.
Once again, are there any that work functionally like my airgapped ICE car? It is only 8 years old. I’m worried there aren’t.
BMW was one of the best for privacy the last time I checked.
As I said, nothing to do with being an EV. All new cars have some variety of telemetry. You may choose not to buy a newer car, but it has nothing to do with whether it is an EV or not.
But be careful because an 8 year old ICEV from GM has OnStar
You can count the exceptions to this on one hand.
You need government support to make EVs a preferred option. Poor folk buy cheap cars, and they mostly rent. The whole scenario around EV charging is a shitshow, and the tax incentives were insufficient to fix it. I had a Model Y for awhile and really liked it, and now have a fancy Japanese hybrid SUV. It's much less of a pain in the ass then the EV was.
I think a bunch of people have decided that EV means Tesla or Rivian, and maybe Hyundai/Kia, and possibly VW if they think about it. But there are a bunch of EVs driving on the roads that people don't even realize exist, they look like every other car. They tend not to have fancy features.
Unfortunately, they’ve been suspiciously quiet since their initial announcement, but fingers crossed. Might actually have a viable new car option if they’re successful.
I wonder what happens if you disable the e-SIM (in the US) and then a safety recall appears via software update - do dealers have any way to update control modules besides OTA?
This is a huge unresolved issue with EVs IMO; ICE cars are required to provide emissions-relevant updates over software which can operate using a J2534 passthrough device, which effectively means powertrain modules have to allow (potentially signed) updates over CAN using software that can be obtained by an end user (a lot of people don't know this; for almost any ICE car in the US, you can buy a 3-day or 1-week subscription to the dealership level diagnostic software for a somewhat reasonable fee and use it with a J2534 device).
But for EVs, there's no such rule and as far as I can tell it's entirely a gray area in the US now; the NHTSA require a "remedy" for recalls but nobody seems to have pushed back to determine whether OTA is truly a remedy. The traditional autos all offer dealerships as a backup option, but Tesla and Rivian have several recalls with only OTA remedies already. This seems sketchy.
I get some updates OTA, but the dealer has to install some others, and when I took it there they updated it with a USB stick.
Rivian are probably the only major manufacturer I've never had a chance to look at in any RE capacity and I'm getting more curious by the second. The reaction their vehicles had to the infamous bricked-infotainment update actually represented a pretty good adherence to safety guidelines (the drivetrain as well as the speedometer and warning lights on the cluster still worked in a degraded format even when the infotainment was bricked) IMO, so they do seem to apply a reasonable degree of care.
I would assume so. Even on older cars, service techs can typically manually push firmware updates over the OBD-II / J2534 port. Rivian's OBD-II port actually hides an Ethernet signal inside of it - so the interface is certainly there.
Fun fact: You can buy an Ethernet adapter directly from Rivian here to connect to the car's internal network: https://rivianservicetools.com/Catalog/Product/TSN00535-300-...
Nice. This is really normal now, for what it's worth - all of the European makes have moved this direction as well (DoIP over ENET). There's shockingly little documentation about Rivian online, though, probably because emissions regulation doesn't mandate it.
https://automotivevehicletesting.com/vehicle-diagnostics/doi...
Older cars have no concept of such updates.
Happy with my 70s and 80s and early 90s cars.
A nice feature on that system was that you could put a paperclip between two pins on the diagnostic port and it would blink out the trouble codes on the SES light.
> do dealers have any way to update control modules besides OTA?
Yes.
I believe the truly concerned/paranoid will not want to take their car to the dealership for updates at all. Which would, IMHO, be a mistake: having known security holes in your car's software is more likely to lead to a privacy invasion (via getting your car hacked at some point) than letting the dealership get their hands on it for a few hours.
(I should note that all of this is theoretical for me: I drive a car that's old enough it doesn't have any software).
EDIT to add this P.S.: Actually, I can think of one category of people who would be concerned enough to turn off the car's ability to connect to the Internet, but feel fine about taking it to a dealer for updates. That would be people who want to turn off the car's Internet connectivity not because of privacy concerns, but because they don't want anyone to be able to disable the car (either via hacking or via "legitimate" means, i.e. the manufacturer does it) while they're driving. Such a person would care a lot about the car's Internet access being completely off while they are driving, but not care about it being turned on while it is at the dealership.
Personally, I wouldn't want this intrusive system (or telemetry).
Yes.
You get a letter in the mail asking you to take your car to the dealer so they can install the update.
Been there. Done this.
Whoa, didn't know that. Well the caveat is finding a decent J2534 device, right? There are a lot of cheapo knockoffs. Then actually knowing how to use the software with it.
https://www.crvownersclub.com/attachments/tsb-15-086-crv-tra...
Edit: I eventually recovered most of the cost via a settlement court.
As if I needed another reason to keep my 2014 skoda.
If i ever have to get a new car, i will disable telemetry, and i will buy it either without telemetry, or with the agreement that i do not consent to telemetry.
(read the fine print before getting a new car. the shit they can do that can go wrong and you have to pay for.. no wonder old cars cost as much as new ones.)
They're worried about the cost of a new car, and the cost of all the electronics, should they go bad.
I really wish car review publications would start adding a ‘Privacy’ section along side the Perfectly, Road Handling etc parts of reviews
(Just stating this as a data point for you.)
You mean you've never had a conversation about it. You can't know if you've met somebody that has that concern unless you've broached the subject explicitly.
2. identify anything that looks like capable of housing a cell modem. that takes some understanding of contemporary car electronics
3. deny RF interface to units identified. that takes some understanding what RF = radio frequency interface is and also getting rid of fear of disassembling significant portions of your car.
All in all that is a great learning experience.
And chances are you would have to get rid of 2/3 or more of oem electronics.
It'll end up a prototype vehicle or something, with custom ECU and stuff. On the bright side it will belong to you and not to the some mckinsey guys running those insurances and whatnot. It has been done too, although I personally prefer to just use vehicles that do not require this level of effort.
The other day there was a thread on unclouded tractors what I missed and I must tell I love my Universal 445 made in Romania in 1989. For all its quirks, it just gets the job done, no connectivity, no nothing, it's an unbreakable 3-cylinder diesel that just works.
I have a tesla wall charger. I never wanted to connect it to wifi, but it creates its own unique wifi access point TelsaWallConnector-blah-blah.
so I thought - I'll just disconnect the antenna!
nope, still shows up.
so... I'll just wire the antenna it to a dummy load!
nope, still shows up.
It appears the wifi chipset has an on-board antenna and an external antenna connector and it uses them both.
I suspect this stuff happens for wifi and cellular chips in lots of devices.
Kia's engines are known to fail predictably even within first 100K miles. They extended their warranty because of it. But then they weasel out of it unless you hire an attorney and go to war.
If this were a widespread policy I bet class action lawyers would be all over it without you having to pay for it.
The other reason i did it is because the dealership and other shops quoted me over 10 times the cost of parts, and I literally did not have the money to take them up should i have wanted to. Car maintenance is expensive, _especially_ at the dealership.
My car needed another key. The stealership quoted me >$400 for it. I took it as a personal insult and did the research and ordered an OBD device and also discovered you can order replacement keys on aliexpress, and they'll even cut them for you with a good picture of your existing key. It was actually a fun project and very satisfying when I was able to successfully program and link the RFID chip to the ECU to start the engine.
May not be feasible with more locked-down modern cars which I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, but I was able to fix it for about $150, not including my time of course. But I have the OBD device to use next time now as well.
eBay key fob (new) + local locksmith, easy and no insults!
What's your plan for the future? I have an old car, but I know it won't last forever.
But with regard to a car, I don't know. I'll just do the best I can when the time comes. I'm hopeful there'll be options available or where I can cut antennas or whatever.
I bought a kit off of amazon "simple key" that included a programmer and a key with rfid chip. I think about $80.
You plugged the standalone dongle in the OBD2 port, did a procedure and it would take a few minutes and you would get an "original" key.
(The programmer said it was then locked to that VIN)
They key blank provided needed to get cut (did it at home depot).
I could then get additional rfid blanks for $7 and cut and program them.
Once you had two original keys, you could do the "DIY programming" method to make keys 3 and up.
The DIY method was something like "insert key 1, wait 3 seconds, remove, insert key 2 wait 3 seconds remove, insert new key, wait for something, remove" and you would get key 3, 4 ...
There were similar but separate ford procedures for programming the buttons on fobs to lock/unlock doors, etc
The mechanical parts of a car haven't changed much in the last 25 years, and are easy to understand just by watching a few YouTube videos.
The electronics have certainly gotten more complex, but if you can understand basic computer networking and low voltage electronics it's still quite simple.
If you are interested in learning how to fix your own car, there is a great guy who runs an auto repair business on YouTube and his tagline is: "Remember folks If I can do it, you can do it."
Of course they do. It would be absolutely silly not to. And in the case of safety recalls, their duty to inform you would entail a more traditional and substantiated disclosure i.e. a letter.
What if they did the EV equivalent of Dieselgate[1]? Say it has a dangerous amount of torque or something, but you like that.
Could you just turn off the network and keep it in the desired (unsupported) state?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
In Europe, car manufacturers have to show that their cars meet safety standards. In the US, car manufacturers only have to say/certify that their cars meet safety standards. This is the huge sticking point for Trump's attempt to force EU countries to accept cars that have not been proved to meet safety standards (it is portrayed as "unfair/uneven trade barriers" in the US media).
Certainly not any time in the last 15 years that I’ve been buying IDS/FDRS and service manual access.
Just do as /u/bigfatkitten suggests and get the service manuals when you purchase the vehicle.
Many subscriptions are painful, yes - VW brands / ODIS for example are awful to try to get as an individual and annoying as an independent shop; I'm sure the fraction of independent shops who pirate it are quite high. It's funny you mention Ford though, as they are incredibly easy to buy from in my experience, although the login/licensing backend is frequently broken.
However, there's a good cottage industry of companies reverse engineering the compatibility issues back out, and for better or worse these companies are cloned almost immediately too. I recently did key programming on a newer Ford (where Forscan can't) using a $125 VXDiag cable which I could have bought cloned for $30 and a short-term FDRS subscription that cost $50.
Smart cars can record street views, location of WiFi access points and GSM towers, and this data is useful for guiding missiles and drones when GPS is being jammed.
And how can we deal with this? Inspections on import? Country-level DPI to block data exfiltration? But DPI is not perfect because there are obfuscation and VPNs. And today we have Starlinks as well, which are difficult to block. Except from banning foreign smart cars altogether, there seems to be no simple solution. Or maybe oblige the manufacturer to use local computer boards and software when importing cars?
What an utterly ludicrous and silly notion.
Is what I would've said two years ago.
I wish it was two years ago.
While this does not fully prevent backdoors and hacking it does raise the bar quite a lot.
> In late 2025, hundreds of Porsche vehicles in Russia became "bricked" (immobilized) because the cars’ satellite-based security systems (VTS) required continuous connectivity to European servers. Following the suspension of Porsche's operations in Russia, the cars could not "phone home" and automatically activated anti-theft immobilizers, preventing engines from starting.
> Tesla has remotely disabled Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities on vehicles in multiple countries—including Europe, South Korea, China, and Turkey—after detecting unauthorized "jailbreak" devices used to enable FSD in regions where it was not authorized.
> Reports from July 2024 indicate that Chinese brands have planned to or have blocked multimedia systems and other features in cars that were imported into Russia through non-authorized channels rather than through official dealers.
> American manufacturer John Deere remotely disabled advanced agricultural equipment looted by Russian forces from Ukraine, rendering the high-tech machinery useless after it was moved to Chechnya.
Glad it's an option be it for regulatory compliance, security, privacy, or any combination of the three.
So if being VC funded puts you off an editor, being VC funded may also put you off ycombinator.com
Same, same.
Nothing made me skeptical about the tech industry like working for a VC-backed startup. Ugh.
Fully agree. I also feel like a lot of companies do not need to be on the stock market, especially if they're reasonably profitable, feels like the stock market is where you go to let go of more of your company just to get rid of the VCs whom you owe a lot of money to.
Knowledge of this setting has shifted my perspective considerably.
edit: not enough to ditch Sublime, however.
Sources:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46501220
https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_104#_hide-and-disab...
I've seen this pattern before. It's a lame cop-out. "Of course you can do that, but you'll have to accept all these negative consequences. There's nothing we can do about it. You brought this onto yourself."
Kudos to Rivian for making this a supported user privacy feature.
I do distinctely remember strongly disliking the user agreement I signed for the "internet connected" features of the car when I bought it. 100% rubbed me the wrong way and I couldn't' find a way to opt out, and I wasn't so motivated to physically remove it from my new car. Thankfully.
Shouldn't have to trade privacy for safety.
My phone does this now. Most phones do it now.
This is the company whose flagship voice assistant, in 2026, can’t tell the intended recipient in a sentence like “Text Bob Mary signed the deal.” And if my phone happens to be thrown into the back of the car by the crash, I doubt anyone will be able to hear me.
Not to mention that OnStar has operators who talk to first responders. the cell phone thing will just call 911 and hope for the best.
I pay for OnStar, and think it’s worth it.
1. For years "Navigate Home" has done exactly what you'd expect, then one morning it decides traveling to Home Depot is the only possible interpretation.
2. A bog-standard timed alarm goes off, and half the time "Silence Alarm" leads to it insisting that there are no alarms going off right now.
What stings is that these aren't issues with ambiguous grammar or unusual phrasings, these are extremely predictable commands for features I would expect in the minimum viable product.
That lasted about 6 hours before I figured out how to switch back to Assistant.
You can be using CarPlay to navigate at that moment to a destination, and because of the way my fiancee has Siri set up, if she says "Get me directions to the nearest Starbucks", Siri will say, "I'm sorry, I don't know where you are."
And I'm OnStar have great margins, because it's basically an insurance product that most customers rarely if ever use. But it's an interesting insurance product because unlike say, car insurance, instead of a claim costing them $10,000-1,000,000 a "claim" costs them maybe 30 minutes of a call center agent's time. Great business to be in.
But all that works in my favor. It's a good deal for me because it might save the life of me or someone I love and I can easily afford it. And they have every incentive to preserve their reputation, such as by not replacing the operator with a chatbot who wants to offer me directions to the nearest Chevron™ when I've rolled off the road into a canyon.
So for all of the reasons you stated, I’ve strongly come to the opposite conclusion
Only if it hasn't been crushed, damaged, or otherwise flung out of the vehicle that crashed so violently that it's actually upside down, as noted in the original comment.
You shouldn't have to, and yet...
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/01/...
This is how cars used to be made. Features were standalone modules: there could be some bus traffic about optional data (wiper module with rain sensor could broadcast that it's raining and body control module could hear that and could be configured to close windows when raining) but they weren't strictly integrated in any meaningful capacity. You could change the radio unit to whatever you liked: if you were lucky you could get one that can actually understand what the other modules in the car were saying and show some non-enterntainment info on its screen as well. Navigation used to be a standalone system that had GPS receiver but nothing else in the car couldn't necessarily tap into the location data.
SUre, it meant some more wires and maybe the features had disconnects because they weren't aware of each other that much but all in all that was a good thing. It kept everything simple, isolated and repairable. Now because of more integration the modules need to know who they're talking to which leads to bizarre things like having to code in new headlights and pair them with other modules or they won't be recognized and just stay off.
Get an iPhone or an apple watch - they offer this same service with a more sane privacy policy.
But don't worry, the FTC is out to protect you. Their settlement with GM says that can only sell your name attached to zipcode resolution location data and only sell your precise location trace attached to an opaque ID rather than your name.
More fair to say that you satisfied your level of concern. But it's entirely not schizo for someone to be concerned that there was more than one tracking vector, especially given that manufactures already active inhibit efforts to disable tracking and ordinary practices of the automotive industry.
Or, in other words, please don't privacy shame people. If you felt your approach was sufficient-- awesome! Better to be nothing like the people who were others names online for asking about disabling telematics at all, only to be all shocked pikachu when their insurer jacked their rates later based on their driving activity. :P
Or if you take it in for service and they plug the antenna in. Better than nothing, but if your privacy and security depends on not being constantly tracked it's not good enough.
Same. This is the first thing that I've ever read that makes me think I might be willing to buy a modern vehicle.
A: never once installed the app or registered an account, which flummoxxed the salesman so much he argued with me for 10 minutes trying to say that I had to set up the app to even take delivery, even though I paid cash in full. He even cried to mama (the manager) to find out what to do about this impossible situation. In the end, of course you do not actually need to install the app, even temporarily just for a one-time setup, or even register an account. But MAN do they want you to.
B: Within a few weeks found that someone makes a kit that lets you completely disconnect the telemetry & internet functionality module while providing some pass-through connections that normally go through that box.
Apparently in this case all the bad stuff is conveniently in one box you can disconnect, and still have normal bluetooth for android auto, apple car play, or plain bluetooth headset & media. So still have gps & media on the console stcreen. I can only assume that this won't stay so convenient. They could have anything require anything else any time they want.
They do offer an official way to disable all internet features (remote start from your phone from any distance, remote vehicle monitor, tracking/shutdown, etc), but all that does is disable the useful functions for you, while not disabling any of the functions they use for themselves. It's still actively logging and uploading data, and they still have the ability to remotely track and even disable the vehicle.
I've been to the dealer (different from purchase) once for a free oil change and they didn't say anything. So idk if they even tried to do any updates, or they have some other way to do it or what.
My friend's 10-year-old Toyota will chirp annoyingly if you drift over a lane line but that's all it does. It doesn't have any ability to steer the car back into the center of the lane. Is that "lane keeping"?
I can imagine it can save a life someone dozing off and drifting.
It's a safety feature increasing the safety of myself and everyone around. Not a replacement of anything.
I will say though the the new version of the Kia Niro EVs we have is a lot better in that regard - it just kind of gently nudges the steering, it feels more like the car is tramlining a bit. The older versions we had at work would actively try to steer you into other vehicles.
The gen 1 system uses cameras primarily. It’s not awesome lidar or AI. It needs up to date road information.
I’ve been driving down I-5, a major interstate and had it turn off on me, presumably because I hit a dead spot, as conditions were fine and I5 is one of the most popular routes there is.
I’m fine with all of this. I prefer that it hand back control to me rather than make me another statistic like Tesla’s system.
I'm very curious at what level the restrictions operate. With every other manufacturer I've looked at, they're extremely coarse-grained; it's more like "is there a known long-time-horizon hazard in this area that is known to impair the system" than a "we mapped every lane and you need a database." I wonder if your I5 issue was a weeks or months-old construction area, for example. I haven't looked at Rivian much, though, and it could be totally different or extremely fine grained, there's no reason to suggest otherwise either.
I think if I might be critical, the idea that the car graciously hands over control to you at a moment you are capable of catching might be a bit of a blind spot. The car could lose one of the signals it needs at an inopportune time and you would need a split second and correct emergency reaction to not spear off the road or collide with something. The physics of cars at highway speeds is awe inspiring, problems happen really, really fast.
I think that's only for the speed limit alarms. Wouldn't have that if people would stick to limits, I guess...
But maybe that’s what you meant?
Did you also disable ABS and refuse to use smart cruise control?
Why do you think smart cruise control is useful?
I can't tell if ABS is useful or not. My car has it but I've never used it.
The fact that you've used it and don't know it proves your point. That's an example of good safety implementation.
It's easy to tell when it does - it makes the same BRRRRRP noise it does during the ECU's startup self test from the valve block in the engine bay.
That is a desirable outcome.
I have driven about half a dozen vehicles with this feature, and it has been annoying 100% of the time, and never helpful at all. In the company van I drive (Citroën Berlingo) I have to disable it every time I start the car. The lane keeping gets confused all the time by snow or dirt or when merging onto the motorway, or fucking background radiation - I dunno. It always shocks me when it pulls on the steering wheel. This crap should be forbidden. In the same car I also have to disable the start-stop system so as not to destroy the engine. Aside from that it's a nice enough van for a diesel, but I've been ruined by electrics.
In my own car (Nissan Leaf 2021), it stays disabled. But then it shows me a lawyer screen on every start asking me to consent to handing over my first born son etc.
Imagine if proper EV's had been invented in 2005 - we would have had some awesome cars.
I encourage you to take a look.
Result, I drive a 2012 car.
Good. Lane Keeping Assist should be illegal.
Second thing is to do a factory reset on the infotainment and press "deny" on anything.
Third thing is to use a USB sanitizer so plugging in the USB-port doesn't sync any of my data with the car or initiate a pairing.
Final thing is to check tire pressure, unrelated to above but 9 out of 10 times the tire pressure on rental cars is incorrect. I have a little pen tester in my travel kit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_Truck
Unlike most vehicles sold in the United States, the Slate Truck is not expected to have any in-car entertainment system; instead, customers are expected to use their own mobile device for audio streaming, navigation, and over-the-air updates for their trucks.
Incidentally if you can get enough cold water into it you can get around 150bhp out of a first-gen Nissan Leaf motor for a few seconds, which is really all you're going to need.
There's a guy in the south of England who makes tubular steel spaceframe chassis replacements for VW Beetles, that are compatible with most kit car bodies. Instead of taking a hard-to-get Beetle engine and gearbox they take an MGF engine and gearbox, but I bet you could cram your Leaf motors and batteries in. There you go, now you're running around town in a ridiculously quick electric beach buggy. How cool is that?
They are also super fun to drive and, although they have small batteries, the can charge at 40-50kWh, which translates to 10 minutes to ~85% full. We have used a eUP 2013 model to travel across europe (~900km) in two days, many times! One charge last between one and two hours, depending on speed and weather. We usually cruse at about 90km/h, and the car is basically sipping electrons! The newer model have double the range, but I have not owned or testet them, but might be a decent compromise for longer travels.
For anyone in the same situation, https://web.archive.org/web/20260430234304/https://rivian.co... leads to the correct page.
> In the EEA, Windows will always use customers’ configured app default settings for link and file types, including industry standard browser link types (http, https).
https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2023/11/16/preview...
Website redirects to the regional homepage instead of showing the actual article. I don't get why this is still a thing.
Cell connected vehicles are unnecessary and a danger for so many reasons.
I have a garmin watch which is great for overland hiking, multiple day expeditions etc
I download the maps and the watch has GPS to plot where I am on that map. My watch doesn’t have an eSIM at all.
Rivian is an adventure brand so if they wanted to design a maps system like that, where I am not continually downloading tiles from open maps or google and sending my location to them and others, they probably could
I just don’t think they have space for those types of features most people don’t care about while they are trying to compete in a rough industry and deliver new vehicles
The experience was even comparable to today's experience - I've been auto-routed around a road closure, like, twice in 5 years? And it _failed_ to route me around a road closure probably twice as well?
Also, there are now several countries that sent positioning constellations (obviously to not have to rely on the US for positioning), and most receivers support several: GPS (US), Galileo (Europe), Glonass (Russia), Beidu (China).
Curious why lane keeping assistance would need to communicate externally. Isn’t all this processed in the vehicle?
Lane keeping assist likely (a) shares data back to Rivian, and (b) depends on GPS and (live) map data to know location specific settings.. that there are 4 lanes on this road and the left 2 lead somewhere else (etc). Line detection (on-device) isn't always reliable (snow, rain, ice, mud, gravel, construction)
And at least the object-on-road feature is one I'm glad they have. I once saw a truck ahead of me in my lane suddenly swerve hard onto the shoulder, which alerted me to danger. (The truck driver remained in control of the truck, thankfully). And there was a wooden pallet lying squarely in the right lane of the highway. I avoided it by moving into the left lane, then once I spotted a mile marker I pulled over and called 911 to report the traffic hazard. About ten minutes later, as I was driving on, I saw a police car on the opposite side of the highway, heading towards where I had reported the pallet on the highway. No way of knowing whether that car was the one responding to my call, but the timing suggests it was. Hopefully nobody had an accident before the pallet got cleared away. These days Google Maps would be able to alert people to the hazard before they got close, so nobody will be in the situation I was where the vehicle in front of them blocked their view of the hazard until they were quite close.
Long story short (yeah, yeah, I know: "too late"), some Internet-required features of modern navigation are ones I'm glad they have.
My phone can pre-download maps into Google Maps for offline use, I've done this in foreign countries where I didn't necessarily have full data connection. There's no reason you couldn't cache the necessary maps on the car's navigation system and let it operate based on that and an incoming GPS signal, never emitting out one bit.
OTOH, if you wanted live data, dynamic routing etc. for your convenience you could explicitly turn data on but then you'd acknowledge it comes with the caveats such as potential snooping of telemetry data.
Admittedly, I would never trust a car manufacturer to actually disable telemetry no matter what they'd promise. So, disconnecting the antennae would be the only reliable method regardless. I wonder if there will ever be a car with a physical radio kill switch like laptops.
That includes positional data, speed, whether you're pressing the gas pedal or braking etc. Since it is meant as a Car-to-Car solution, e.g. to warn other cars when there is an accident the reach isn't great, but some of the signals (e.g. warning of a traffic jam) may be propagated by other cars.
See this German talk on the European system: https://media.ccc.de/v/glt26-688-c-its-mit-einem-esp32-ampel...
I think they have a English translation or dub somewhere
I fear this trend in the automotive industry will only complicate things further and introduce more unnecessary risk in our daily life. Is it too much to ask for a dumb car which is durable and takes me from point A to point B? I do not want my future car to be dependent on the manufacturers CI/CD pipeline.
Why is that? I really don't want to bring it to the shop to turn off the radio. In Canada it's a toggle in the settings. Is there Canadian legislation mandating this or something?
Can someone provide what needs these feature covers? Like, what are some reason to disable all internet connectivity?
I am genuinely curious.
Happy I did, along with the ANC/fake engine noise modules.
My phone still tracks me :-)
That and for me in particular, my car isn't any more secure, it's a P71 so I was able to buy a spare key on eBay.
> Can I disable all data collection from my vehicle?
Disabling the eCall is not possible, and doing so (in the EU) would void your car's registration.
Don't get me wrong, I look forward to Slate being available and think it's compelling, but just my cynical take.
I’ve been wanting something like the Slate for a long time and am truly excited by it. The more they’ve commented on specifics however, the more I feel like it’s a risky buy though (for me and my needs). If they do the test drive tour I’m going to make sure to visit it, the whole preorder a car from a company that doesn’t exist thing stokes my anxiety a bit too. Rivian at least I’m familiar with but I’m definitely in the “this company is going bankrupt camp” and don’t see their path towards profitability. So hard for me to buy their product even if they are built for camping
greed
This was decades and decades ago, imagine now??
When I bought a 2025 Suzuki Jimny XL, I wanted a car, not a computer on wheels.
- physical buttons everywhere
- head unit is the only touch screen
- Non-invasive safety features
- No firmware update
- No internet connection
- No enshitification
It is what cars used to be back in the day with minor modern touch like LED headlight. Its headlight does not have direct connection to the ECU.
Toyota cars, especially the new ones can be stolen by breaking the headlight and using its harness to talk with the ECU. Virtually speaking, all Toyota cars are being stolen like hotcake in Australia.
People buying these EVs do not understand how deep it goes buying a car you do not own.
Testa has done this over and over, removed features from the car via OTA update. Car was never meant to be a computer on wheel.
Having ranted a bit though, in the world of car companies an official policy on how to turn data off is amazing. The bar is so low right now that it is crazy to think this terrible implementation riddled with dark patterns is a 'win'. These companies need to be shut down.
It’s not such a stretch to believe that there’s some aspect of this that is specific to a driver or to a vehicle, and so requires that they collect your data. Even if this is not accurate, I can see a business making the decision that, given they need more and more data to improve the model, they would not allow customers to opt-out of that training cohort and still use the feature. Incentives etc.
Directionally though, I am with you on auto telematics data collection; I am not sure you can even buy a new car in the US that doesn’t ship with tracking, and many manufacturers (like the one who makes my car) don’t allow opt out at all. Fcking Stellantis
Vehicle connectivity is a core feature .. blah blah blah"
I absolutely hate these kind of answers. I understand why the answer is written that way, but i truly hate it to the core. They are marketing speak/CYA answers.
Why i hate it? Because i do not mind the communication, but i absolotely do mind the collecting and harvesting.
I don't want to lose connectivity. I want to lose all the effing data harvesting. I don't mind leaving data and using navigation, but i do not want the data effing harvested.
I want to have phone calls, but i do not want my calls logged for a long time so that these logs can be abused in any form by someone or something.
ALL of these features do NOT need long time logging for it to function.
This pay-with-your-privacy system has to stop.
I'd much rather side with the company that was willing to allow the user to disable net connectivity...
Instead, Rivian adds a purely performative toggle that makes the car's navigation largely useless and doesn't provide a good alternative.
- I already pay for internet on my phone, I'm not interested in paying for another cellular service just to get maps and music streaming on the screen in my car. GM ditched CarPlay specifically to push customers to their subscription service. I know some electric automakers are offering it "for free", but I do not trust that it will remain free, and that's important when spending tens of thousands of dollars on something you plan to use for a decade+.
- Third party app ecosystem means I can use the maps and music player I want, and not just what my car manufacturer decides is worth including.
- Auto manufacturers suck at software. I've yet to use an infotainment system that wasn't a stark downgrade from CarPlay.
Basically, my car shouldn't need an internet connection because my smartphone already does all the same things but better.
I certainly appreciate that disabling network connectivity is even possible, but a bit scummy that non-Canadians have to make an in-person service appointment.
Is there some Canadian law at play here that requires they permit Canadians to disable this easily from the GUI? Would love legislation like that in the US.
Hope to see more of this.
New definition of "absurd" just dropped...
Cars were made for 100 years without an internet connection. Even for an EV there is no need for network connectivity or constant software updates. The first time a prominent figure is assasinated with a remote take-over of their vehicle people may start to see this issue a bit differently.
Automotive power relays are at least a thing, but they're expensive consumables that have significant power draw.
In either case they would have had to add the components at design time and do the physical validation/testing, not ship it as a software update.
(https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/rivian-allows-you-to-dis...)
Disabling a SIM card almost certainly means no connection to the network.
(https://grapheneos.org/faq#cellular-tracking)
Whether there is a sim enabled/disabled/installed is irrelevant. The question is whether this feature is Airplain Mode or if it is just disable cellular.
Instead you are referring to the fact that the radio may remain on even if it has no active SIM card.
Given that the primary concern of connected vehicles is changes over time and manufacturer control, I don’t see any reason to make that distinction for most people.