Hacker News

Tangential, but one of the concerns I have about these 'smart' cars is they have an expiration deadline.

There's an exceedingly common type of failure I have seen myself in industrial electronics and (has happened with Tesla at least once), that some module keeps a log of some kind in a nonvolatile flash, and this flash has a limited lifecycle, which the equipment reaches at some years into its life (or earlier, if the flash came from a bad batch, or more logging happens than planned).

At this point the board usually gets bricked and replacement is very hard due to cryptographic handshakes between components.

> turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could

This is never enough. You can't trust a software switch. You need to remove the hardware capability if you want to make sure the car isn't spying on you. In the best case, the telematics box has it's own fuse, and that may be enough. In other cases, you need to find the box and unplug it. The service manual will have it's location. In some cars it's easily accessible, in others less so and you need to remove the glove box or part of the dash. Dealers will probably refuse to do it, my advice would be to DIY or find an independent mechanic who will do it.

Your mileage went from VW->telematics vendor->broker->carfax, thats the chain it usually follows. The fuse stops it but the real issue is the owner is the only one without the record.

You could probably find some interesting info if you send out some privacy requests through the chain. LexisNexis and Verisk are consumer reporting agencies, so they have to provide you a disclosure on request. Start there.

Weird -- usually VW likes to falsify its data, so I am surprised this data was so accurate.

Every business likes data collection, until they don't.

I have been thinking of upgrading from my 2003 Corolla to an electric (not Tesla). The Corolla hasn't had a single repair problem in 23 years!

My main motivation to get a better car was, DD goes to a super prestigious college and it seems degrading to put their bumper sticker on a 23 year old car! But I guess I won't get another car. Serves you right mfr mfrs!

This is why I pulled the fuse on the Data Communications Module (DCM) on my car. The device that transmits the telemetry simply doesn't get any juice.

All it would need is a wi-fi antenna internally, and then it could connect to an open wi-fi network anywhere. And it's going to be pretty much impossible to avoid ever driving your car within range of some open network.

Lots of automotive OEMs want that specific kind of information for generic reasons (how many of what model made it to what mileage under what circumstances) that are entirely reasonable. Lots of them also want that info for warranty related reasons (you've hit the mileage limit and we won't do anything for you anymore). But, my state of Michigan is starting a program to evaluate replacing registration fees with mileage charges to account for the additional wear and tear on the roads from EVs that don't pay gas taxes to fund road repairs. This would require some kind of verification of mileage, which we can't currently do during emissions testing, since it doesn't exist here. Legally required data retention is becoming a bigger and bigger issue, particularly in light of the driver monitoring requirement starting in MY27 vehicles by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act terms. That will presumably be integrated into any black box recording in a crash and probably subpoenaed in any dispute going forward.

In other news, I think I'll be taking a trip to somewhere down south to find a nice, used 1999 F350 dually with a manual transmission, since they're going to cease to exist shortly...

Try finding the fuse and pulling it. It will be in the manual.

Carfax also can report estimated mileage, but it might have a different flag in the system that allows override.

I've been handed a Carfax on my own car that has a reported mileage much greater than the actual mileage on the car, and the car has not been out of my possession.

Yet if you overestimated the mileage you would’ve been none the wiser!

Where was the car serviced? Antennas or not, the dealer might just plug in and upload everything during service.

What did you do, or what are you going to do? That would piss me off until i found the antenna and broke it

Couldn't you put some sort of faraday cage around the antenna?

The most horrible part this crime is I read somewhere That the amount the car companies get for spying on your locations is some pathetic paltry amount like $1-$5 one time. These car companies sell you out to insurance companies and such so they can collect data and use it AGAINST you. Ghouls everywhere now.

Random Public data:

Honda sold data on roughly 97,000 cars to Verisk for $25,920—amounting to about 26 cents per car.

Hyundai sold data on about 1.7 million vehicles for roughly $1 million—about 61 cents per car

"Resistance is futile." See also: LG TVs, etc.

Another note for Californians -- the California DROP (delete request and opt-out platform) takes VINs as one of the inputs.

https://privacy.ca.gov/drop/

I've had good luck with pulling service manuals, finding the telematics antenna connectors, and unplugging them. It's popular to pull the telematics module fuse, but that typically disables internal microphones and GPS that are used by android auto and carplay. This severely degrades features spouses expect to just work. The antenna pulling is a much lighter touch.

It is possible to remove the hardware itself that is responsible for this, but depending on the car it can very involved: https://arkadiyt.com/2026/05/13/removing-the-modem-and-gps-f...

It definitely can be stopped. For example, China sells cars internally at cheaper prices, but they are locked to prevent using them outside the country. However, there are people who can hack and unlock them allowing operating in any country. But maybe it would be illegal in the West, I don't know. Removing the modem is an easier task.

What sucks is that at least with my car, if you pull their access, you also lose all your remote access as well, and the ability to receive updates.

You learn animal husbandry and join the Amish.

Remember that story a week ago „everything I own, owned“? That’s one way.

Simple: don't own a vehicle with this capability.

All European car manufacturers pull a crazy amount of telemetry data from your car.

Either via permanent 4G/5G link or during service intervals in the shop.

Source: I analyzed these data as an intern for one.

My question is why, with their protection laws, Smart TVs and Smart Cars are still sold in the EU?

Can I invoke CCPA to get a report of and/or delete my data?

If you are willing to lose GPS, maybe you could set the car's internal clock to the year 2000. This might fool a cursory data dump that is looking for "last three months of driving habits". Would obviously not stand up to any real scrutiny, but mostly painless.

This is not a conspiracy, just normal human behaviour. The loud voices are loud. People are complaining about cars that do collect data. Do you see ANY comments about any manufacturer that doesn’t do this? The only time I’ve ever seen a comment like that was regarding older used cars.

All it can tell us is that maybe this is something tesla should market (if it’s true) rather than bullshit like “self driving”

why do you think this? can you provide a written terms or similar to hold this belief? i would think they are absolutely selling all the data

theverge doesn't like Tesla and neither do the vast majority of people here. Why provide a fair and balanced view if it helps someone we don't like?

No, you just have to worry about random employees watching the video feeds for shits and giggles

Why doesn’t it happen with them?

My car is much older and I used to hope it would last forever. But now I hope it dies soon enough that when I go to replace it, the options for non smart cars haven't gone away.

It won't protect you from the insurance agencies; they demand a DL ID# and a VIN. And you are required by law to purchase from them.

And they're stautorily exempted from a whole boatload of privacy laws, like HIPAA.

You’re going to steal in response to stealing…?

Unless you’re of the opinion that since it’s data, it’s not stealing?

>Another reason to use a car from 90's or 2000's

Talking as an eastern european: unless you live in a sunshine place (~Mediterranean) most of the 90s car already eaten by the rust + the salt used for defrosting on roads in the winter.

Also by my experience cars (except from SUVs) somehow never kept up with the road quality. Pot holes are a problem everywhere but you can see that certain brands for example japanese and korean ones never designed for deteriorating road quality (and I don't mean offroad) because... you know they just don't exist in the home market. So the tires, wheels, suspension are not as robust as they should be.

Sure _everything can be fixed_ but then your car becomes a hobby and might not everyone has an attitude and time for that.

My wife's Ioniq 5 was hit on the bumper while it was parked. Took weeks for all parts to get to the dealer and cost thousands of dollars because sensors etc. if someone hit my 1981 Volvo 240 the same way I'm not even sure it would cause any noticable damage.

I really wanted a modern car because of the fancy automation stuff, I thought.

But it never is economical or more environmental friendly.

Whatever I saved on my old car compared to a newer one will never be less than the theoretical fuel savings on a newer car. Repair costs will never be as much (assuming you buy a popular repair friendly car). And nothing new needs to be built for me either.