I think the GP was talking about the fact it is hard to find an EV that is bundled with a lot of invasive software.
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.
I just did a search on the bolt and apparently users are having to modify their antennae to stop onstar telemetry. Kia also collects telemetry. Equinox also with the onstar issue. Ford also collects telemetry.
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.
It is still collecting data. That is the nonstarter for me. My car does not collect any data on me. There will be no software update in the future changing any privacy policy because my car does not ever receive software updates. Even if the ECU did get an update after some repair, it is airgapped with no ability to send out telemetry. I still get certain telemetrics logging for maintenance, locally, of course, via OBD-II.
OnStar telemetry has been a thing since well before your 8 year old car.
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
No onstar here. No satellite or cellular antenna either. Again, I know my machine. There is no data going out. Seems now there is no choice I suppose. Older cars are like low background steel now.
EVs and luxury cars tend to have more fancy features that enable these issues than ice or hybrid cars. That’s changing as more advanced tech filters down.
This is the part that's seriously sucks. We need greener alternatives (current state of things especially highlighting that) and car dependency has crushed us, so instead of just giving us the basic EV most of us want, they've taken the capitalistic approach of giving us massive luxury cars with premium features often cloud-tied, that happen to also be EVs.
I wonder if Tesla was a grift from day 1. They seemed to be the halo EV company that everyone accepted, until the charismatic leader moved on.
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.
In retrospect, most of Musk's ventures would indeed appear to be grifts from the very start. Many of them were plainly transparent grifts with only a perfunctory attempt to hide the fact (hyperloop)
It can be true. I've owned two Teslas, which meet that description. I've also owned a Bolt, which was just a basic car. I still own a Lightning, which is also pretty basic (it can get occasional ... very occasional ... OTA updates, but the ICE F150 got OTA update ability before the Lightning existed).
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.
A real car wouldn't track your sex life or your genome. They effectively stopped making real cars. We will drive the real cars and never buy fakes as long as this remains the case.
A couple days ago there was this article on hn about a startup from Canada making tractors with no electronics and they mentioned that they had 400 orders overnight. I hope we will see something like this also for cars. I suspect the demand is there.
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.
