They still have the Pacifica....

That's how the CIA killed reporter Michael Hastings for demonstrating american arrogance of McChrystal and his squad of butchers which led to the europeans funding the war on islam a little bit less.

it can happen easily in future moreover like wireless earbud which can be dos as they use bluetooth which was not build as security in mind , if used in hot countries they can be easily blasted which is enough to kill someone considering the shards will go in the brain . so this can easily be replicated in electronic cars as well . though these earbud manufactures had brain and have a device in earbuds but sometimes that device can also fail , i never used a e car so dont know if they have some type of device in it . but i would love to see a experiment over this

I am less interested in ranking them based on what they do (because we can assume they just vacuum up everything anyway), and more in a ranking based on how easy the surveillance is to remove. Apparently for some cars the telematics module can be easily unplugged at least, losing you some non-critical functionality, but on others it may be integrated tighter.

Any company that serves European customers have to follow GDPR. Any company that breaks it can be fined by the EU. Hence why a bunch of American websites rather just block European browsers instead of changing their cookie/data retention policies.

Or just disable the cell modem.

The more we electrify our cars, the less feasible this is.

Decoding and sending messages to mechanical systems over the CANBUS is one thing (still difficult, but possible), but taking control over system software is another. In the us, consumers are supposed to have the right to repair their personal vehicles, but a lot of that law was established back when you could do work on a vehicle without having access to digitally protected copyright. We might have a right to repair, but that's starting to clash against their copyrights over their IP and software controls.

And that's not even getting into their eagerness to utilize subscription models - would a court side with a consumer if they decided they wanted to circumvent DRM controls over subscription-controlled car features (a car that they own outright)? It's unclear to me that right to repair or consumer protections have been written in a way to accommodate those conflicts.... Especially when cars are subject to far higher safety regulations than computers - a manufacturer could argue that they need to prevent consumers from tampering with their software systems for their own safety.

If you still own a 'dumb' car without one of these systems, it's really not a bad idea to hold onto them for as long as possible. You can always upgrade them if you want to - some people have even replaced ICE transmissions with electric ones. But once you own one of these cars with software-controlled systems, it's far harder to strip them out. Especially once they start requiring cellular connection to operate or function (or require connections to privately-owned satellite constellations.....)

Unfortunately, many of the cars transmit the surveillance data through phone carrier data lines, using an embedded SIM card. So, sadly I don't think this would help very much.

An eBike would be faster, and way easier to maintain and store. They don't require insurance.

The AI was doing that meme

“Humans have horses. Don’t ride them. Are they stupid?”

Best part is it's $5000 because they get to name their price. These sensors, headlights, etc, cost nowhere near that, but where else are you gonna go get em?

So in a few years when your new car has depreciated to somewhere around 10k and you get a massive repair bill? Well most people are scrapping it and getting another car, convenient for them....

Opting out still seems like they're pinkie promising they won't spy on you. There's no guarantee they're not using all those sensors on your car to keep tabs on you. The only thing they can't do is sell your data without getting caught. Are there any guides to install a faraday cage on the telemetry antenna? I miss having dumb cheap vehicles.

You can turn off your phone at least sometimes. :) But this of course does not solve the problem.

The car has its own power generation though so it can do a lot more without risk of killing the battery. They can record and stream the whole time you use it.

Also consider getting an ebike, if possible.