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I was lucky enough to buy new in 2017, just before all the ridiculous privacy violations hit the fast lane
By the time this car is done for, I will have no option available that is not a privacy violation on wheels... jailbreaking/hacking will be my #1 purchase criteria of whatever my next car will be
None of this has anything to do with the car's powertrain. Regular internal combustion engine cars are just as bad as EVs in this regard.
I have an older Nissan Leaf in Australia. While I'm sure the car is trying to send telemetry, it only has a 3G modem, and the 3G network has been switched off for all of Australia.
If you have a newer car, it may be possible to remove the telematics fuse and ignore the related DTC.
I bet the authorities can still pick up the telemetry with satellites. Of course, they can also just see the car.
The 3G transmitter is not able to send signals to satellites.
It's definitely designed to be able to send signals to satellites, and there are satellites designed to pick up signals from devices that aren't designed to reach them.
But, they can also just see where your car is going visually, and get any audio/video from inside with your phone that connects directly to cell towers, so you might be right that no satellite is actually ever spying on your car's 3G modem.
It's definitely designed to be able to send signals to satellites
Do you have any source for that? Not that I don't believe you but I can't find anything on this
The sources are just people who know saying it, like me. The designers wouldn't publicly admit it or anything.
Cell phone range is impacted by ground obstruction, the curvature of the earth itself getting in the way, atmospheric effects
The closest satellites are about 160km up, where a 3G transmitter can reach when it's looking straight up with no Earth and less air in the way
The companies that designed the 3G standard and manufactured some of the phones also do military contracts for stuff like the radios in spy satellites, they knew what they were doing
It also stands out as intentional because making the range go beyond the curvature of the earth is just crippling infrastructure, wasting battery and putting millions of people in danger (can't call 911 with a dead phone)
Lower-power devices with mesh networking would have made more sense with the powerful processors and high usage phones were getting by the middle of the 3G era, but the "cellular" design is much more convenient to monitor
Well that's it, I'm just going to drive my 23-year-old 350Z Roadster forever. As a 90s computer geek, I would have never imagined that future technology would turn me into a classic car guy, yet here we are.
I miss the days when spyware was treated like a virus; now it's the norm.
This is a lose-lose-lose.
And all of a sudden data roaming costs isn't an issue anymore ;) Who pays the mobile subscription? Or do car manufacturers pay the telco's with a part of the data gathered ....