this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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Yeah... Too bad that all EVs are spyware on the wheels. When car makers will be forced to stop or significantly reduce the amount of data they are collecting, I may consider buying one. Probably not going to happen in my lifetime.
This is not exclusive to EVs. Every single new car sold in the US is the same.
The only one I can think of is the Slate. But they aren't quite ready to open the doors to buyers just yet. They do claim manufacturing to start late this year. Though you can reserve a build for $50. They claim base price in the mid US$20K. Though I would think most will sell out the door for $30K to $35K when you start adding all the customizations most will go for.
I have hopes for Slate.
Slate looks interesting, but I wonder how that mid $20k price is possible with US based manufacturer... Also, not clear if they will collect data just like everyone else or not.
There is no real way to know about telemetry until they really get out in the wild. But, I wouldn't think it will have much because of the minimalist design and approach to marketing. It also helps there is just one model that can be either a 2 door pickup or an SUV with some extra bolt on parts and only one paint color-- body wraps extra. And I think they have hit the sweet spot in battery options. You can get the standard 150-mile pack or the 240-mile pack. Most urban dwellers would be just fine with the standard 150 range. While still giving those of us that live in rural areas the ability to have just enough extra range to make those longer round trips we often need to drive.
I think the biggest thing they have done is to re-imagine just what customers want and how to actually manufacture it. It's a throw-back idea about not selling expensive packages for multiple models, but one model that comes just one color. But you can choose to add things, or not, as you want them. And they, so far, want the customer to have the power to repair or add items and do the work themselves.
As I said, I do suspect the majority of Slates sold will be $30,000+US due to the pretty clever old school marketing method of letting customers choose what to factory install when ordering. A very good way to get people to over spend on wants and not real needs. The profit margins on installing radios is a lot less than letting the customer upsell themselves on those fancy rims and aggressive tires.
It's a bold experiment in the automotive industry in the US. I think it can work and work well. There is a huge gap in the automotive market at the low end price range that simply isn't being exploited. Slate can be the one to stake a claim to it.
Unless you plan on driving antique cars or living a short time, you are going to need to figure out how to rip out a cellular modem at some point to achieve that. There's no difference between EVs and modern ICE cars on the surveillance tech.
Antique cars! Sounds good, actually!
Lol if you're in North America look for an older ev with 3g. The network is shut down so there's no way it can communicate as long as you don't give it your Wi-Fi password.
I am. And I didn't realize that's a thing! But there is not many models... WV e-golf maybe a decent option
Yeah, leafs are cheap AF, if you can make due with the small range. They have passive cooling for the batteries like the egolf, but I'd be wary of an egolf since I don't know how well they're supported by 3rd parties like the leaf is.
I-miev didn't sell well, and I've seen lots of problems with them, so I'd stay away from them. bmw i3 would be the most expensive of the older, 3g options both to buy and maintain.
The other option to consider if you don't mind an even shorter electric range would be a phev like Chevy volt or Ford fusion. But your commute would need to be less than 10 miles for that to work.
Yeah, I didn't consider Leaf because of these issues... Thanks for sharing about e-golf. And I'm wary about quality of early Chevy and Ford EVs. Even newer models are crappy. I actually own a Ford Escape PHEV, and cannot charge it at all because of a recall after recall that come with a warning "not to charge due to the risk of fire" and take many months to be fixed. Edit: corrected my car's model
Oh man, after reading that I'm so glad I held off on getting an escape phev. Couldn't afford the Rav4, so I started looking at the Ford but didn't pull the trigger due to the shorter electric range.
Leaf has had active temperature management since Gen 2. They are now at Gen 3.
But the gen 2 leafs also have 4g, and that's a deal breaker.
You can probably pull out the sim card that calls home. Plenty of guides out there too
Chrysler products use a hub to control RF. It's a whole module that cannot be removed as it will throw the rest of the computers in the car network haywire. If u unplug it the vehicle will no longer start (ask how I know) They really don't want u to hide your location!
Wrap the antenna with copper mesh.
That actually might work.... It won't recognize they key fob commands (lock and panic buttons etc), the tpms will no longer read, and you would have to treat the key like it has a dead battery touching it to the push button, but short of those 3 features not working in theory this is a sound solution!
I'd think most of the modern cars use eSim, not a physical card
Maybe could disconnect the entire module, I know that I was looking at a guide for Chevy Onstar and possible Tesla