This is part of the reason why I don't want a new car: I don't want to be involved in this directly. A guy from work got a brand new Hyundai(I think), and the first thing that popped on the navigation was "Create an account with Hyundai now". Nah. Nah. Forget it. I have 3 issues:
1. I should not have to authenticate or have connectivity to a manufacturer unless I want to once I've paid for a physical good(cars being physical goods).
2. I don't want my personal data to be sold off to anyone - I've been in the tech industry for long enough to know that "I don't want my data to be shared with third parties" is worth as much as the power used to light up the pixels on the screen.
3. I don't trust anyone to have done everything carefully and by the books to prevent any potential leaks.
The connectivity may not be fully disabled in a 2025 Acura Integra, but there is a way to disable data sharing. You then have a permanent yellow "nag icon" top right on your infotainment screen, but the spying is "disabled." I mean what this other commenter in this same thread found via GDPR after doing this very step: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49955366">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49955366
Depending on the car, how you disable it may not really disable it at all. Connecting your phone via Bluetooth or taking the car in for service will often let the car upload a backlog of data.
You generally have to completely remove the power from the DCU - which can have as many as three different power sources (including a backup battery with days of power in some cases!), and often disables features in your car like the hands free microphone, built in gps, etc.
And that's not all. I used to work with a guy who spent a large portion of his career at a famous car manufacturer. I can't say which one cause their operation and output is rather small(niche, hyper-wealthy customers that take their international passport when they go for a drink across the street, "just in case"). From what he told me, their cars have 11 individual computers with full operating systems on them for various reasons. While compute has become more expensive over the last few years, courtesy of slop, small, embedded ARM devices are still inexpensive and incredibly powerful. I also spent a short time in the automotive industry(where I met the guy I mentioned) and modern cars are an absolute integration hell and even their engineering teams can't say fully what's in them in terms of hardware and it's magnitudes worse with software.
axegon_ · · focus · HN ↗
1. I should not have to authenticate or have connectivity to a manufacturer unless I want to once I've paid for a physical good(cars being physical goods).
2. I don't want my personal data to be sold off to anyone - I've been in the tech industry for long enough to know that "I don't want my data to be shared with third parties" is worth as much as the power used to light up the pixels on the screen.
3. I don't trust anyone to have done everything carefully and by the books to prevent any potential leaks.
sounds · · focus · HN ↗
devmor · · focus · HN ↗
You generally have to completely remove the power from the DCU - which can have as many as three different power sources (including a backup battery with days of power in some cases!), and often disables features in your car like the hands free microphone, built in gps, etc.
axegon_ · · focus · HN ↗