I am quite keen on the idea of an electric car.
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I am not a car person.
I drive, but I don't enjoy driving particularly. It is a means to an end for me.
I much prefer to take a train but, sometimes, is either not possible, or else does not make sense (generally, time or money-wise).
@neil I very much wish I was in a tax bracket where I could afford to have someone do an electric conversion of an older vehicle. Though now I wonder if there are services out there that mod your car to cut it off from the mothership and put it more under your control?
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I am not a car person.
I drive, but I don't enjoy driving particularly. It is a means to an end for me.
I much prefer to take a train but, sometimes, is either not possible, or else does not make sense (generally, time or money-wise).
@neil and the price of an electric car that would replace my current diesel is a huge reason I won't be able to change right now.
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I have an electric bicycle, which I love, and use as often as I can. But I am looking here for a car.
I kind of like the old Nissan Leaf, and it might *just* fit the bill, range wise. But I've also read various concerns. So I umm and aaah about them.
Newer electric cars leave me with a sense of "nice car you got there. Shame if we changed something about it or spied on you".
@neil My wife got a used 2022 mustang mach e. It was cheaper than my toyota rav4, and a much better value, not including the cost of gas.
As for spying from the govmn't. You can disable a lot of that garbage on this car, set things to not auto update, opt-out, etc.
If you are very concerned you can pull the antenna to prevent any spying/changing of stuff.
Maybe also consider the honda that was out of my budget.
I kept my old accord and am starting an ev conversion.
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I am not a car person.
I drive, but I don't enjoy driving particularly. It is a means to an end for me.
I much prefer to take a train but, sometimes, is either not possible, or else does not make sense (generally, time or money-wise).
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I am quite keen on the idea of an electric car.
I am less keen on the idea of a car which spies on me.
@neil There was an option for a model one up from the EV we bought (MG4), which does have an internet connection. We couldn't justify the extra 10% for the bells and whistles, but now I'm quite happy about that.
But all cars are part of surveillance capitalism these days, one suspects. -
I am quite keen on the idea of an electric car.
I am less keen on the idea of a car which spies on me.
@neil I got an mg5 a year ago - would definitely recommend. It has a screen for radio and you can connect it to android auto but apart from that it's all physical knobs and buttons and as far as I can tell it's got no internet connection internally.
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@neil I very much wish I was in a tax bracket where I could afford to have someone do an electric conversion of an older vehicle. Though now I wonder if there are services out there that mod your car to cut it off from the mothership and put it more under your control?
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I am quite keen on the idea of an electric car.
I am less keen on the idea of a car which spies on me.
@neil I suspect, not that this answers your point, that any new petrol or diesel would likely spy on you to a similar extent. Again, acknowledging the tangential nature of this comment.
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@neil I suspect, not that this answers your point, that any new petrol or diesel would likely spy on you to a similar extent. Again, acknowledging the tangential nature of this comment.
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@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk Then I can recommend Stellantis. Seems safe to assume that their spyware will be poorly-designed, buggy and unreliable.
@kim cynic
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I am quite keen on the idea of an electric car.
I am less keen on the idea of a car which spies on me.
@neil are you in or near any car sharing catchment areas?
Do you have a car already, just not an electric one?
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@neil understood! Just trying to work out where you're coming from.
We have no car and do sometimes think about getting a runaround - but every time we seriously run the numbers, summing the insurance and either lease/hire-purchase payments or maintenance costs of an older car make us go 'oof'.
Even if we wanted to rent one every other weekend, and the most local car sharing service (Miles) feels expensive per session, it still ends up cheaper in all. So we still never get one of our own.
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@neil understood! Just trying to work out where you're coming from.
We have no car and do sometimes think about getting a runaround - but every time we seriously run the numbers, summing the insurance and either lease/hire-purchase payments or maintenance costs of an older car make us go 'oof'.
Even if we wanted to rent one every other weekend, and the most local car sharing service (Miles) feels expensive per session, it still ends up cheaper in all. So we still never get one of our own.
@neil but it's very different if you already have a car and a lifestyle which assumes easy access and regular use of one.
Not disparaging that at all - it makes more sense to go for an EV then. I hope you find one that isn't constantly calling home. A neighbour is selling their VW E-Up - I do wonder if that is also a spy, or is early enough not to be.
(Also they remind me of Yorkshire)
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@neil oh yeah. Lots of UK towns are just the wrong size for a decent metro or even reliable bus network, so you're kind of stuck with a car. Even bigger not-london places like Bristol are doable without a car but you still struggle without access to one.
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I am quite keen on the idea of an electric car.
I am less keen on the idea of a car which spies on me.
@neil Let me know if you find one. I am looking to buy a non-spying small EV just large enough for two persons and he weekly shopping in about a year from now. -
@steve Well, you can have a standalone auxiliary heating/venting system for Diesel vehicles. I have got one. It doesn't talk to any server, I just pre-program and/or remote control it. (This is not meant to denigrate EV's, I just wanted to chime in on the fact that preheating is not a unique EV feature).
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@neil Let me know if you find one. I am looking to buy a non-spying small EV just large enough for two persons and he weekly shopping in about a year from now.
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@neil and the price of an electric car that would replace my current diesel is a huge reason I won't be able to change right now.
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I am quite keen on the idea of an electric car.
I am less keen on the idea of a car which spies on me.
@neil I do wonder if any of them let you change the SIM/eSIM that they use for gathering that data.
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I am quite keen on the idea of an electric car.
I am less keen on the idea of a car which spies on me.
@neil A few months ago we bought a low milage 2020 Kia Soul. I haven't activated the Kia app so it isn't spying on me. It could still be logging and reporting its location and performance details but it isn't linked to me. Or not directly. Does it collect data from my phone? Possibly but that's registered with a fake name Gmail address I don't use for anything else. Does Kia collect and link data from their dealer who serviced it?
