Hello internet users. Someone in my family is looking to buy a car and wanted some recommendations for a private one. They are looking to buy new, and need Android Auto and CarPlay. I know all new cars suck for privacy by default, but I was hoping someone here could offer some insight as to which cars can be made better and what cars offer the best experience with minimal compromises on privacy and no subscription bs. I also have a Home Assistant instance that they can access remotely if there are any cars that can work well with that.
Android Auto and CarPlay or Privacy. You won’t get both.
Your use of ‘need’ is quite a stretch.
You could always simply not use android auto or carplay? Surely that would be a start.
Android Auto is Google. Google and privacy go together good (no).
I think if you remove internet connection from the car and use it with a phone with graphene os is it would be OK but I could be wrong.
Actually I was kinda joking. I use Android Auto, it is good and totally worth it. Of course if you are not paranoid, lol.
If you’re using the android Auto app then I don’t see how the OS even matters. You can turn off Google location services but I’ve never tried that with android Auto.
You have to sacrifice something. It’s generally not possible to use cloud-based services while maintaining total privacy - at least not in a way that’s convenient.
Here’s what you can do - get a car with minimal tech built into it’s head unit. Get a new head unit and get a car audio shop to swap it out for you. This will void your car warranty if it’s new, but some HUs have navigation built in (not Internet dependent ) and support simple Bluetooth .
If you want full Android Auto capability then idk if it’s even possible to meet all your stated requirements.
The os lets you revoke permissions from it.
I’m just leaving a comment here because if there is a positive answer to this, I also want to know. I think we’re just hosed as far as cars go.
Doesn’t Lemmy let you save posts or is that just my client?
Well, I’m one of today’s lucky 10000 I guess. Thanks!
Unlikely to find a new car without a calling home function.
Definitely not one with car play.
Best you can do is find the cell antenna port and put an RF sink on it (they’re used for testing radio output).
Tell me more about this rf sink
The technical term is “dummy load”, most antennas are around 50ohm “impedance” which in an incredibly roundabout way means the antenna is indistinguishable from a 50ohm resistor at whatever frequency it’s tuned to…which means you can replace the antenna with a 50ohm resistor.
This all assumes you care about leaving the radio functional (radio amplifiers will burn up if they can’t dissipate the energy they’re creating) and in most cases it’s probably fine to just cut the trace as close to the source chip as possible. That said, if the system is especially evil and well engineered it’ll throw errors in some cases so better to leave everything functional but unable to hear or transmit.
Just buy a used car. Look for low KM and good climate rating.
Why care for privacy when in the end your using android auto or apple play?
And a home assistant breaks the point even further.
As I said, it is for a family member. I agree about buying used.
I think android auto can be reasonably private with Graphene OS’s implementation.
I don’t know what you are saying about Home Assistant.
Edit: Home Assistant
sorry. Didnt know what home assistant was.
Not a home assistant. Home Assistant™, the open source privacy focused home automation system.
I don’t have a great answer to your question, but you might be able to find a relatively cheap car that isn’t “smart” and doesn’t have a touchscreen or anything. Do they make those anymore? Then, you could add an aftermarket stereo receiver to it, like some of the options in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1GdI9UsEI
Yes, that’s still a “smart” stereo but it’s NOT connected to any of the car manufacturer’s metrics or systems, right? So the separation makes it seem more privacy-friendly to me. I could be thinking about this incorrectly, but it seems logical to me. There might be some stereo receivers that are more private than others, but you’d have to do your own research for that.
Do you know of new cars that don’t have all the smart nonsense?
Damn, I’m looking around and don’t see any, even the cheapest Toyotas and Kias have a big touchscreen with Android and CarPlay. I’m not sure what happens if you take that out and replace it with an aftermarket receiver, but it appears to be possible because Crutchfield sells receivers for a 2024 Corolla: https://www.crutchfield.com/g_473950/Digital-Multimedia-Video-Receivers.html
I’m also seeing people online saying that there are cars made for businesses that still come with no “smart” features. But I have no clue how you would buy one of those, I doubt they have them at dealerships: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatcarshouldIbuy/comments/124n5qw/what_cars_less_than_5_years_old_are_recommended/
Or, you could just get a used car, save some money, and check all the low-tech boxes.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=4t1GdI9UsEI
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
OP I got you. This is actually a fairly straightforward process, I’m in the middle of titling a vehicle in this manner currently.
Form an anonymous New Mexico LLC before you do anything else, google it it’s not difficult. There are a million registered agents advertising their “anonymous” corporate filing, but make sure you file a New Mexico LLC- they don’t require member’s names to be public or registered with the state at all, meaning your HumanPerson Ventures LLC is completely, entirely separate from you.
Should cost $50-$200 on average for that service. Some companies only charge you the state filing fee, which is $50 for NM. After you have your company, the rest is simple: just purchase a used car, from a private seller, for cash. Do not present ID when asked, stating that you’re purchasing on behalf of a company and as such will be titling the vehicle in the company’s name. When you do the title transfer, just write the name of the company where you’d put your name on the title.
Wala, private car.
EDIT: I see you weren’t asking for this sort of privacy, but I’m leaving this here regardless. It’s good information to have. This is for the “random guy with road rage knows a cop and runs your plate” threat model lol. Now, when your plate is run, it will show the company and the company address as the owner info.
Wala
“Wala?” Voilà perhaps?
No shit sherlock
Na kopeng, mi pensa im say you a welwala…
Hey look everyone, we got a dirty belter here!
Belta lik pashang! Keting dzemang to vedi du, paxoniseki?
It’s voilá, not boneappletea.
I bet you feel so smug, you fail to realize I spelled it like that because I’m silly and don’t care about your bullshit spellings you fool
See, you could have just said “Oh, silly me! Thanks!”, and nobody would have thought less of you, but now, everyone thinks you’re a prick.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
You fools just can’t handle the supreme knowledge I have bestowed upon thee
What country are you in? Apparently, all carmakers are really bad about privacy right now, but Renault seems to be the best of the bunch: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/t
Your link is bad (accidentally added t at the end), here is a working one.
And, holy fucking shit, I had no idea it was this bad. Thank goodness my car was built in 1987.
They are looking to buy new, and need Android Auto and CarPlay
I was active on an automotive forum around the time when that sort of thing started to be seen as a “need” by car salesmen and some of their more enthusiastic customers. The big new thing was “infotainment” and it seemed like the whole industry was insisting we’d all soon see how essential this stuff was. I was disdainful of the idea then, and have only become more so. Cars should have an AM/FM radio receiver, and aside from lights and a horn that’s all they need for communications.
That’s not the answer you’re looking for, but it seems reasonably on-topic here. If you must get a new car, the easiest route to having it not spy on you as much as it can all the time is to make sure it doesn’t have a SIM card (or remove the one it does have) and never connect your phone to it in any way except perhaps via a 3.5mm audio jack.
Bluetooth connection is a must too, but it doesn’t need to access my contacts. Just as a music player or headset.
I don’t understand why everyone seems to be latching on to carplay and android auto in this thread as if it’s the car stealing your data. All carplay and android auto do is take a video feed from your phone an display it on the car’s screen. You still have the privacy issues, but it’s not the car doing anything, they’re the same as if you had a dumb car and google maps up on your phone in a phone mount.
Your faith in the safety of allowing your car and your phone the opportunity to share data with each other is touching, but until I see the source code I will remain unconvinced that it isn’t a bad idea.
Most are missing the point. You’re right, running AA or CP is akin to just using your phone with a vent mount, albeit arguably safer. The privacy issues come with things like OnStar and similar services that connect back to the manufacturer. As someone already pointed out it doesn’t sound like there’s a way to remove OnStar, but some others might be removeable, or not available in cheaper models.
Find a old car that doesn’t have a lot of miles. Its not the best deal but it will work.
Sorry, but I have bad news for you. Privacy in major car brands no longer exists.
You don’t say where your family member lives, but you might look into smaller regional brands that focus on cheap cars for less overdeveloped areas of the world. Be aware the tradeoff is probably in safety features.
There are things you can do though.
GM for example you cannot remove OnStar from their vehicles. But with my Subaru removing the starlink module was a ~20 minute procedure. You’ll need an aftermarket harness in order to maintain the front speakers.
When you go just ask if there’s cars or models without the car itself having a SIM card but that still has carplay. People love to drum this stuff up but they still make dumb cars. There’s usually like 3 variations maybe 4 of each model. Go lower on the model to get less features but still the right amount of them.
in the eu all newer models are required to be able to call emergency services in case of a crash and share the location of the vehicle. so no newer cars in the eu without an integrated sim card.
I don’t know how that’s implemented but I suspect it’s done without a SIM card since SIM cards exists for authentication and not for functionality. The emergency call is probably done without any authentication or fee.
They might also have something like an Esim that authorises the car to call specific services. I doubt that car manufacturers are paying much or anything at all for the emergency services calls and I doubt they would put in a full connection unless someone paid for it (if the consumer bought smart features for example)
Nope, emergency calls don’t work without sim cards anymore, at least in germany. Because burglars checked the functionality of stolen phones by dialing 112, so they made it require a sim card. I think it can be locked tho, not sure.
If you want an actual dumb car that’s reliable, I don’t think anything beats a TJ series Jeep wrangler. Not good gas mileage, but the I6 engine in them is fantastic and it’s still relatively easy to get parts for them despite being 20 years old. You can add an after market head unit for CarPlay out android auto.
If you really do go new, you can disable the cellular radio. It’ll cost you a lot of convenience features, and you won’t get updates. But no cell radio, no ability for it to give your data to the mothership.
Privacy and cars are mutually exclusive. If you want privacy use public transport and pay in cash. With cars you have licence plate scanner, cameras and tollbooths everywhere (no to mention that most people drive with their phones on them). “They” will know where were you driving no matter what car you use. The question really is what data are you trying to hide and from who? The obvious thing to do is not to give your data to advertisers. Selling you shit is the whole point of most of the data collection. Just get extra phone and use some fake google account for android auto and you should be fine here. As for car companies all they will gather is some generic data about your driving habits but guess what? Everyone knows this already because driving is not private (again, if you want to hide this use public transport). So yeah, it would be nice for car companies to be more transparent about the data they gather and how they use it but it’s really not a big issue. If you’re paranoid about it then don’t drive. If you’re driving the data your car is leaking though analytics is not your biggest problem.
Maybe they really want or need a car? They asked for the best car not for the most privacy friendly option in the world.
You don’t have to go out and live on a farm in the mountains just because you care about privacy. There are degrees of privacy.
Dacia, least bad one. Made a dedicated phone for the car without personal info as well. Rooted calyx OS , microG, organic maps and spottube. No simcard and VPN on WiFi. Not sure how much is still leaked but a lot better at least.
