Last month the New York Times’ Kashmir Hill published a major story on how GM collects driver behavior data then sells access (through LexisNexis) to insurance companies, which will then jack…
This was a completely different thing - the report was about what data they collect or have the capability to collect, rather than how easy it is to remove the telematics unit and which functions would be impacted by it. The suggested measures against this were pretty basic, no mention was made of actual modifications.
I’d expect in most cars it’s as simple as pulling a fuse for the cellular radio. But depending on how the car is designed that might break other features like the infotainment or keyless entry. It’s hit or miss how any given car will react to things being unplugged.
Yes!! It frustrates me so much when the proposed answer is “buy an older car”, which is not a longterm solution.
It would be cool to have an iFixit-like score for each model.
Iirc Mozilla tried, but they all were so terrible everybody got an F according to their (IMO pretty fair) standards.
This was a completely different thing - the report was about what data they collect or have the capability to collect, rather than how easy it is to remove the telematics unit and which functions would be impacted by it. The suggested measures against this were pretty basic, no mention was made of actual modifications.
I’d expect in most cars it’s as simple as pulling a fuse for the cellular radio. But depending on how the car is designed that might break other features like the infotainment or keyless entry. It’s hit or miss how any given car will react to things being unplugged.