I think car privacy isn’t talked about amongst any privacy enthusiasts online ever, and it apparently is one of the biggest data collectors out there. For someone like me who values electric cars for there affordability and environmental reasons, but still want physical car buttons and control over my data, how would I go about this?
On the technological side of things, you’re pretty much fucked no matter what. Virtually all car companies now have proprietary app integrations, partnerships with Google and Apple, and other anti-privacy features.
Some practical things you can do-
Opt out of as much data collection and sharing as you can. Read the manual and menu dive to disable optional features you don’t need.
If you finance or lease from the dealer, there are likely additional data disclosures and third party sharing that you can opt out of. Read all the paperwork when you sign your purchase or lease documents. In my case I had to literally fill out and mail something in (they don’t want it to be easy to opt-out because they make money from sharing the data with third parties).
With how expensive current cars are I don’t know how they manage to get away with this.