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Featured The Biggest Problem with Electric Vehicles - Zero Privacy.

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by kenmce, Dec 25, 2023.

  1. kenmce

    kenmce High Voltage Member

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    The biggest, but mostly unaddressed, issue with all these pure EVs is that you can't just roll up and pay cash. You need to have an account with someone and you need to remotely log in before you can charge. Everywhere you have ever been becomes part of your permanent record. The potential for misuse of this system is tremendous.
     
  2. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    No - there are a ton of free charges where all you have to do is plug in. Just like at home. Buying fuel for an EV with a credit card is no different from buying everything you get from Amazon or the grocery store with a credit card. What's the difference.
     
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  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    Who uses cash anyway?
    Talk about horse and buggy .
    What we do need is a unified system with one app
     
  4. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk EGR Fanatic

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    That’d be good for parking meters too.
     
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  5. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    Most new DCFC have credit-card readers.

    Since NEVI funding requires it and that's just a natural progression toward gas-station replacement, the topic is much ado about nothing.
     
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  6. BiomedO1

    BiomedO1 Senior Member

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    Shhhhhh.... Big brother is watching this thread!!!!!! Your all on the watch list now!!!!:D:LOL::ROFLMAO:o_O:whistle:o_O

    Seriously, I do get what your saying about privacy rights, but your sitting in a rolling computer that's reporting your location. Like my friends who put post-it paper over their laptop camera, but freely move around with their cell phone cameras uncovered. What's up with that!!!

    The only way to escape this is to be an off-grid, off-line hermit in the woods and don't let your cabin fire give away your location.....:notworthy:
     
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  7. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    And never get a social security card and work only for cash all your life
     
  8. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Cashless Society is coming. First to the developed world than the developing world then all the cave dwellers.
    Bartering is looking better & better all the time. How does 3 loaves of sourdough sound - for 8kWh of juice
    ;)
    .
     
  9. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Can you pay with a pre-paid, credit card bought with cash from a local gas station?

    Bob Wilson
     
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  10. TinyTim

    TinyTim Active Member

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    I thought you were talking about your car spying on you. Tesla records everything inside and outside a Tesla. That is truly invasion of privacy.
     
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  11. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Like your computer you can always tape over the cameras
    ;)
    .
     
  12. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    Any personally identify-able data recorded is recorded and stored locally. There are settings to turn off all connectivity (or you can just remove the cellular antennae if you really are concerned).
     
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  13. Isaac Zachary

    Isaac Zachary Senior Member

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    I use cash and a basic flip phone. But not because I think they government is out to get me. I use cash because when it runs out I can't overwithdraw. And I used a flip phone because I hate being addicted to my phone, and I hate being accused of being addicted to my phone even when I'm not, and I hate being a part of the phone addiction culture.

    While I don't believe this is any worse than privacy concerns in general (how many letters have I gotten from companies saying they had a security breach?) I do agree that charging is a pain. Or at least it was 6 years ago when I had the Leaf. Come to think of it, I have several DCQC cards in a drawer all witih money on them I never used.
     
  14. 3PriusMike

    3PriusMike Prius owner since 2000, Tesla M3 2018

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    I get it. You need to be able to just pay with cash for privacy. So when you rob a bank and get out on the highway you can use the cash to get 1000 miles away in secret. Even though the cash is all marked bills with known serial numbers and when you pay with cash you have to go into the mini-mart to hand over the cash and get your face recorded on the security cameras.

    Note to future poor self: before robbing the bank get an ICE car and lots of gas cans full of gas so I can get outside the range of the FBI's likely locations to get gas.

    Mike
     
  15. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    I'm somewhat less concerned about the privacy problem, though I acknowledge that it can be problematic and we likely haven't seen the worst of it.

    I see a more practical problem: charging up a rented EV.

    Approximately the last thing I want is a system that identifies the vehicle and figures out whom to bill for the electricity plus the delivery charge, program access fees, charger safety compliance fee, commission, regulatory recovery charge, and state and local tax.

    You might be thinking "Wait, when I charge my EV I don't have all of those charges..."

    Again, we are in the context of rental cars, so you have to think of all the add-on fees.

    The rental companies have already shown that what they can do with their electronic tolling systems. Small charges get ballooned up into enormous bills. Worse, they often take so long to do the accounting that you wind up struggling to figure out which client needs to be re-billed for these charges.

    In other words, using the rental agency's service to manage running expenses is difficult and expensive. It destroys much of the appeal and cost-savings potential of EV travel.

    I'm not opposed to having a convenient payment system somehow keyed to the car itself.

    Nor am I specifically opposed to omitting cashboxes and card-readers from the chargers.

    ...But if they aren't there, then there absolutely must be a same-as-cash, safe and well-regulated alternate point-of-sale payment system embedded within whatever interface is available. App? Website? Something in the car itself?

    Make it so I can plug the car in and instead of charging the car beeps and shows a message "Alert! This is a rental! click the button to accept the many charges or show your credit card to the camera for direct billing"
     
    #15 Leadfoot J. McCoalroller, Dec 27, 2023
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2023
  16. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    Every year we drive to Florida in our gasser, our credit card company knows exactly where we are.
    It’s horrifying and should be illegal
     
  17. sylvaing

    sylvaing Senior Member

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    You have to opt-in because by default,

    "To protect your privacy, video recordings are saved locally to a formatted USB flash drive's onboard memory. Recordings are not sent to Tesla"

    "If you choose to enable data sharing, in the occurrence of a serious safety risk or a safety event like a collision, the vehicle can share images and short video clips with us to help develop future safety features and software enhancements, such as collision avoidance"

    Tesla can send these clips to you if asked in order to prove who's at fault in a collision in case you weren't recording.

    https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-3BCC07CE-5EA2-4F40-99D1-27690898FF3C.html
     
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  18. BiomedO1

    BiomedO1 Senior Member

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    You ain't seen nothing yet!!!! Four years ago, I was in China - they are mostly cashless. They prefer direct app payment and saw it as a choir to receive and count out cash - Note to self; those millennials have a hard time counting, they rely too much on their devices; couldn't even calculate change properly. Here I am, doing conversions in my head, to try to figure out if I was getting scammed or not.:love::whistle::rolleyes:

    I feel your pain!!!! Back in the day, you could hop across the border to a neighboring state or country - with the rental company none the wiser. Now-a-days you get dinged, hopefully your on an expense account.;)
     
  19. ColoradoBoo

    ColoradoBoo Senior Member

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    Hospital delivery rooms actually "help" the parents apply for the child's SSN even before they are discharged!! (It's linked in with the birth certificate.)

    Yes Big Brother's a HUGE monstrosity these days...and post something that goes against the Party Line on almost any social site and see what happens to you! (I've been banned and put in Gestapo time-out many times for many reasons and they can kiss my grits.)

    "Are you on Santa's naughty or nice list?" "I don't know, but probably on the FBI, CIA, and NSA lists!"
     
  20. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    God forbid you ever bring 5 figures of cash to avoid using traceable credit cards. If you get pulled over they somehow are able to confiscate your cash and presume it's going to a drug deal.
     
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