For customers still unsure whether they’re ready to make the switch to an all-electric vehicle, Ford is sweetening the pot.
Today, the company launched a new initiative called the “Ford Power Promise,” in which it will provide a suite of benefits to customers who buy or lease a new EV. And chief among them is a complimentary home charger for all new customers, as well as the costs of standard installation.
The charger that’s being offered is the company’s Ford Charge Station Pro, a $1,310 Level 2 charger that comes with a standard CCS1 connector. Ford declined to put a monetary value on the installation but said it would cover costs up to 60 amps of power and 80 feet of wire run. Customers who need to upgrade their home electrical panel before the installation, however, will need to cover those costs themselves.
I think you’re in for a rude awakening on your next car purchase. The low trim models are prime targets for data harvesting because they can make money off your data on the backend since you didn’t splurge for all the high-markup gizmos at the time of purchase. It’s just like smart phones and TVs, the less you pay up front, the more they find other means to make money off you.
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
How can a dashboard that has absolutely nothing “smart” about it collect my data? It’s only a radio that has Bluetooth, how’s that going to collect data and send it to the manufacturer?
The dashboard has nothing to do with data collection. That happens internally with various chips and ecu. The data being sent to the company servers don’t care about your dashboard, that’s handled by a different chip that has 3g/4g connectivity. In fact, you can buy a fancy tool that plugs into your obd II port on one end and a laptop in the other see real time data about how various systems are performing and what’s happening based on your driving.
I see. I’ve always thought the data collection is through those smart dashboards. So, thank you for the info. Also, isn’t 3g dead by now? Can those modems be ripped off the car, BTW?
I don’t know if 3g is completely dead at this point but it’s on it’s way out. I think those on-star enabled cars are using 3g but I could be wrong. As far as ripping those out, I doubt it since all of that is integrated into a single chip or it’s soldered on. Best that you can probably do is hope that it is relying on defunct network so it can’t communicate to the mothership anymore but you wouldn’t have a way to verify that.
I would imagine it would need an antenna to get reception
Antennas don’t need to stick out like they used to. Ever notice how cop cars used to look alien with all the antennas sticking out couple of years ago but now it’s 2 tiny nubs?
This is fucking insane. I’m literally considering not buying a car after this one I have until something is done about this data collection bullshit. I work from and I only drive my car to the gym and take the kids out somewhere when my wife is at work. I can do all that with a fucking scooter no problem. Also, I read Mozilla’s article, all of it, and there is some hope. If you don’t use the car app and don’t use the connected service (I do neither of those), then the data collection is limited. Another option is to look for dumb cars. I know they exit, some people mentioned them to me somewhere here on Lemmy and even gave me links. It’s been a long time since then.
Yup. Data collection and selling, it’s the name of the game now. Good luck friend.