this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
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[โ€“] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I'm in the same position but I'm wary of any and all cars, European or otherwise, because what 40 years in the Tech industry and paying attention to this kind of subject has taught me, is that if they have the means to do it all large companies will collect as much private data from you as they can.

Whilst the GDPR theoretically would protect you if you're in Europe and it's an European company, what the Diesel Emissions Scandal has shown is that for such "too big to fail" companies, even when their law-breaking causes actual deaths (over ten thousand people are estimated die in Europe every year due to diesel emissions), European governmments won't do anything beyond a little hand slapping and maybe scapegoat and emprision a few low-level Engineers.

So I would only ever go for an EV solution with no connectivity, which in the absence of no-connection EVs, might be an electric motorcycle or involve an EV conversion kit.

Then again at the moment I refuse to get a car, both because it's financially one of the worst uses of money imaginable (if you live in a city it's too costly per-hours-travelled, both upfront and in ongowing insurance and maintenance costs, since it's seldom needed for commuting within a city so you only use it a very small fraction of the time and it mostly spends its time gathering dust), environmental considerations (even EVs polute, mainly from microparticle release from the tires when in use and emissions related to their manufacture) and health considerations (I actually walk around 15 minutes to work and the same back every day, and walking at least 30m a day has been proven to decrease the likelihood of many health problems, most notably cardio-vascular one).