Hello people, my family recently bought a Renault 5 e-tech. The car itself is great, but there are some aspects that creep me out, especially the driver-facing camera. We didn’t actually know that such a camera existed before we bought the car, it was only mentioned as the car was given to us.
The cameras official purpose is to see, if you are tired and paying attention to the road, by some “AI magic”, I suppose. You can also let it scan your face, so that you automatically get logged into your profile.
I personally think, that that is kinda creepy, especially as there is no visual indication if the camera is currently recording and no official way to disable the camera hardware-wise. When it is being coverd, the car immediately complains about it.
When talking to friends or family about it, I got one of two reactions: equal concern, or “nice feature actually”, “what about the camera on your laptop?”, “you are way too paranoid”, “I have noting to hide; it is only me driving being recorded”.
I have also seen such cameras in other cars, BYD for example.
What do you think, is this creepy or am I too paranoid? Does anyone know where the actual data is processed, on device or on some cloud server? Do you have any experience with such cameras? I couldn’t really find any information about it on the internet.
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“what about the camera on your laptop”
God I hate these people. That camera has been covered by duct tape for years for very good reasons. A lot of them actually apply to a driver-facing camera in my car, coincidentally.
Btw OP, I think Renault has a contract with PalantirI used to be on the engineering team that worked on the development of a similar camera. For what it’s worth, at the time: there was no AI involved, we only used good old image processing algorithms. And the camera (all cameras, lidars, or radars on the car BTW) does not record anything. It treats images as they come. There’s almost no storage space on the car for all the image data generated.
All this might have changed since then (especially the AI part) but I’m still relatively confident that car systems don’t have the storage for all this data.
Additionally, since this is a European brand, I think it would be quite difficult to legally retain personal information like that. It was already difficult during the development phase.
I’m not saying they wouldn’t be above ominous shenanigans, but it would be difficult.
Log into your profile? On your car? Your car logs you in to a profile? What the fuck
This car also comes with a ChatGPT based AI assistant which has a cursed Microsoft’s Clippy vibe, so it watches, listens to everything. Why would anybody want that?
As an insider of the automotive industry I can say:
- these devices are added due to regulations
- Yes. It is creepy
- functionality is computed and performed onboard the car, it doesn’t rely on any connection to the outside to function
- however, it could very well be sending data back to the mothership. They are legally obligated to get your explicit consent as per GDPR law
- the software is completely closed-source and there is no chance we get any information about it. It’s all private intellectual property. Actually, the Car manufacturers (in this case Renault) almost always requires all suppliers of such equipment to ensure there is ZERO Open-source code in the delivered product. Suppliers are audited to prove they have not reused any Open-source code, piece of code or libraries.
Wasn’t there some news a while ago that talked about how bad car companies handle user data?
Mozilla’s latest edition of *Privacy Not Included reveals how 25 major car brands collect and share deeply personal data, including sexual activity, facial expressions, and genetic and health information
[…]Says Jen Caltrider, *PNI Program Director: “Many people think of their car as a private space — somewhere to call your doctor, have a personal conversation with your kid on the way to school, cry your eyes out over a break-up, or drive places you might not want the world to know about. But that perception no longer matches reality. All new cars today are privacy nightmares on wheels that collect huge amounts of personal information."[…] (source)
Not sure if this was the one I was thinking about. There was also this revelation made by the German CCC (Chaos computer club, pretty famous) about Volkswagen and some leaked GPS data. Here is an English article about it. (There is also the German CCC video, but the English doesn’t sound very good. It includes an interesting part where they show examples of how bad this GPS leak actually is. E.g. finding the cars of catering companies for important people.)
Criminals or spies could potentially use such data to create a detailed movement profile of the car owners. For foreign intelligence agencies, for example, it may be of interest to see whose cars are parked daily between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. near buildings belonging to the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s foreign intelligence service. Or those which are driven regularly to the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein. The Cariad data provided such information.
Btw. Any person who in the year 2026 response to privacy concerns with “I have nothing to hide” is a certified moron and shouldn’t be trusted with anything. They also have so little imagination that it should make everyone sad.
Thank god for duct tape
It’s creepy. And it may make me an asshole to say, but I’d never want an interior camera in the event of an accident. It makes the following court case so much more gray, since you now introduce the opportunity to say “they were on the phone, talking, listening to music, whatever” and shift what should be a clear cut case into something more.
Good to know, thanks!
It is actually creepy, privacy invading, and dangerous in some cases, I think about the guy who made a video working in the woods, simulating a chainsaw accident, and the car would not start because the driver is not 100% able due adrenaline rush visible on his face.
That said, it is a mandatory feature from EU made in 2019 for public safety, with an affiched goal to reduce road deaths. The datas would be anonymous, exploited for statistics and must respect UE rgpd. In theory!
In one hand I find dangerous to track and supervise a population, in the other hand I see way too much dangerous behaviors on the road, especially around pedestrians and bikers, and a system that would say to the driver “hey you fucked up here, don’t do it again” would be nice.
Just an anecdote, an emergency brake system detected me walking and saved my life by breaking hard cause the driver was distracted (I was on a crosswalk), otherwise I would have been send to orbit.
I’d love to buy an electric car, but I want one with no electronics, if that makes sense. Electric power train, but no screens, “driver aids” or other nonsense
You want the Slate then
The Bezos-mobile
Bezos has done a lot of horrible things, but making a $20k electric truck is not one of them.
I avoid shopping on Amazon unless absolutely necessary, maybe 2-3 times in the last ten years. I think his financial existence is an abomination. But if his truck company is the only manufacturer offering a $20k base vehicle then people have good reason to hand him money. Hopefully undercutting every other manufacturer by $10k+ will result in there being more cheap cars, and alternatives within that price range
don’t worry, this is “casting the net” stage. The enshitification comes later.
I’ll believe it’s not $40k when they actually sell them.
It’s now “under $30k” since the tax break was nixed by Trump.
Maybe they’ll be cheaper but a swarm of scalpers will pocket the difference 🫠 maybe they’ll all get bought out as some sort of sacrificial lamb for AI to eat or something. Nothing good actually happens anymore, lol
Was it ever actually confirmed that Bezos was a prominent investor in that startup?
That and it used older, less safe battery tech.
Would love it if they were making a sedan or a subcompact. Not everyone needs or wants a truck.
Already out of production, but the original fiat 500e is very much one of these barebones electric vehicles. I love mine
They are going to be required to have the spyware cameras in 2027 as well. It’s federal law in the U.S. unfortunately. Hopefully there will be some published guides on tampering with and disabling them though.
Icepick or, less permanently, spray paint I suppose
Are you saying to use those tools on the car or the people forcing these fascist laws? Either way I’m for it.
I actually want a 90s Civic hatchback with an EV swap
Yes! I just heard of this recently. I hope it catches on.
Not sure that it’ll be available this side of the Atlantic that soon, but it does seem pretty interesting
No radio ability to connect to cell towers or WiFi would be nice. I think there’s a brand doing this, but I forgot to read that article I saw about it just a day or two ago.
Edit: here it is: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/06/slate-says-its-electric-pickup-will-never-track-you/
That’s an Amazon owned company, their EVs won’t track you because they are already getting that data from your phones.
Not my phone.
Yep, I’ll never buy electric, becuase we aren’t allowed to have an analog one.
ELECTRIC IS SO FUCKING SIMPLE. motor. Battery. Voltage regulator. Gearbox. Thats it. That is all it fucking needs. But we can’t have that.
I think things need to start happening at dealerships. All those new cars just sitting outside unprotected. Hmm. Sure hope nothing happens to them. Do what it takes until we get what we want.
Thats it. That is all it fucking needs. But we can’t have that.
I share your pain.
I want an elec car. That is, if I could ahve one without spyware. Which I cannot, because enshittification.
Combustion cars are problematic in so many ways. But an older one is the only way I can avoid surveilance on wheels.
Think about what the mfg can glean from your car GPS! Or what they can infer and sell. You can figure some real intimate things about ppl that way. Give me your car GPS info. I will tell you where your kids go to school. I will tell you your economic class. Whether you just got cancer, b/c all the sudden your car is going to an oncologist office a lot. Whether you went to an abortion clinic last month. Whether you’re having an affair with a co-worker. It’s almost endless.
I’ve read claims that some car co’s now make more money from your data than from selling you the entire ass car.
This should scare the shit out of everybody. But it does not seem to.
What is scary is how many lemmings don’t realize all that data is tracked on your phones. So driving some 30 year old shit box doesn’t prevent anything.
Yeah, and even more, all the data that’s tracked by the car FROM your phone when you pair the phone and the car. Modern cars will scrape contacts, pictures, call logs, messages, locations, anything they can get off phones, and send it back to the car co as part of their profit-from-your-data ecosystem.
Why are people convinced this is just in EVs? All new vehicles will have this, even brodozers.
I know, and it sucks.
Its becuase the old evs that didnt have this have awful range and generally suck. New evs would be god, but all new cars have this shit so I will never buy one.
You can probably do an hybrid conversion of a popular ICE vehicle.
The newest kits replace the transmission and adds a battery in the trunk. The engine is then converted to run at a fixed RPM for max efficiency. You can also plug them in to charge at home and on short trips they never even start the engine.
Aside form the lost Trunk space, there are very few downsides.
There really should be more investment in this area so it becomes available dor mor cars.
Any examples of such kits or estimates of the cost?
5k to 8k depending on vehicle. Nothing mass manufactured yet. A lot of those products in the developing world. Lots of full electric conversion kits as well, but range is usually short to keep cost and size low.
Thanks!
That’s very much my thinking, the kits have come down in price a huge amount recently, so it’s almost achievable now
I like the electronics, I just want anything that connects to the internet to be disabled. I’m close to needing to buy a new car, I plan on specifying at the dealership if they will stop me from disconnecting the GPS and other connections.
I have a 2023 chevy bolt and I just pulled the fuse for all that stuff. It doesn’t really disable anything important. If you still want navigation or location-based charging, you can remove the onstar module behind the screen without issue, and the video tutorial made it look pretty damned easy to DIY. That disables all the spyware/internet stuff but leaves everything else working. I’ll probably do it eventually, for location-based charging and nothing else, but its very low priority at the moment, cuz I hardly ever go anywhere that can use the full level 1 12amp pull (my friends and family aren’t confident their wiring can handle it, which is totally fair, I don’t use 12amp at home for the same reason, and I’m getting a new outlet installed that will make it a level 2 charger anyway)
It also has physical buttons for all the important stuff. That and being able to disable the spyware were my two main criteria, with cargo space as a close third (used to have a civic coupe, loved the size, but useless for moving stuff)
This will always be a game of cat and mouse, but I know that for example 3rd gen tacomas have a module that does all the talking (has the SIM card). You can pull a fuse and it kills it, but you lose your Bluetooth microphone also if you connect your phone and want to make calls - however it’s just a power passthrough so it’s really easy to splice a bypass cable that gives power back to the microphone in the cab.
There’s other stuff you can do, like disconnecting the antennas but supposedly if there’s a good enough cell signal the traces on the PCB will still transmit, I dunno.
Either way, there’s ways to get around a lot of the invasive stuff in modern vehicles but it gets harder every year.
Assuming you live in Europe, check out the citroen ec3. Base trim doesn’t even have infotainment and is affordable as hell. Still a great car to drive and very practical.
buy an old car and convert it. It aint gonna be cheap but probably cheaper than a new EV.
Converting an ICE car to an electric is insanely expensive. Far more expensive than buying a new electric car, even without factoring in the cost of buying the old car
where did you read that?
Look up the cost of conversion, then double that. It is very expensive to convert and then you get a car no one will touch for repairs. EV conversion companies are quite scammy.
Renault has some models with almost no gimmicks, only a typical navigation system, for example the Kangoo at least our older model, no idea if that changed)
YES! If you don’t need much range, maybe look the Renault Zoe from 2012. As its older it doesn’t seem to have that much tech in it.
Be very much aware that these old Renault Zoe use chademo for fast charging, a connector that literally isn’t used anywhere anymore so you’re relegated to AC charging. Oh, and a funny little quirk with them; they cannot charge with less that 6KW AC because of how they use the motor inverter. sometimes with public AC chargers this is an issue due to load distribution between multiple chargers.
Oh, I just thought, that it just doesn’t do “fast charging”. Thank you for the heads-up!
Backup cameras are mandatory for a long time.
little by little they encroach… I got a car with a back up camera but no cell connection
I’ve fitted one into my old pickup, but again not worth the amount of complication that they generally come with, eg a massive screen in the dash and the canbus nonsense to go with it. I’d rather not have the level of canbus integration of modern cars, where a locking module or whatever failing can stop the whole car working
I have a BYD Han, and the camera has a sliding cover, which has never been opened. Its crazy that you can’t cover it without the car complaining.
And this is why I have 2 cars from the 80’s that I refuse to give up. They’re nearly 100% mechanical, carburated and with almost no necessary fuzes to run the two.
It IS a cool feature but the privacy concerns kinda override any positivity I might have toward it. If it was completely offline with available source code, I’d be on board.
“Your insurance claim is denied, our algorithm says it’s 70% confident your eyes were dilated in a way consistent with taking alcohol. Also, here’s your court hearing date”
- Camera
- Internet connectivity
- Proprietary software
No device should have more than two of these things.
No device should have the third, ever.
I have an offline dashcam and it’s fine. It does everything I need it to, and does nothing I don’t want it to. It can’t connect to the internet so it can’t spy on me if it wanted to.
Maybe there’s room for compromise, but there is absolutely zero reason to concede such things in advance. The baseline expectation is that every device should be running Free Software and fully respect its owner’s property rights, full stop.
If you instead approach the issue with the casual attitude that “oh, proprietary isn’t so bad if it doesn’t connect to the internet” the compromise after negotiations ends up favoring proprietary tyrants way more than you would’ve been okay with.
I don’t see why a vehicle needs to connect to the internet at all. Or have a screen whatsoever. I don’t understand why a car can’t just be a thing with a gear shift and a fucking steering wheel that drives from point A to point B
We’re being sold this idea of a car being like, a mobile family home or comfort space away from home. But the thing is, cars before 2015-ish were actually kinda comfy. Now they look and feel like robots. Kinda sickening. They all look so fucking ugly too every car is the same ugly round van/SUV shape now.
wherever there’s money to be made, capitalism will inevitably enshitify it and there’s A LOT of money to be had by cars with cameras and sensors that record your habits to report them to insurance industry to charge the maximum possible fees and to the police to keep track of your whereabouts.
making cars comfy and convenient (as well has making it the only viable means for travel) is the way people get lured into this mobile panopticon by choice and they pay for the privilege to do so.
I don’t see why a vehicle needs to connect to the internet at all.
Remote start (ICE) or remote starting heater (EV, ICE with Webasto) is a nice feature. Ability to check the status of your doors (are they locked), windows (maybe you left them open because it was hot and then the rain sensor didn’t close them), etc. All great features. Ability to track it is great if you have kids and let them drive, I guess - mine isn’t that old yet.
It would be much nicer if you could route all of that to your HA server instead of the manufacturer’s server though.
But the thing is, cars before 2015-ish were actually kinda comfy.
Is why I keep driving utterly depreciated formerly executive/luxury shitboxes! Okay, I had one 2019 Mercedes, best car I’ve ever owned, other than the privacy issues. But you can get 90% of the actual physical car features that car offered in a car manufactured before they started connecting 'em to the internet. Would only be missing the 9G-Tronic transmission and the super efficient engine that made it feel like I was driving for free.
Now my dream car is a 2010-2012 Range Rover (L322). First of the ones with the good 4.4 diesel engine and the extremely good ZF 8 speed transmission. Last of the ones with the sexy boxy body shape. Connectivity? GPS, radio, bluetooth (only for calls). No internet. Price? About 10-15k EUR for a decent one. Good luck finding a brand new car for less than 100k with the same comfort level and towing capacity. Maintenance costs? OK if you know how to wrench, literal bankruptcy material if you don’t.
Remote start (ICE) or remote starting heater (EV, ICE with Webasto) is a nice feature. Ability to check the status of your doors (are they locked), windows (maybe you left them open because it was hot and then the rain sensor didn’t close them), etc.
I can do all of this myself with my eyes and my hands, I live in a place where I don’t lock my car really ever unless I go to the big cities. Like I detest the idea of having an app for my car to tell me the automatic window thing you’re talking about didn’t do it. I am perfectly capable of doing that myself with my own 2 hands, I’ve forgotten before in the rain and it hasn’t ever been so big of a deal that I’d opt for a feature to do that for me, it’s the definition of unnecessary. Remote start seems nice especially in the brutal winters but I’ve never had it before and I’ve never had any problems waking up before sunrise in below 0 weather to start my car other than battery issues. I also don’t see why remote start and heated seats would require internet or an app whatsoever.
It would be much nicer if you could route all of that to your HA server instead of the manufacturer’s server though.
I literally have no idea what this means and zero interest in learning anything more about software or hardware, I do admit that’s probably kindof ignorant of me but I also do not like “computer stuff” like that, I have an iPhone because I want it to 100% simple as possible like I’m a boomer.
I just want a god damn car I can start with my hands and drive where I need to go safely and efficiently. That’s it. I don’t understand why people enjoy having so many more unnecessary bells and whistles.
Good for you then. Where I live, it can be 35 degrees and sunshine and then suddenly torrential rain half an hour later. You’d want to be able to make sure the window is closed when it starts raining. How do you do that if you can’t get to the car at the moment?
0 degree weather doesn’t really warrant pre-heating your car either. Try running out the moment you wake up in nothing but a t-shirt and maybe pants when it’s -30 or colder to get the car. Bonus points if you live on the 5th floor and have to run down, then up to go have breakfast and then back down. Then tell me you see no value in being able to do this remotely.
Though if you use an iPhone, I don’t really see why you care about having a non-connected car anyway. Your phone already reports where you are at all times.
Try running out the moment you wake up in nothing but a t-shirt and maybe pants when it’s -30 or colder to get the car.
lol. I own winter coats for a reason… You throw that on instead of a t shirt in -30 mornings. We get those here too. Just going out in a t shirt is your own fault. I would also never work somewhere I couldn’t run outside quick to roll up my windows. I always work labor so I’ve never ever been told I’d have to just sit inside if I knew my car was being rained on. These problems aren’t real problems being solved they’re laziness. Telling me you don’t take the time to put a coat on in the winter is fucking insane no wonder you need your car to connect to WiFi and track you!
I don’t care about my phone tracking me tbh.
I care about it being easy and efficient to use, that’s my whole point about cars.
I’m not going to bother getting dressed just to go start the car lol. I own a winter coat too, I rarely use it because I don’t need it when it’s warmer than about -30. I go out in my shorts and t-shirt and then get dressed when it’s actually time to leave.
Anyway, all of these things make using your car easier and more efficient. Not having to spend extra time doing things manually. But like I said, if you don’t care about your phone tracking you, why give a shit about the car? It has far less data, it can’t even access your bank accounts or email.
I bet you don’t drive a car with manually adjustable valves either. Why? Are you lazy? Or is it that technology takes care of things you don’t want to spend time doing? Matter of fact, why not walk or cycle to work? It’s all laziness in the end.
There’s a certain level of laziness that I am willing to sacrifice for comfort/efficency, and then there’s the level of work that I enjoy putting in to my daily routine. Now I’m just worried for you as a fellow winter enjoyer… put on a coat and some gloves dude! You can get frostbite! It is 100% worth it, you already have to put on atleast underwear (you owe that to your neighbors if they can see you like mine could) and shoes! Please don’t tell me you skip putting on shoes too…
As far as the data thing goes I would be willfully ignorant if the cars actually reflected what I wanted to do with them, if that makes sense. I don’t need it to connect to an app on my phone because that personally annoys me, that’s kinda it. Same with driver facing cameras, fancy screens that are distracting, etc, it’s mostly that they personally annoy me and I don’t personally like the features and I wish there were options to have a simple car with a simple, physical interface.
Can’t steal a Tesla. Once stolen, it cannot be used.
I mean, that’s great and all but I’ve never really had a problem with my cars being stolen more so with them becoming more expensive and less efficient not to mention ugly as sin, Tesla is a perfect example. Those cars look like corporate sanitation personified.
Love it, I’ll be stealing this comment thanks.
