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Most, if not all car companies collect and profile your data, how can I improve my privacy when buying a modern car?
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this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2025
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Privacy
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Prove it's a myth. I find it really hard to believe me going and purchasing a new car is better then using an already existing car. Manufacturing has a big cost for cars.
Just to point out that you made the initial argument and commented a view without evidence. Now you ask someone who disagrees to give evidence?
Rough math involved: production of a new EV results in between 8-15 tonnes of CO2 emissions, depending on the size of the batteries and vehicle trim.
But let’s aim for somewhere in the middle and take ~12 tonnes as a yardstick.
~12 tonnes of CO2 emissions equates to roughly 1,350 gallons of fuel.
Depending of fuel efficiency, this would equate to between 20k~45k miles.
Feel free to double-check my math in case I did anything wrong, but it does validate that most of these „facts” around EVs are likely FUD spread by fossil fuel aligned sources.
ETA: initially forgot to include CO2 emissions from electricity generation - but this varies wildly based on source (nuclear, hydro & renewables at 0 etc.)
I find this a bit misleasing, especially when (in the uk) electricity is only ~50% renewables apparently.
https://www.zemo.org.uk/assets/workingdocuments/MC-P-11-15a%20Lifecycle%20emissions%20report.pdf
So EVs are a small improvement. Since I enjoy older cars and my privacy a lot more, I'm gonna keep enjoying them and not let manafacturers ram EVs down my throat, especially when a lot of them are hideous SUVs.
Not intentionally being misleading, as I do have a footnote calling out not including carbon emissions from electricity generation as they vary so wildly based on the energy source.
But unlike ICE cars, EV emissions from energy sources are improving over time as nations build more and more renewable energy sources. Your linked report is correct, but potentially out of date already - the UK for instance was already at 58% in 2024, with a goal of full of 95%+ by the end of this decade.
Here in Australia, our uptake of residential solar has been so high that our energy providers are offering free electricity during peak daylight hours to all customers to help use up all of that excess production. It’s quite feasible for a significant portion of us here to be able to not only recharge an EV for free, but with next-to-no CO2 emissions.
Additionally, we now have a big Government subsidy in place to install batteries in our homes as well: ~£4,000 for a ~30kWh system, fully installed!
I share your love for older cars, but with a toddler and another one planned - we need to have a modern, safe car for peace of mind. But believe me, I will be ensuring that I disable as much telemetry as possible due to privacy concerns.
But for a secondary/weekend car - there is always the option of electrifying an older car, allowing for the best of both worlds - in a sense!
By "tonnes", do you mean 2,000lb or 1,000kg? In an engineering context, "ton" is the former and "tonne" is the latter.
"Tonne" is also synonymous with "long ton" (dur to converting to 2204.6lb), as well as "metric ton".
Metric tonnes, as that seems to be the generally used format when discussing CO2 emissions.
Which I know may be confusing, given that I quote imperial values in the rest of the stats - but it was just quick/dirty math and I figured that EV disinformation is highest in the US, so I tried to tailor the values for them.
Please use metric for anything scientific
It was rough, back of the napkin math - primarily intended for those in places where EV disinformation is highest (the US).
Those of us that primarily use metric are more than capable of roughly converting in our heads as required! 😅
Especially wrt. modern gas-fuelled cars for the typical driver as EV prices are artificially jacked up in many Western countries.