[dahart]

I guess I've lost track of your point. You were trying to suggest cars don't phone home, based on your experience and assumptions, but the fact is that nearly all major manufacturers are selling cars today with systems that phone home for various reasons, whether you're aware of it or not. How does you not knowing anyone with new cars meaningfully inform this thread? The manufacturers are becoming aware of privacy issues, and trying to make some kinds of collection and access opt-in, but basically all of them now offer some services that phone home by default and are opt-out or not optional. Hopefully that data is reasonable and private and protected... hopefully.

A lot of consumers (I would guess most) prefer to have default-on connectivity to provide services like theft protection, automatic emergency support in case of accidents, and up-to-date navigation maps, among many other modern conveniences.