[layoric]

A 90s Camry, Corolla, or Civic seems to have become the peak minimalist car. Shame we will never likely see an EV equivalent focused on utility and cost efficiency without all the bloat. I don’t think there is a good option sadly, any ICE car will eventually just become unmaintainable, and I can’t see a path to EVs that are just cars and don’t come with all this tracking.. hope to be proved wrong..

[manyatoms]

https://slate.auto

[wiml]

I'm pretty curious what Slate's telematics/privacy story will be like. No way to tell until they start shipping, I guess. It's pretty cheap to add a cell modem, so I don't think it's safe to assume that a "bare bones" car necessarily won't have spyware.

[eks391]

I haven't heard about slate till just now, but based on their specs, it doesn't seem like they are capable of collecting or selling data. The dashboard is your personal tablet or phone. It literally seems to just be a battery, motor, chassis, and trunk, with climate control and required safety features

[mmooss]

> The dashboard is your personal tablet or phone.

That seems worse in terms of tracking. Those are the leading tools for tracking people.

[eks391]

What I'm saying is the car doesn't have a method to track you, and if you want entertainment, you have to bring it.

If you don't want your phone to track you, just don't bring it, but most people will have their own phone on them when they travel anyway. It's unfair to blame Slate for the invasiveness of whatever phone you choose to have.

[mmooss]

I thought you meant that Slate used a phone app for their console.

[duskdozer]

Isn't it Bezos? In which case I have little faith it won't be like the rest.