Hello internet users. Someone in my family is looking to buy a car and wanted some recommendations for a private one. They are looking to buy new, and need Android Auto and CarPlay. I know all new cars suck for privacy by default, but I was hoping someone here could offer some insight as to which cars can be made better and what cars offer the best experience with minimal compromises on privacy and no subscription bs. I also have a Home Assistant instance that they can access remotely if there are any cars that can work well with that.
Edit: Android auto and CarPlay aren’t as important as I thought.
Unlikely to find a new car without a calling home function.
Definitely not one with car play.
Best you can do is find the cell antenna port and put an RF sink on it (they’re used for testing radio output).
Tell me more about this rf sink
The technical term is “dummy load”, most antennas are around 50ohm “impedance” which in an incredibly roundabout way means the antenna is indistinguishable from a 50ohm resistor at whatever frequency it’s tuned to…which means you can replace the antenna with a 50ohm resistor.
This all assumes you care about leaving the radio functional (radio amplifiers will burn up if they can’t dissipate the energy they’re creating) and in most cases it’s probably fine to just cut the trace as close to the source chip as possible. That said, if the system is especially evil and well engineered it’ll throw errors in some cases so better to leave everything functional but unable to hear or transmit.
deleted by creator
I think if you remove internet connection from the car and use it with a phone with graphene os is it would be OK but I could be wrong.
deleted by creator
If you’re using the android Auto app then I don’t see how the OS even matters. You can turn off Google location services but I’ve never tried that with android Auto.
You have to sacrifice something. It’s generally not possible to use cloud-based services while maintaining total privacy - at least not in a way that’s convenient.
Here’s what you can do - get a car with minimal tech built into it’s head unit. Get a new head unit and get a car audio shop to swap it out for you. This will void your car warranty if it’s new, but some HUs have navigation built in (not Internet dependent ) and support simple Bluetooth .
If you want full Android Auto capability then idk if it’s even possible to meet all your stated requirements.
The os lets you revoke permissions from it.
When you go just ask if there’s cars or models without the car itself having a SIM card but that still has carplay. People love to drum this stuff up but they still make dumb cars. There’s usually like 3 variations maybe 4 of each model. Go lower on the model to get less features but still the right amount of them.
in the eu all newer models are required to be able to call emergency services in case of a crash and share the location of the vehicle. so no newer cars in the eu without an integrated sim card.
I don’t know how that’s implemented but I suspect it’s done without a SIM card since SIM cards exists for authentication and not for functionality. The emergency call is probably done without any authentication or fee.
They might also have something like an Esim that authorises the car to call specific services. I doubt that car manufacturers are paying much or anything at all for the emergency services calls and I doubt they would put in a full connection unless someone paid for it (if the consumer bought smart features for example)
Nope, emergency calls don’t work without sim cards anymore, at least in germany. Because burglars checked the functionality of stolen phones by dialing 112, so they made it require a sim card. I think it can be locked tho, not sure.
Android Auto and CarPlay or Privacy. You won’t get both.
Your use of ‘need’ is quite a stretch.
I don’t have a great answer to your question, but you might be able to find a relatively cheap car that isn’t “smart” and doesn’t have a touchscreen or anything. Do they make those anymore? Then, you could add an aftermarket stereo receiver to it, like some of the options in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1GdI9UsEI
Yes, that’s still a “smart” stereo but it’s NOT connected to any of the car manufacturer’s metrics or systems, right? So the separation makes it seem more privacy-friendly to me. I could be thinking about this incorrectly, but it seems logical to me. There might be some stereo receivers that are more private than others, but you’d have to do your own research for that.
Do you know of new cars that don’t have all the smart nonsense?
Damn, I’m looking around and don’t see any, even the cheapest Toyotas and Kias have a big touchscreen with Android and CarPlay. I’m not sure what happens if you take that out and replace it with an aftermarket receiver, but it appears to be possible because Crutchfield sells receivers for a 2024 Corolla: https://www.crutchfield.com/g_473950/Digital-Multimedia-Video-Receivers.html
I’m also seeing people online saying that there are cars made for businesses that still come with no “smart” features. But I have no clue how you would buy one of those, I doubt they have them at dealerships: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatcarshouldIbuy/comments/124n5qw/what_cars_less_than_5_years_old_are_recommended/
Or, you could just get a used car, save some money, and check all the low-tech boxes.
I think the mitsubishi space star could be an answer, base model doesn’t have a smart anything, but it might not be available where you are
Dacia, least bad one. Made a dedicated phone for the car without personal info as well. Rooted calyx OS , microG, organic maps and spottube. No simcard and VPN on WiFi. Not sure how much is still leaked but a lot better at least.
Would love some info on where all this shit is located in the car. Someone should make a database of the different cars and how to block shit
A lot of vehicles prior to 2005 will not have a black box that records everything (and for which you will not have the encryption key for), nor will it phone home in any capacity.
Pretty much 100% of vehicles prior to 1995 will definitely lack these features.
If you want a vehicle that you control 100%, get a vintage vehicle.
Couldn’t you ask the guys at the dealership to remove the router and such from the car? Say you don’t want internet. If so, I’d say that’s the best you’d get in terms of new cars.
If you want an actual dumb car that’s reliable, I don’t think anything beats a TJ series Jeep wrangler. Not good gas mileage, but the I6 engine in them is fantastic and it’s still relatively easy to get parts for them despite being 20 years old. You can add an after market head unit for CarPlay out android auto.
If you really do go new, you can disable the cellular radio. It’ll cost you a lot of convenience features, and you won’t get updates. But no cell radio, no ability for it to give your data to the mothership.
The average salesman will act like they know but they don’t. About the only choice for a private vehicle is going to be an older vehicle. New ones are getting less private and larger and more expensive. Go with an older but we’ll cared for Honda or Toyota.
