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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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?
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/
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!
You want the Slate then
I actually want a 90s Civic hatchback with an EV swap
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.
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
Yes! I just heard of this recently. I hope it catches on.
The Bezos-mobile
That and it used older, less safe battery tech.
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
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.