My current car, registered in Jan 2019, does not connect to the internet on its own and that is absolutely how I want it. Any kind of data comes through the phone connection if I chose to establish it, otherwise the car is not on the internet. From conversation on another forum I understand many Fords (the Focus was mentioned by one owner) have a permanent data connection, and internal combustion models can also be started remotely to warm up from an app, probably other makes too.
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I saw a report on the connectivity of modern cars not sure if these were EV’s & or all moden cars, but on an hour journey the car fed back data to ? I think the manufacturers? over a 1000 A4 pages of data! & apparently this data is, on you / your driving habits / & geo refs, this can be or is sometimes sold on to third parties like insurance companies, employers…
I was under the impression that it was against the French law leaving ICEs idling unnecessarily
The person with the car in question lives in the UK, as do I. Local cars likely have localised set-up in the software preventing that in France, but one might also argue that it wasn’t idling un-necessarily, and instead was defrosting the vehicle for use.
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That’d be great @Wozza
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It’s not so much that they do this - though it is pretty annoying.
It’s that the manufacturers know if given a choice most users they would tell them to **** off so make it very difficult to know what data is sent back and odds are than consent is buried somewhere in the sales details so it’s not at all clear that you are “consenting” to this stuff when you buy the vehicle.
I am not sure if this is necessarily bad thing. I frequently rely on Waze to get me to a destination on time. This uses feedback from all the users to give the best choice of route at any particular time.
I am not sure what harm having my cars location collected and sold would do me. Providing it is not used to tax me or send me a speeding ticket 
Oh, if it were only that simple. They are collecting so much more than just gps-type data and using algorhythms to sort out much more personal info. They do it to sell to third parties. You may have heard the term “Money makes the world go ‘round”.
Most “connected” devices today are gathering personal data today like computers, mobile phones, smart TVs, etc. and the number of people who simply don’t care has opened the floodgates for spying, exploitation by third parties, and malicious hacking by criminals. Probably the first to do this (apart from national security services) was Microsoft. Their Operating Systems have steadily become more and more bloated with telemetry that sends everything you do to “the cloud” while claiming to be an improvement. If they weren’t selling your data on the open market how can you buy a Windows 11 license for only $10? There is an increasing number of people who respond by saying “I’m not doing anything wrong so I don’t care”. That head in the sand mindset doesn’t lead to a better place.
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Does that mean that, if they do not get access to my data, a Windows license would cost a hell of a lot more?
If someone was to find themselves in possession of a Windows Product Key of dubious legitimacy, they’d still be downloading the genuine Windows product to install from Microsoft and making an ISO file of it the same way legit Product Key owners do and entering the Product Key when Windows asks for it.
That’s why I use Linux and something I can’t remember the name of on my phone and no WhatsApp or any meta product!
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Not sure where this was discussed in the last few days but it was stated that the government had decided not to impose a charge per mile for EVs. It’s been announced in the budget that it’s going to be 3p per mile from 2028, increasing with inflation after that.
It was @JohnH in response to my thoughts of buying into the EV culture.
“It was floated and apparently dropped. Anyway, it would need to be set pretty high to come close to the running costs of an ICE.”
Seems once out of the government system you no longer get insider information!!
Wow that’s steep. Using off peak power here in France, my EV costs 4p per mile. Fortunately , I have no plans to drive to UK.
What happens to UK EV drivers when they come to France? Do they continue to pay taxes on mileage done? … and who gets the revenue on those miles?
I assume it will just be a flat rate per mile the EV has done in the year. The only way I can think this data could easily be collected is via an MOT, although that isn’t done for the first 3 years. How else could it be done in a way that is not self reported ?
My diesel costs around 11 cents oer kilometre in fuel.
If your EV costs around 4p then add Rachel’s 3p, even given the currency differences it will not be long before there is no difference between EV and ICE fuel cost.
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The secret information widget hidden in the car that has already been discussed?
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Give that man a gold star. With a vehicle so full of technology the government will have no difficulty accessing the mileage records, probably in realtime. Just like the manufacturers will know when someone other than an approved dealership attempts to repair or service the car.
My EV cost 4p per mile but that is using much cheaper French electricity.
In UK it will cost 4p + 3p tax plus the expensive electricity premium compared to your 16p per mile (11c per Km).
I thought the idea was to promote the switch to electric not penalise it. (although there are many other benefits apart from financial)
This may be a daft question but how will the UK know how many miles a French car does on roads there?