Hi all, Let me preface this with that I do not YET own a Tesla. Does the Tesla InfoTainment system collect data about driving habits,etc...? Which network does the car run on? thanks
We think it is AT&T. Anything that has a GPS chip or a data connection makes this possible of course but I'd doubt it. Any information they collect would be anonymous. Tesla has no reason to spy on you.
When I bought the car, I remember signing a release allowing them to collect data in aggregate. I think they also monitor certain critical factors such as battery charges so that they can contact you, if the battery is approaching a state of discharge that would damage the battery.
I know that on Model S Tesla monitors constantly the car to prevent any malfunctioning. But this is in our interest. I don't know if the same thing happens also on the Roadster.
In the Roadster you can enable or disable this functionality from the car's touchscreen. Don't have an S to see if there's anything similar there.
I have no idea. However, why would you want to? Communicating with the car Tesla can identify faults, diagnose over the air and send you firmware feature updates. Every time you go out driving with a cell phone in your pocket it's theoretically possible for someone to track you. I guess Tesla could turn off the communications altogether but then you'd be missing navigation, browser, slacker, tunein etc. I almost hate to mention this, but it's theoretically possible that someone could be tracking your online activity also. Heck, if the Director of the CIA can get caught out just by using a drop-box e-mail account then what hope is there for the rest of us?
Assume anything you do electronically (post, email, browse sites, store photos) is not private. Because it's not.
1984 has come and gone. We are in the age of information and all your information is available to someone if they really want to get it. Privacy is a thing of the past. The only way to avoid it is to drop out of modern society. I don't mean to scare you but that is the world we live in. All modern cars have GPS and communicate with the manufacturer. If you carry a cell phone, that has GPS in it. The upside is there is so much information out there that no one cares about you. You become anonymous in the vast crowd and only those that want to communicate with you (in this case Tesla) bother to do so. Good luck.
This car is all about connectivity (all new cars are) so you might have to look at cars at least 5 years or older to get what you are looking for.
For ~$100 anyone can buy a tracker and they need about 5 seconds with you not looking to fix it with a magnet under your car. (Unless you have an aluminium Model S!!)
I wasn't trying to sound that I live in paranoia, I just simply wanted to understand how the system works. This would not constitute if I purchased the car or not and thanks to all who answered.
Umm... don't be so sure. There's enormous innovation going on in the Tech world w.r.t. processing and mining this so-called "Big Data". The art of finding "signal" in all the "noise" is being rapidly perfected by Google, Facebook, Twitter, several other established tech firms and a zillion startups. And, storage of data (using certain big data mechanisms) has become so cheap that nothing need be thrown away ever. Suffice it to say, any data posted in the public realm (including our TMC conversations) is fair game for big data analysis given the computing power and software prowess that exists today. Data privately exchanged between a customer (you) and a company (Tesla) is also subject to this to the extent of the privacy agreement between both parties.