A person I know is upset about EVs because they are built around the assumption that every system in the car will phone home to the car manufacturer (or perhaps the cops), and basically require you to have a proprietary smartphone app in order to interact with EV chargers and perhaps the car itself. Of course, this is also true of new ICE cars, but it's at least possible to continue driving an older ICE car with more limited telemetry, whereas effective, mass-available EVs basically came onto to the scene at the same time that spyware car computer systems did.
I personally do want an EV, but I have qualms about the smartphone-ification of such cars as well. More importantly, the place where I currently live doesn't have a parking spot with an EV charger (there's a limited number of such spots, you have to join a waitlist to get one). If electric cars really could be charged to be ready to drive 800 miles in 5 minutes, that wouldn't be a problem - but even if this press release is being more or less accurate about the battery claims, I can't buy an EV with this technology today, and as far as I'm aware it still takes significantly longer to charge an EV than to fill up with gas to an equivalent amount.
My concerns are the computerization of vehicles in general. The issue is not entirely with the telemetry itself, as you frame it. My issue is "what happens when the telemetry is not available?" You, and perhaps your friend, seem to be framing the problem as though the concern is that the car is filled with "spyware." My issue is that the car is filled with "DRM" from the manufacturer. When I buy a car, I expect to own that car entirely, forever. If I wanted to rent the right to someone else's car... I'd lease a car.
Musk touts the CyberTruck as "the perfect armageddon vehicle" but if you have no cell phone service how do you charge the truck? What if Tesla disappears, or GCP is down, or WW3 actually happens and the datacenters go dark? Can you operate the vehicle? What if the power goes out because... Armageddon. How do you fuel the vehicle?
What if Musk sees what I said about him on social media and accuses me of violating the TOS? Will he disable my vehicle remotely? I've seen this in the real world when a machine shop missed it's payment to Haas.
In a real armageddon, my 1997 shitbox would still function. My 2013 F150 would function right up until the EMP hit. A 2025 EV probably would not make it to a fueling source within 24 hours after the power goes out.
And solar is just one of many ways of generating electricity. Wind turbines continue to work, as do hydroelectric plants (and on a smaller scale, water wheels). Worst case scenario, you can burn more readily accessible carbon based fuels like wood to make steam to generate power. Vehicles that are dependent on extraction and refinement of petroleum are actually quite limited in comparison.
On a side note, you should look up "wood gas". There are YouTube videos of 110v generators running off wood gas, and while it takes a bit of setup, it's within the realm of what a country person could do in a weekend or two.
By weight, I think I remember that it takes 4x of wood vs gasoline to get the same energy. So while a generator takes 6 lbs of gasoline (a gallon) to give you ~5kw, it takes 25 lbs of wood. Sounds bad til you realize how much a tree weighs.
And, ah, during a time of gas shortages, exactly which cars have gas in them just sitting around not being used, and who is going to let you do that to their car?
I can tell you’ve never actually lived this reality, you’re just making stuff up.
I had gas pumps not work due to lack of electricity (and lack of gas in the tanks) on half a dozens occasions in different countries.
You forgot to bring your pump, spotter, and nail-tipped bat. If you had those I'm sure you would have been able to fight your way through and have your go juice in no more than 15 minutes.
In armageddon, you would run out of fuel around day 3 and then that's it.
A CyberTruck will charge just fine from anything that can generate the proper AC or DC, no phoning home needed. Many home solar installations can work off grid and charge your car.
To charge a 57,000 watt tesla with an 800w consumer solar panel would take 71 hours of sunlight. There is not 24 hours of sunlight in a single day. This also is not considering the battery management which heats the battery passively. So it would take a week to charge a Tesla with equipment that you could carry inside the car.
> More importantly, the place where I currently live doesn't have a parking spot with an EV charger (there's a limited number of such spots, you have to join a waitlist to get one). If electric cars really could be charged to be ready to drive 800 miles in 5 minutes, that wouldn't be a problem
It might still be a problem, depending on why you want an EV. There are two annoyances with fast DC charging compared to home charging, and that super fast 800 miles in 5 minutes only addresses one of them.
The one it addresses is time to charge. 800 miles in 5 minutes is similar to ICE cars, and it would mean you can deal with charging with about the same level of hassle as an ICE driver has dealing with gas. I.e., you don't really have to think about it since it is only a few minutes.
However, DC chargers often cost significantly more per kWh than home charging, and also often have additional fixed fees.
If having low energy costs per mile is an important consideration in many places it turns out that an EV only charged at DC chargers will cost more per mile for energy than a Prius or a hybrid Civic or maybe even a hybrid RAV4 or CR-V.
With home charging a Prius and sometimes other hybrids can still beat an EV in some places so if energy cost is important you need to do the math for your area, but in most places the EV will win at least in the US.
There are nice things about EV besides low energy costs, but even if you get one mainly for other reasons the low energy costs can quickly become a favorite feature.
For example, a sandwich chain restaurant in my town raised their prices. My favorite sandwich, which I'd get there once a week, went from something like $9.20 to $12.99. That chain's store in the next town is owned by a different franchisee, and that sandwich is $10.39 there.
Before I got my EV it wouldn't have been worth going to that other town to save $2.60 because the gas for the round trip would come out to around that.
With my EV, charged at home, it is only about $0.60 round trip, so I save $2.00. It does take longer of course, but as I said I like to get that sandwich once a week. There's a weekly podcast I listen to. I use the time driving for the sandwich listening to that, so it is time I otherwise would have spent on the couch listening my my home entertainment system so it cancels out.
I don't think my Lightning has any more telemetry than the equivalent ICE F150, nor do I think there are any repercussions from disabling that telemetry altogether (aside from no OTA updates, which aren't really much of a thing with Ford anyway).
I have a car without a screen at all (which is illegal to sell as a new car today), so there is no phone home and telling the insurance industry how fast I drive. Really though, it would show how little I drive.
This battery and the 5min charging for it, I thought was for the motorcycle is it going in first.
I personally do want an EV, but I have qualms about the smartphone-ification of such cars as well. More importantly, the place where I currently live doesn't have a parking spot with an EV charger (there's a limited number of such spots, you have to join a waitlist to get one). If electric cars really could be charged to be ready to drive 800 miles in 5 minutes, that wouldn't be a problem - but even if this press release is being more or less accurate about the battery claims, I can't buy an EV with this technology today, and as far as I'm aware it still takes significantly longer to charge an EV than to fill up with gas to an equivalent amount.