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According to a comprehensive joint study by Northeastern University and Consumer Reports, nearly every major automaker selling vehicles in the United States is actively sharing owner data with outside tracking and advertising companies. Using a specialized Wi-Fi access point to intercept and analyze outbound data traffic, the team discovered that 19 of the 21 cars tested were actively sending data off to third-party domains. The vehicles-and especially their companion apps-were pinging a web of tracking and advertising companies. Honda stood out as the lone bright spot among the group, actively adjusting its data practices during the study to stop sending precise GPS location data to third-party tracking companies. As separate reporting from Consumer Reports highlights, this aggregated vehicle data is increasingly bought and sold by banks, insurance companies, lenders, and retailers.
In the graph below, the teal color represents vehicle data exposed while the orange arrow represents data exposed to advertising/tracking companies by the companion app. Unsurprisingly, Google, Meta, and Microsoft crop up a lot in the connected apps. According to the research, 7 of 30 companion apps transmitted sensitive identifiers (VINs, emails, phone numbers, precise location) to third parties associated with advertising and tracking. For those shopping for a car, it seems a lot simpler – don't buy a connected car. CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters There are two ways this matters when it comes to internet-connected cars and companion apps.
These systems collect a large amount of personal data about drivers, passengers, the vehicle itself, and surrounding objects and people. Three risks For the Dutch agency, this digital dependency opens three major risk vectors. The AIVD emphasizes that "for state-sponsored threat actors and cybercriminals, the microphones, cameras, and navigation systems of a smart car represent an open window to the interception of confidential information." These systems collect a large amount of personal data about drivers, passengers, the vehicle itself, and surrounding objects and people. The AIVD emphasizes that "for state-sponsored threat actors and cybercriminals, the microphones, cameras, and navigation systems of a smart car represent an open window to the interception of confidential information."
Its models are off-the-shelf frontier systems, used unmodified, and the model itself is the driver. That distinction matters because most earlier evaluations of language models on driving have been exercises in question answering or simulation. Each model ran inside its own native agent environment at medium reasoning effort: Astra and GPT-5.6 Sol in Codex, Claude Fable 5.1 in Claude Code, and Grok 4.6 in Cursor. The researchers noted that models served with lower latency and higher throughput could have an edge for exactly that reason. After its first run, Astra reflected that it had declared the car aligned too early, and it resolved to use shorter movements at lower speeds near bends and islands.
The panel explored how connected visibility – from shopfloor to network level – can expose hidden losses, support faster decision-making, and help manufacturers convert one-off pilot wins into sustained operational change. Connected visibility: automotive production's resilience advantage Get more from your manufacturing operations. Discover how greater visibility across people, processes and technology can help automotive manufacturers maximise existing assets, uncover hidden efficiency losses and turn successful improvement projects into scalable operational change. He described the challenge of conveying this complexity to vendors accustomed to standard automotive data structures as a persistent barrier to deploying off-the-shelf solutions in commercial trucking. The session underscored a consistent theme across all four panellists: technology alone rarely determines whether a visibility initiative succeeds.
OMAHA, Neb. — Omaha Police said an assault is connected to a car crash early Monday morning in North Omaha. Officials said the calls came in just after midnight, with the assault happening first and the crash coming in after. OPD said they believe a man, who was driving the vehicle, ran from the scene after the crash. Make sure you can always see the latest news, weather, sports and more from KETV NewsWatch 7 on Google search.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW Regrettably, none of this is surprising. ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW There’s hope on the horizon, though. ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW Even the government is getting involved. Notably, however, it would do nothing to stop automakers from choosing to sell only connected cars. Then this happened, which was slightly awkward because I grew up reading Car & Driver, but convenient since I don’t live in Michigan.
Here is a detailed look at the four key Honda hybrid and electric vehicles heading to Indian roads. Honda 0 Alpha The Honda 0 Alpha will finally mark the brand's official entry into India's mass-market electric vehicle space. The new Honda electric SUV will be locally produced at the company's Tapukara facility in Rajasthan for the domestic sales and export markets. Honda Sub-4 Meter Compact SUV Honda is developing an all-new sub-4-meter crossover or SUV designed specifically for urban Indian buyers. Next-gen Honda City The Honda City has been one of the most popular nameplates, and a benchmark for mid-size sedans in India.
Well, the same principle applies to electric vehicles and EV batteries, only on a much larger scale. So, do electric vehicles use liquid cooling? Broadly speaking, liquid cooling relies on either water or a liquid coolant such as ethylene glycol. While a definite improvement over air cooling, liquid does have its own set of challenges. Fortunately, you won't need to look far to find a car that relies on liquid cooling, since it's the most widely-used method.
“Modern vehicles typically integrate a wide array of sensors, software systems, and always-on connectivity, effectively becoming ‘smartphones on wheels,'” states the research paper covering the study results. Researchers found: Vehicles and companion apps contact numerous third-party domains, including advertisers and trackers. Seven of 30 apps transmit personally identifiable information (PII) to third-party companies, resulting in allowing advertisers to build in-depth consumer profiles. Pairing a companion app roughly doubled a vehicle’s exposure to advertising/tracking companies, on average, and in some cases added 20-plus new ones. “The ongoing theme of all these responses was shifting the blame to the consumer,” the paper states.
Because each slice can be designed with its own quality of service guarantees, network slicing has significantly enhanced the growth of vehicular networks. Mobility management is the set of techniques that dynamically preserves these slice relationships and quality of service guarantees while users or devices move. In advanced vehicular networks, the authors emphasize, network slicing and mobility management are two key components that must collaborate to ensure quality of service. Enter deep reinforcement learning, a machine learning technique that combines deep neural networks with the trial-and-error logic of reinforcement learning. Applying deep reinforcement learning to manage mobility in a sliced 6G vehicular network: a survey.
OCTO Telematics and TruckerCloud Target Commercial Auto Insurance OCTO Telematics and TruckerCloud have formed a partnership to speed the adoption of telematics in U.S. commercial auto insurance. The integration extends data ingestion, risk segmentation, and underwriting support to light- and medium-duty commercial vehicles, a segment that has largely gone unconnected. Mojio Becomes Force Fleet and Launches the Felix AI Assistant Telematics provider Mojio has retired its name and relaunched as Force Fleet, aiming at small and mid-sized commercial operators. Force Fleet is also adding integrations, including one with Housecall Pro that brings real-time telematics into field dispatch and work-order scheduling. It draws on data the vehicles already generate, so no aftermarket hardware is needed to track utilization, diagnostics, and operating costs.
Connected car data is turning vehicles into mobile sensing platforms, creating new possibilities for safer fleets, usage-based insurance, EV management and used-car transactions. That makes the connected vehicle more than a consumer product. Tata Motors’ iRA platform provides vehicle location, trip information, vehicle status, driving scores and vehicle-health information. Vehicle data is also being packaged as a product. Fleet operators already have a clear operational reason to use connected data.
Ottawa [Canada], October 4 (ANI): Canada’s decision to significantly reduce tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs) has triggered fresh concerns over national security, cybersecurity and the potential collection of sensitive data, according to a report by The Epoch Times. The media outlet reported that Chinese EVs are expected to gain greater access to the Canadian market following Ottawa’s decision to cut the tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles from 100 per cent to 6.1 per cent. According to The Epoch Times, the agreement initially permits up to 49,000 Chinese EVs annually to enter Canada at the reduced tariff, with the quota expected to increase in subsequent years. The concerns were highlighted during a 90-minute discussion titled “Cheap cars, high costs: The security reality of China’s EVs”, hosted by the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute. The panel brought together industry and policy experts to examine the potential security implications of Canada’s EV agreement with China, The Epoch Times reported.
At 8:17 every morning, a connected car leaves an apartment complex in Mumbai and heads to the owner’s office. Tata Motors’ iRA platform provides vehicle location, trip information, vehicle status, driving scores and vehicle-health information. By 2030, India could become the world’s third largest connected car market, after China and the US, he says. “Selling a connected car creates an opportunity for subscription revenue, but does not guarantee it,” says Ravi Bhatia, president of automotive research firm Jato Dynamics. KNOW YOUR CAR Data will become part of a car’s history—and will lead to many use cases.
And a new study just illuminated how much data is coming from your car, and who's on the receiving end. Northeastern researchers had to find and build clever ways to reroute Wi-Fi and cellular signals from the cars to their data collectors — same with the applications. Between the cars and their apps, data was sent to several large companies: Alphabet (which owns Google), Amazon, Spotify, Microsoft, and Meta (which owns Facebook). As for the apps' data, strange names to come up on the list included Pinterest, Reddit, Docusign, Dun & Bradstreet, and a software company called Press Ganey Forsta. Manufacturers' other explanation for data sharing was that sharing was on the consumer.
The nature and privilege of my job mean I have countless phones lying around, so I figured it made sense to leave an older Android device in my vehicle as a dedicated Android Auto device. After that, I configured Android Auto the same way I do on every device, including my Pixel 11 Pro. This means that I removed several apps from Android Auto's launcher by navigating to Settings > Connected Devices > Connection Preferences > Android Auto > Customize Launcher. Lastly, I set Start Android Auto Automatically to Always on my phone and in my car, and also turned on Start Android Auto While Locked. What does using a dedicated Android Auto phone really change?
Fresh from securing his first pole position of the season at Sepang, Max Verstappen revealed how the recent upgrades introduced in Baku have helped eliminate some of the weaknesses that have plagued the RB22 for much of the championship. Red Bull arrived in Baku last weekend with a significant upgrade package for the RB22. The changes included a new floor featuring revised edges and diffuser, alongside modifications to the sidepod and engine-cover bodywork. According to Verstappen, those developments have helped address some of its previous weaknesses, improving both lap time and the overall balance. And it's simple as that: when they work, you gain lap time, you have a better overall balance in the car."
Creston RCMP have retrieved a vehicle believed to belong to a person who went missing from the Creston area. George Franklin Davis was reported missing in July 2004. A volunteer search and recovery dive team had been helping Davis’s family search for him for over 20 years. On Sept. 28, the RCMP Underwater Recovery Team recovered the vehicle from the river. Investigators say that both the vehicle’s description and license plate are consistent with Davis’s reported details.