Car manufacturers are. They probably get a bulk discount on relatively cheap data plans. It was enough for GM to keep OnStar running until Verizon got rid of supporting all 2G and 3G service in the USA.

[–] Patches@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Do we know how long they are paying for that connection?

I can't imagine that's cheap. Is a 2016 car internet connected without my notice? How do you confirm?

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 7 points 8 months ago

No, but the Wikipedia article seems to indicate that OnStar has the ability to store GPS and phone contact information even if you aren't subscribed.

Also, I can't imagine that buying several millions of data connections would be that expensive, especially if all that those connections are doing are sending out a ping of reports once a month.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar

[–] VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago

Amazon did a thing where if your wifi is down Alexa can connect to a neighbors Alexa which will relay the message to the server.

I imagine a car could do the same much easier, you pull up to the lights next to a car from the same manufacturer and it relays all your telemetrics.

It's time for an open source car.