Removing network connectivity from basically any new car is trivial, often as simple as pulling an easily accessible fuse.
I'm guessing that you haven't actually done this on "basically any new car".
If you had tried, you would know that there is no fuse dedicated to "network connectivity". It is typically tied in with other, often essential functions like the engine control computer --- specifically in order to thwart a simple disconnect.
What I have seen done is to tear into the right roof pillar and cut the wires going to the antenna on the roof. But this is usually not without consequences as well such as a perpetual error code display and/or the radio, navigation or entertainment functions stop working.
I've never seen an antenna that was difficult to disconnect, on the super simple end you have something like the W222 where you can literally just pop out the antenna cover on the roof and just remove the antenna module inside.
>But this is usually not without consequences as well such as a perpetual error code display or the radio, navigation or entertainment functions stop working.
Well sure, I do have cars without GPS because I was lazy. Carplay still works fine, so can't really bother to do anything about it.
That largely depends on the specific vehicle. I’m surprised that there wer no negative effects in pulling the telematics fuse on a W223, less surprised on a W222.
Even if you can't pull the modem or the sim card (less common now) directly, you can certainly always find and disable the antenna connection.
Any decent shop will be able to do this for a reasonable price.
E.g. Tesla, even in Europe, is pretty blatantly ignoring privacy laws and is used to surveil the population: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/tesla-waechtermodus-f... (paywall)
I would be very surprised if it didn't have some kind of "heavily-restricted debugging interface, only available to select VW engineers, which provides a limited set of fully anonymous vehicle diagnostic metrics" - which in practice is of course used to sell trivially deanonymizable data to anyone with a few bucks to spare.
https://reynardsec.com/en/volkswagens-bad-streak-we-know-whe...
"The data, which includes detailed location information and even vehicle owner details, was left exposed and unprotected on the internet for an extended period of time."
Wir wissen wo dein Auto steht Volksdaten von Volkswagen
https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-wir-wissen-wo-dein-auto-steht-vo...
Sure, but it is not like they just got away with that (ironically other manufacturers who did essentially the same thing, did mostly get away with it).
>I would be very surprised if it didn't have some kind of "heavily-restricted debugging interface, only available to select VW engineers, which provides a limited set of fully anonymous vehicle diagnostic metrics" - which in practice is of course used to sell trivially deanonymizable data to anyone with a few bucks to spare.
The GDPR allows you to receive a copy of all data a manufacturer has about you, "trivially deanonymizable" is by any reasonable interpretation of the GDPR personal data. Of course you can believe that VW and other manufacturers are secretly ignoring laws (again) and of course evidence for that would be hard to come by, but it it did come out it would be a massive scandal, with a massive criminal investigation.
In general, do you want to have minimal laws protecting your privacy and manufacturers blatantly not caring about existing laws and individuals having no recourse or do you want strict laws protecting your privacy with manufacturers facing heavy sanctions, when they ignore those laws? The choice seems pretty clear.
In 2024 when they got hacked it turned out they were gathering (and "lost") a great deal of user data that they weren't supposed to.
https://cybersecuritynews.com/volkswagen-data-breach/
I don't think that VW were punished for that breach; the GDPR has no teeth.
I drive a VW but I won't buy another.
And still no temperature dial. They achieved near perfection 20 years ago:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
It’s unclear what the temperature numbers actually mean if this isn’t an automatic climate control system (or is in manual mode).
The part that rotates also appears to be symmetric, which means one may need to find the white marking to decipher where the dial is pointing. That can be even more difficult in a dark environment than trying to read a display.
The numbers are centigrade, which for the local market is mostly very obvious and widely understood. 22 is roughly room temperature, so it's good that's at 12 o'clock. This model doesn't have auto climate control.
> which means one may need to find the white marking to decipher where the dial is pointing
You hand can feel the angle the dial is pointing. It was a non-issue for me. the white is illuminated softly at night, and one very quick glance can confirm the position anyway.
Anyway, I'm contrasting to this modern VW abomination: https://www.discoverauto.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2... . Try to feel where the slider is set to on that interface... :D Or quickly enable the rear/front demister options...
But make climate control 3 knobs: Fan speed + off, temperature and output ports. Put the AC button inside the temperature knob, and the 'recirculate' button inside the output ports knob.
With the radio have a push on/off volume knob that starts up at the SAME volume as always (i.e. relative, not absolute) and NOT the previous volume. The volume knob should have some resistance to it. Opposite that have a tune knob for precise tuning, and pressing that gets you into setup and navigates you through it. This should have the same resistance, but the outside has some indents so you know it's not the volume knob. Have 6 preset buttons and 3 'banks' with a single 'next bank' button. pressing and holding a preset will save it with a beep for confirmation. On the steering wheel: up/dn for radio should be seek, not next/previous preset. There are 6 nice big buttons for presets but when traveling seek up/dn is the main way we change music.
On the door have the rear view mirror controls, and above that have a knob for dashboard light brightness.
2008 Honda Fit was close to a perfect car. https://www.carsdirect.com/honda/fit/2008/pictures/interior
jqpabc123•15h ago