Comment by J_Shelby_J 3 days ago
I wonder what the extremely rich do to get a car that isn’t a security risk? I’ve heard you can throw money at high end car dealerships to disable spying, but I wonder what the internal process is.
I some months back called every independent EV mechanic I could find a listing for in my state to see if they would help me disable the cellular modem of any of the models I was interested in buying, and they mostly told me either that they couldn't or wouldn't. One of the more polite shops I got in touch with explained that many models don't have a separate board that can be disabled anymore, or otherwise have more things on the board that need to be talking on the CAN bus for other, actually important parts of the car to function. As such, I still have my old car.
Since then, I've learned about the 50ohm dummy antennas you can buy. I might try that if my car dies before an AWD/4WD Slate truck becomes an option, and also if my living situation can accommodate charging.
As far as I know, all modern Toyotas have discrete DCMs (data communication modules) that can be physically unplugged with limited side effects. The side effects are loss a speaker and hands-free microphone, but they be restored by means of a bypass harness. Simply unplugging the antennas does not seem to be enough in areas with good cellular coverage. I have seen the dummy load approach discussed on car forums but have no experience with it.
This will probably be a thing, but it's not clear that folks are cognizant of the risks yet.
It's easier than that, you can remove the cellular modem. Dealers won't generally accept to make this mod, but any independent shop should be able to. There are also plenty of videos on YT to DIY.