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How To Opt Out Of Your Car’s Surveillance State (Before It’s Too Late)
(www.carsandhorsepower.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2026
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Can't you get older car rebuilt into electric? Seems like it could give it some more years. Correct me if I am wrong tho, I am not great at cars lol
Sure, but IIRC, there's a federal law requiring certain devices to be included in a new car. That probably doesn't include a rebuild, but it could if that becomes a popular enough option to avoid it. It's also usually quite expensive.
Would hope for EU to not have these laws, but I feel like that would be too much hope
The EU seems to being going full steam on destroying privacy too, so I wouldn't bet on it.
Unfortunately yeah... I believe they are talking about reviving Chat Control 1.0 today... Once again
The institution can propose the unpopular policy more times than a population unable or unwilling to alter the institution can smack it down.
True, so far we've been fighting this peacefully, and they keep coming back... Maybe we need to push harder against
Yeah and even if someone is just making barebones frames for kit builds, I think there are legal limits on the number of kit cars that a single shop can do in a year. But those are corporate protectionist laws that we should probably get rid of.
A lot of states dont have inspections anymore. How would they know if I converted an old car to an EV?
Some companies do offer this for a quite hefty price.
Heftier than a new car?
I looked at it at one point (quite a while back) and yes, it was more than a new car usually. It alone was about the price of a new car, like $30k IIRC (again, many years ago I think pre-covid even). You also need to include the car, so add a few thousand, or more depending on the car.
If I already have a car I like that sounds like an awesome deal.
Yeah, it's definitely something to look into. It's not a bad deal at least. It just costs a lot because it's mostly unique work for a single vehicle, rather than a factory pumping out the same one over and over.
That's fair yeah.. But I wouldn't mind an EV, only an EV with all the data connection and all that bs, so this could be a good deal for me in the future
You will spend $50K on a car that is subsequently worthless.
Every car you buy is subsequently worthless.
Closer to $50K. It's a lot of specialized labor and those shops charge $200/hr.
Considering there aren’t any new cars I want and the average price of one is about that much it sounds good to me.
For $50,000 ...then you get an old car no one can fix.
Not quite that much in most cases, but yes a good electric conversion is always in the 5 digits. My old Ranger would be $20K in today's dollars to full convert, if done professionally and correctly. And there's enough rust problems with a frame from the early 90s that you question if something like that is worth it in the long run.