Amidst a major auto industry shift to electric vehicles (EVs) and software-driven mobility, a new survey shows that almost all drivers want to have ownership over their own vehicle data—though consumer awareness on data privacy and ownership are still lacking.
As part of a survey of over 1,300 adults who lease or own vehicles that they drive at least once a week, car insurance app Jerry reported last month that 96 percent of respondents said they should be able to own any data generated by their vehicles. Similarly, 78 percent of those surveyed reported that they were either uncomfortable or extremely uncomfortable with having their data collected by automakers already.
You can see a few insights from the survey below, or check out the full report here.
Credit: Jerry Credit: Jerry Credit: Jerry
“People were nearly unanimous” in “thinking that they should own the data that is generated by their cars,” said Henry Hoenig, Jerry data journalist, in a statement to Automotive News.
The results come as many companies plan to use vehicle data as a consistent revenue stream, including manufacturers, insurance providers, and data brokers. On the consumer side, many may not be fully aware of how their vehicles are being connected to the internet, nor how their data is being used.
Data Collection in Modern Cars and Consumer Awareness
Teslarati spoke with Andy Chatham, co-founder of the connected vehicle platform Digital Infrastructure for Moving Objects (DIMO), about vehicle data ownership and privacy. He notes that modern cars include substantial amounts of data collection, such as Tesla’s 360-degree camera view around the cars as just one example. However, he also says that consumers are less likely to be aware of their vehicles’ data collection practices than they are with their cell phones.
“Generally, your vehicle is the most expensive or the second most expensive asset that you own, and traditionally people are very aware that their phones and their computers are connected to the internet,” Chatham said. “But especially with modern cars, it’s not always obvious that the car is also connected to the internet.”
Chatham says that most automakers aren’t generally following best practices surrounding cybersecurity, noting that many let third-party sub-contractors make those decisions for them, alongside other companies in the supply chain.
“Generally, [automakers are] not following best practices when it comes to how the vehicles are networked and how cybersecurity practices are implemented,” Chatham adds.
“I see a pretty big transition from the world of buying a phone and understanding that this is a device that has a lot of data collection going on, and buying a car and maybe acknowledging that once at the beginning, but never really understanding what that actually means.”
Chatham also says companies should open up their APIs for other developers to create applications using that data, and let vehicle owners access their own vehicle data and toggle permissions directly from their cars—not unlike what Tesla is currently doing.
However, even Tesla’s approach to vehicle data may leave a few things to be desired, and the company is one of many automakers to have faced legal action over the matter. Still, the DIMO co-founder estimates that Tesla is roughly three to five years ahead of the industry, perhaps except for Rivian.
Chatham also notes that as applications for car data improve more and more, and perhaps even offer certain data monetization options for consumers, owners will become more aware of vehicle connectedness. Still, the transition to this new public paradigm could be tricky for both consumers and developers.
“In order for that to even exist in the first place, there’s a chicken and egg problem, because developers don’t want to go cut separate deals with 10 different OEMs and get them to like agree to certain terms and use different APIs. They just won’t,” Chatham adds. “They just want to build to one thing, which is what they’re used to with both. It’s honestly a big enough pain in the ass to get developers to build an iOS and Android app and deal with two separate terms of service.”
“In the car world, Toyota is the biggest automaker and they’re, what, like 15 percent of cars? So it’s not the same dynamic, and then choice is the biggest thing that allows people to protect their own privacy because a lot of consumers don’t care.”
Automakers and the Use of Vehicle Data
Earlier this year, General Motors (GM) reported ceasing a partnership with one data broker, after discovering that the company had been selling customer data to insurance companies without gaining their consent. Public backlash ensued, and affected consumers said they witnessed inexplicable increases for their monthly insurance premiums, which were ultimately traced back to the telemetry program that had shared their data.
Ford and Progressive Insurance were involved in a similar case that brought data ownership and privacy to light in 2022. Last year, Mozilla said that all 25 car companies it examined as part of a study on privacy collected more personal data than necessary, even calling them “privacy nightmares.”
Unlike some companies, Tesla doesn’t sell or rent consumer data to third-party companies, though it does collect driver information on a fleet scale for its own purposes, as the company explains on its website.
“We’re committed to protecting you anytime you get behind the wheel of a Tesla vehicle. That commitment extends to your data privacy,” Tesla writes on its web page dedicated to the topic of privacy. “Our privacy protections aim to go beyond industry standards, ensuring your personal data is never sold, tracked or shared without your permission or knowledge.”
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Tesla is being sued by the family of the woman who was killed in a Texas crash involving a Model 3. The driver, who is also being sued, claimed the vehicle was operating on Autopilot mode, but Tesla executives have come out challenging that claim, stating that the driver of the vehicle overrode the system.
The lawsuit was filed by 76-year-old Martha Avila’s daughter and her husband, who allege a “design defect” involving a Tesla and a failure to warn. The suit alleges negligence against Tesla and the driver, Michael Butler.
Butler “stated he was operating with an automated driving assistance system engaged at the time of the crash,” the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. He showed no signs of intoxication and was cooperative, the Sheriff’s Office said, according to NBC News.
Just after reports of the crash and numerous headlines that immediately blamed Tesla’s Autopilot suite, both Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Head of AI Ashok Elluswamy challenged that. Musk said the crash made “no sense” given that Tesla Autopilot and Full Self-Driving do not travel at the speeds the door cameras captured the car traveling at, which Tesla says was 73 MPH.
Tesla finally clarifies fatal Texas crash, confirms driver manually overrode acceleration
Elluswamy also revealed that Tesla data showed Butler overrode the system by pressing the accelerator to 100%, and that the pedal was compressed fully even after the car had crashed. Tesla has not released this data to the public, likely because it is communicating with agencies like the NHTSA on an investigation.
The suit uses a Washington Post analysis of government data that “identified at least 17 fatal incidents linked to Tesla Autopilot.”
This is far from the first time an accident has been blamed on Autopilot. A fatal crash in Texas was blamed on Autopilot several years ago, but when Tesla released data to the NTSB, which was investigating the crash, Autopilot was not available where the crash occurred, and Autosteer was never enabled, meaning the car was manually controlled at the time of the accident.
“Application of the accelerator pedal was found to be as high as 98.8 percent,” the NTSB said in their findings. The highest recorded speed in the five seconds leading up to the impact was 67 miles per hour. The area where the crash occurred is residential, and Texas State laws… pic.twitter.com/XGD97NHVZ2
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 18, 2026
More information on the accident will be released as Tesla works with agencies to find the cause of the crash. From personal experience, it is hard to imagine Tesla Autopilot or FSD operating in this manner. It drives sometimes too cautiously in residential areas in parking lots, at least in my experience. Speeding happens, but at this rate in this type of area, it is hard to believe.
We look forward to more details being released with time.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has awarded the 2025-2026 Tesla Cybertruck crew cab pickup its highest honor: Top Safety Pick+. This marks the Cybertruck as the only full-size pickup to achieve this distinction in recent evaluations.
The award applies specifically to vehicles built after April 2025, following structural upgrades including front underbody reinforcements and footwell modifications.
These changes enabled strong performance in updated crash tests. The Cybertruck earned “Good” ratings in the small overlap front (driver and passenger sides), updated moderate overlap front, and updated side tests—core requirements for the Top Safety Pick+ designation.
It also secured acceptable or good headlights across trims and a “Good” rating for its standard front crash prevention system in pedestrian scenarios, along with acceptable or good performance in vehicle-to-vehicle testing.
The Cybertruck avoided every single pedestrian collision, including:
- Daytime child crossing
- Nightitime adult crossing
- Night parallel adult
In IIHS pedestrian front crash prevention tests, @Cybertruck avoided every single collision – daytime, nighttime & different angles
It was also the only pickup to earn Top Safety Pick+ (highest award) in 2026https://t.co/BNPqT9TbsW pic.twitter.com/M6nwDisBFK
— Tesla (@Tesla) June 24, 2026
In the large pickup category, competitors such as the Toyota Tundra received only a standard Top Safety Pick, while the Ford F-150 and Ram 1500 did not qualify for either award. This positions the Cybertruck as a standout in occupant protection and crash avoidance among its peers.
Credit: IIHS
Ironically, the same vehicle celebrated for superior U.S. safety performance remains banned from public roads in the United Kingdom and much of Europe. Regulators there cite the Cybertruck’s sharp external edges and highly rigid stainless-steel construction as failing pedestrian-protection standards. European and UK rules require rounded surfaces on protruding parts to minimize injury risk in collisions with vulnerable road users.
Critics also point to the truck’s substantial weight and unyielding body structure, which some argue could transfer more force to other vehicles or pedestrians rather than absorbing it.
Tesla’s engineering philosophy underpins the Cybertruck’s strong IIHS results. The vehicle features a distinctive stainless-steel exoskeleton made from ultra-hard 30X cold-rolled stainless steel. This provides exceptional structural rigidity and a robust safety cage that resists deformation in side impacts and rollovers.
Engineers designed integrated load paths to channel crash forces away from the occupant compartment while allowing controlled energy absorption in key zones. Post-April 2025 refinements to the front underbody further optimized performance in overlap crashes.
Complementing the passive structure is Tesla’s advanced active safety suite, including the standard Collision Avoidance Assist system with automatic emergency braking. This contributed directly to the vehicle’s strong front crash prevention scores. The skateboard platform and low center of gravity also enhance stability and handling, reducing the likelihood of certain crashes.
The IIHS recognition highlights how Tesla’s combination of high-strength materials, structural innovation, and software-driven safety systems can deliver top-tier protection in rigorous testing. While global regulatory differences on design and pedestrian interaction continue to limit the Cybertruck’s availability outside North America, its U.S. safety credentials set a new benchmark for full-size pickups.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Elon Musk confirmed Starmind as SpaceX’s AI satellite constellation name, targeting one million orbital compute nodes.
Elon Musk confirmed that Starmind will be the official name of SpaceX’s planned AI satellite constellation, following a trademark filing by xAI that surfaced earlier this week. Starmind is what’s being described to the FCC as a constellation of up to one million AI satellites
It’s worth noting that SpaceX’s Starlink communication satellite and Starmind are built on the same orbital infrastructure concept but serve entirely different purposes. Starlink is a connectivity network, with satellites receiving and relaying data between points on Earth, and functioning as a high-speed internet backbone in space. The satellites themselves do not process or think, and move information from one place to another, the same function a fiber cable performs underground.
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Starmind, on the other hand, is something completely different, and tather than moving data, its satellites would compute data through artificial intelligence and directly in orbit using onboard processors powered by large solar arrays. Where a Starlink satellite is essentially a very fast pipe, a Starmind satellite is a server. The practical implication is that Starmind would allow AI models to run inference, process queries, and generate outputs from space, then beam results down to users anywhere on Earth within milliseconds, and without the data ever needing to travel to a terrestrial data center.
Starship will be able to carry 30 to 50 AI1 satellites per launch, delivering the equivalent of dozens of server racks per flight, with no land acquisition, no power grid approval, and no cooling infrastructure required on the ground.
SpaceX is pursuing this new technology as terrestrial data centers are running into hard limits such as lack of physical space, community opposition, and power and water consumption at a scale that is increasingly difficult to permit. Space has unlimited solar power, natural vacuum cooling, and no zoning boards. Musk said in a June 8 video presentation that he expects space to become the lowest-cost location to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Two AI1 prototypes are scheduled to launch in early 2027, with volume production targeted for the end of that year at a new facility called Gigasat.
The real world applications Starmind enables extend well beyond powering Grok. A constellation of orbiting AI processors could run inference workloads for any paying customer, anywhere on Earth, with latency measured in milliseconds rather than the seconds associated with ground-based cloud routing across continents. Starmind, if it scales as described, would make SpaceX the landlord of AI compute the same way Starlink made it the landlord of satellite internet.
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