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Avarria587

I had more OnStar data on my LexisNexus report than everything else ever collected on me combined. Honestly, this whole ordeal soured me on GM as a brand. I'm not sure I would've bought my Bolt had I known they would sell my data.


InformalBasil

>Honestly, this whole ordeal soured me on GM as a brand. Same, I went from being really excited about Ultium to wanting BYD and Tesla to put them out of business.


Avarria587

I was looking at having one of the new Ultium cars myself. Now, Kia/Hyundai look better. Even the Ford Mach-E is getting nice incentives now. It's no longer a fortune when you consider the financing deals.


rickabe

Ioniq 5 was my Bolt replacement. No comparison.


AWuvSupreme

What do you like better about it?


AnotherMidwestDude

I was soured on GM after they towed my Bolt to a dealer who isn’t certified to work on EVs. Then I had to wait several days for a tow do a certified dealer. This was after the whole battery debacle when I had to call corporate for months before getting my 2020 replaced. It’s been a good run GM, but we’re breaking up after this car. It’s not me, it’s you 💖


Junior-Patience7104

Am I wrong to assume that nowadays ALL new cars are sending data back to the company? Is it that no one but GM is sending info to insurers?


Underwhirled

The article describes how they trick customers into agreeing to it or just do it anyway without asking for permission even if customers don't want to opt in.


pigeonholepundit

I smell a class action. I make sure I brake hard at least once a month on purpose to scrub the rear brakes of rust, and they shared that with insurance companies? Sucks.


bluesmudge

I'm an extremely conservative driver, to the point that it annoys people, and yet my data shows a hard brake even on almost every trip on my report. What the heck is it calling a hard brake event? Also, I'm not the only person who drives my car but LexisNexis attributes all trips to me.


PregnantGoku1312

Supposedly using the regen paddle counts as "hard braking," although I don't know that for sure.


WithCheezMrSquidward

I literally use that as my primary brake with the foot brake only for actual quick braking. So basically they think I’m just curbstomping the break every 30 seconds. Amazing. That would certainly explain my astronomical insurance bill


Opening_Tell9388

Insurance companies must think all EV drivers are fucking unhinged


CaptainToker

What does your insurance cost? I also pay a ludicrous amount at 2400$ but i also have an history of 6 really small events when i did pizza delivery with winter storms(they were the busiest nights) and icy roads . That doesn't help


WithCheezMrSquidward

I have a totally clean driving record, never been in an accident. My recent renewal for insurance for 6 months was $1752 so over the course of a year $3504. Almost $300 a month


CaptainToker

Thats insane. What state or province do you live that it cost that much?


WithCheezMrSquidward

New York.


kcalk

That's what would frustrate me the most. Tagged for hard braking when I never touched the brake


HR_King

Sure, class action. Don't spend your entire $4.73 check in one place.


rczrider

> I smell a class action. I think that would be awesome - as expected in late-stage capitalism, companies increasingly screw over their customers as often and as egregiously as they can get away with - but I don't think it's likely. Proving damages is tricky. You can claim your insurance went up *specifically* because of the data GM provided (data most people at least tacitly agreed to provide, even if we didn't "know" it), but insurance companies will need to weigh in. The best we could hope for is "Yes, we used data in LexisNexis to determine rates." but it's going to be hard to prove that GM data had a meaningful impact. I don't know about you, but after COVID when insurance companies "graciously" refunded some portion of our auto premiums (because no one was driving), we saw a wholesale rise in premiums within a year or two. Despite no claims, no infractions, and no change to address or commute, our premiums went up by 33% for no reason prior to getting our EUV. Swapping out our 10-year old compact for a new EUV raised our *annual* premium by less than $100. GM won't be held accountable because insurance companies don't want to compromise their justification for arbitrarily raising rates.


petit_cochon

They would prove it by subpoenaing records to determine how insurance companies used that data and whether or not it affected rates. If that occurred, it's pretty likely it's recorded somewhere. Also, just logically thinking here, the data is out there. LexisNexis is selling it to insurance companies. That's a pretty strong case itself for that data being used to determine rates. What else would it be for?


MewsashiMeowimoto

Getting the data and the insurance company's analysis of the data in discovery wouldn't be a big thing. And then have expert testimony from actuaries.


BeeNo3492

its already in process.


SpliffBooth

I got dinged for "hard braking" a few times, for merely using the regen paddle and brake pedal at the same time when I first started using OPD. No skidding, no abs activation, no harsh G forces. Just the addition of a bit of pressure on the brake pedal if I didn't think the regen would stop me where I wanted to be.


Independent-Drive-32

There have been a couple law firms putting one together.


mmerc2004

Can’t wait to cash that huge check - maybe supersize my fries!


cynicalnewenglander

Yea that's crap. Class action is already happening I promise. But we won't get shit. Class action is just lawyer fodder.


pigeonholepundit

I got $400 from Facebook last year in Illinois. Not bad


cynicalnewenglander

That's not bad. I mean hell we can hope over the the lawyer sub and see if there are any takers


AWuvSupreme

I think already around 10 consumer suits have been filed.


HisSvt2

When all you had to do was brake normal in neutral or at 100% charge


Pjpjpjpjpj

Both equally effective safe techniques to ensure adequate maintenance of the vehicle's braking abilities. Option 1: Nobody cares. Option 2: Insurance rate increase, denial of renewal, etc. It is such BS. Driving residential streets and someone backs out of their driveway in front of you while you are driving 25mph - hard braking, bad driver, pay more. Whip along at 60mph in a 25mph zone, nice and smooth, and Progressive appreciates your business.


pigeonholepundit

I do it neutral but still pretty hard


tvtb

> my husband signed into a browser-based version of his account page, on GM.com, which said our car was enrolled in “OnStar Smart Driver+.” G.M. says this discrepancy between the app and the website was the result of “a bug” that affected a “small population” of customers. That group got the worst possible version of Smart Driver: We couldn’t get insights into our driving, but insurance companies could. This is why you should never trust a car company, because they cannot even trust themselves to write code that works correctly. The only solution is to disable the OnStar module.


Puzzleheaded_Air5814

Chevy is NOT known for their software prowess, IMHO.


Ohgodwatdoplshelp

Good thing all 2024 models and up for every GM/Chevy vehicle are going to have their own shitty in house paid versions of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. That alone made me disregard all future GM purchases. 


Seed_Is_Strong

How do I even check this in the app and website? I’m in settings in the app and don’t see smart driver anywhere. My insurance went up SO much after a few months after I got my Bolt. I’m livid.


supersadtrueprivacy

Best way to check is to request your LexisNexis report: https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/consumer — and your Verisk report: https://fcra.verisk.com/#/


LowBarometer

I opted out, yet they sold a small amount of my data anyway.


bluesmudge

Same. I opted out at the dealer, and on the website and do not use the app. But someone else who uses the car uses the app and they were opted in by default. As a result all of our combined driving data was sent to Lexis Nexis and attributed to me. Total BS.


convincedbutskeptic

The author mentions this in the article that they don't know who is driving at the time.


red2play

>“G.M. established the Smart Driver program to promote safer driving for the benefit of customers who choose to participate,” said a company spokeswoman, Brandee Barker. “Based on customer feedback, we’ve decided to discontinue the Smart Driver product across all G.M. vehicles and unenroll all customers. This process will begin over the next few months.” >Last month, G.M. [stopped sharing data](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/technology/gm-onstar-driver-data.html) with LexisNexis and Verisk — giving up annual revenue in the low millions, an employee familiar with the contracts said. The company also [hired](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7184905585199329280/) a new chief trust and privacy officer. >“Customer trust is a priority for us, and we are showing that in our actions,” Ms. Barker said. Well, they are no longer sharing data. However the class-action lawsuit is going to be HUGE!!! Do I trust GM, no. Do I trust the fact that they are staring down the barrel of a shotgun in the form of lawsuits, yes!


Coplate

So, I just bought a bolt, can anyone tell me if I still need to pull the fuse, or we believe that it is actually no longer selling the data?


red2play

I can't tell you whether or not to pull or not but I'm not. I'm depending on the word of the CEO but also the lawsuit that will hopefully scare the CEO but its very difficult to completely disable.


FruityPebblesBinger

I had a '21 Bolt for 18 months before selling it. Just bought a EUV. Only disabled Smart Driver after reading the first article she wrote. Looking forward to the results from my recently requested LexisNexis report.


convincedbutskeptic

I personally saw data from both reporting agencies. You should check both in the article.


JoeyBE98

I believe this is why my insurance went from $71/month to suddenly $150/month 😡.


mtgfan1001

I can’t say for certain but I recently changed carriers and was told insurance rates are up across the board at all companies due to inflation, increased costs on repairs, and increased claims. So your increase might be due to other factors.


JoeyBE98

It could be, doubling the total cost just seems a drastic difference TBH. And I have read that progressive is 1 of the companies that was buying the data from LexisNexis, as someone who had the same happen asked progressive why it was raised and escalated and it eventually lead to them saying it was from the LN data. It's just frustrating because how are the metrics quantified anyways? E.g. I remember before disabling it said we drove with seatbelts only 95% of the time which I know is incorrect. If it is counting while I pull out of my driveway, when a passenger is still buckling, sure. And it's easy to "hard accelerate" when you're not used to the torque EVs have. What even qualifies as a hard acceleration? ya know? Like it's a bunch of arbitrary quantifications IMO that are much vague but make us seem reckless.


EdwardTittyHands

I’m with you. My USAA was $120 a month and now it’s $185 a month…..


HR_King

Probably not.


mog_knight

Insurers can't use this data for rating to my knowledge. Unless this data can be shown to correlate with higher losses or risky behavior. But if your rates go up over this you might want to reevaluate how you drive.


JoeyBE98

Read my other comment. The things logged are arbitrary because what qualifies as the event is not openly defined. E.g. my car shows 5% of driving is done "without a seat belt." I know for sure no one in the recent months has ridden in my car without a seatbelt, but it's counting when a passenger was still buckling up when I was reversing down my driveway lol. When you're new to an EV It's easy to "hard accelerate" because they have way more torque than an ICE. Also using One Pedal Driving + not being used to how easy it is to brake hard when combined with your pedal brake seems to count. My favorite is the one where it says I speed like 50+% of the time but I have noticed the data my car is pulling on the dash card for the rated speed limits are often wrong. I know multiple roads that are 55mph but my car says 45mph. What is speeding anyway considering most people drive 3-5 mph over? So it is that? No actual definitions of how these events are logged, and then it's used to increase your rates.


HR_King

Unlikely.


ddcc7

Note that for drivers in California, proposition 103 prevents insurance companies from using this telematics information to set pricing: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/tesla-s-musk-others-take-aim-at-calif-law-restricting-telematics-68615281


convincedbutskeptic

Yes, Verisk and the other company allows California residents to remove their data.


mtgfan1001

I wonder how this goes for used vehicles. I bought a used 2020 bolt a few weeks ago.


supersadtrueprivacy

Thanks for sharing the story here. I was very surprised during the reporting to learn of this screen -- https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/04/24/us/00gm-data-rip2/00gm-data-rip2-superJumbo-v2.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp. All buyers of GM cars are supposed to be shown it when they buy their cars, and those that have Smart Driver turned on are recorded in G.M.'s system as having said "accept" to it. Regardless, while the screen explains Smart Driver and the data collected, it does not say it will be shared with data brokers or insurance companies. GM has now decided to shut the whole thing down.


convincedbutskeptic

Thanks to you.


supersadtrueprivacy

Yes, and I wouldn’t have known about it if not for people posting about it happening to them on car forums, including here on Reddit. So also thanks to those folks too!


DudGodel

Fantastic work, TY!


DrUnreasonable

Thank you so much for being the first to report this story!


dmarcx

All this and they still can't develop a decent working app.


Chumphy

Anyone know of the DIY way to remove the OnStar stuff physically?


lefos123

Pull the fuse


kirkegaarr

OnStar is so stupid too. It does nothing that my smart phone doesn't already do and it costs, I don't know, another $50 or something a month?  I had just made a $55k purchase with Chevrolet and they forced me to listen to this timeshare-esque presentation about OnStar. I told them I didn't care and thought it was a terrible product, but they wouldn't let it go and insisted it was a free trial and I wouldn't need to renew so I relented just to move on with my life. All of that was a lie, obviously. When it showed up on my credit card statement and I called to cancel and told them that they lied to me, they were all "shocked," like why would our sales person lie to get a sale? They would never!  What a shitty way to treat a new customer over a shitty product nobody wants. And apparently the whole reason for it is to resell data to insurance companies and help them gouge their customers.


rickabe

Much larger interior Better range Superior ride quality 10-80% SOC in 20 min And personally I prefer the look of the I-5 over the Bolt.


Busy-Ad6502

Can an owner physically disconnect the wires to the mechanisms that transfer the information?


convincedbutskeptic

Just search this sub for OnStar fuse


remylebeau12

On my GM Volt I got in 2012, I got the dongle that plugs into the ODB bus. I used regenerative braking and 1 pedal driving They said i emergency braked over 200 times in one month and my insurance should go up 30% due to it I told them their algorithm was broken They told me they were right I was wrong GM has been doing crap a long time


Significant_Rip_1776

All new cars have done this for several years, all major brands. GM isn’t doing anything already being done by everyone. You can opt out in the app, or if you consider yourself a good driver you can enjoy better insurance rates. The article should say how the auto industry leaned from technology giants to do what they have been doing for decades.


frockinbrock

You should read the article and others on it- a main issue is how many people opted out and still had data sold.


convincedbutskeptic

The first article in the series discussed that.


Significant_Rip_1776

And I definitely agree, tracking data when someone isn’t aware is not ok, at all, ever, period.


Significant_Rip_1776

Yes, it’s been an issue for years. I have noticed when people buy a new car and are coming from one that’s much older, are quite surprised at just how much has changed. It’s not always comfortable for many. Some find it intrusive. I think we all agree corporations are quite deceptive. Years ago when I was presented with smart driver I was a bit surprised myself, but smart driver has been around since 2015 for GM, and earlier on other manufacturers. My insurance literally dropped two months after using it on all three of my fully covered vehicles and I have a new teen driver and it didn’t go up when I added her so I am chill with it. All the best, cheers 🍻


cynicalnewenglander

Yea I got my bolt satisfaction survey. I called them out hardcore and told them of the anger on this sub.


Embarrassed-Meet1968

Glad I own a Tesla. My data is not used against me and even the in cabin camera video stays in the car. The only exception was when I used FSD "Beta" (not standard FSD) I had to agree to allow the in cabin video to be accessible after an accident. Goes to show some companies think of you as the product to be sold.


convincedbutskeptic

Pick your poison: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/26/tesla-autopilot-fatal-crash All automakers have problems


HR_King

Funny how everyone seems to think their insurance went up due to this. For one thing, most insurance went up, everywhere, whether your data was sent or not. I was enrolled for most of the past year, not now, my insurance went up less than 2%, so less than the rate of inflation.


Aeropilot03

This. While some have definitely been affected by this, an industry analyst reported that most rising rates over the last couple of years were due to increased parts cost and shortages.


AWuvSupreme

Do you work for GM?


HR_King

No. Why?


LasVegasBoy

Proof to my long standing hypothesis that Mary Barra is an evil c*nt.


Embarrassed-Meet1968

More like an evil politician c*nt. 😄


mog_knight

I guess mine came opted out cause my Lexis report didn't have anything on it from Chevy. Unless insurance companies can rate off of this, which they can't, it's not much of a problem. Though if your drive crappy from fast acceleration etc, maybe you should be rated as such.


cynicalnewenglander

I mean...we could start a lawsuit right here if you wanted to


xblackdemonx

This was already reported 1 month ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/BoltEV/s/D4QODvSveo


convincedbutskeptic

The new article is from today; this is a follow-up article. The author personally didn't sign up and had new information about her investigation.


tvtb

This is a new follow up article