A New York Times piece headlined "Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies" was published on March 11 (and updated March 13). They noted that With regard to our Claritys: For some drivers, this led to sharp increases in the cost of their insurance. Occasionally I purposely do some hard braking to keep rust from building up on our infrequently used brake rotors. I'm wondering if Honda is selling similar information about our Claritys. As noted in the article, permission to do so is often buried in the contracts or app agreements.
Honda is pretty tight lipped about what they do. If they can, they probably are. FWIW: My sisters father-in-law intentionally has his driving habits sent to his insurance company. If he behaves, and boy does he, his rates are reduced.
When I leased the Clarity BEV for the insanely low rate of $199 per month, part of the deal was you had to agree to allow Honda to upload all of your driving data. This was explicitly delineated in the contract over several paragraphs with several places I had to initial my acknowledgement. Since there was no analagous language in the paperwork I signed when I bought my 2020 Clarity PHEV, I am guessing they are not collecting it.
The analogous language may appear when HondaLink is activated. That’s the Tracker. Never activated it, so it’s just a hunch. Honda wanted the data from the BEV’s, for the PHEV’s it’s a voluntary program.
The Telematics Control Unit is on the left side of the trunk behind the tire pump kit, and the car works fine with it disconnected. (In fact, it doesn't even show anything strange at the dealer.)
