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Car manufacturers are. They probably get a bulk discount on relatively cheap data plans. It was enough for GM to keep OnStar running until Verizon got rid of supporting all 2G and 3G service in the USA.
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No, but the Wikipedia article seems to indicate that OnStar has the ability to store GPS and phone contact information even if you aren’t subscribed.
Also, I can’t imagine that buying several millions of data connections would be that expensive, especially if all that those connections are doing are sending out a ping of reports once a month.
Amazon did a thing where if your wifi is down Alexa can connect to a neighbors Alexa which will relay the message to the server.
I imagine a car could do the same much easier, you pull up to the lights next to a car from the same manufacturer and it relays all your telemetrics.
It’s time for an open source car.