When that feature is remote telemetry, yeah it is correct.

Its nice knowing the doors are actually locked when you issue a remote unlock and then lock command when a friend is trying to grab something and you didn't want to handle the logistics of them getting to you to get the keys to get to the car and then back to you. Or making sure you really did lock it when you walked away.

It's nice knowing the state of charge while the car is on the charger and get that data somewhat live while it's charging and you're in a restaurant or whatever.

It's nice having the last known location on a map when you're trying to find the car in a maze of a parking lot and it turns out it wasn't parked in lot H row 72 like you thought you remembered.

It's nice starting the AC or heat well before you get to the car and are far out of range of the key remote.

There's a lot of telemetry that's kind of nice to have, assuming you can have control over it and who it's shared with. It's not nice having it shared without your consent and potentially used against you.

▲

userbinator an hour ago | parent | next [-]

We had remote starters and heaters long before the Internet. Local communication ensures someone halfway around the world won't be able to control your car, but apparently it's too difficult (really?) or not invasive enough for their surveillance desires.

	▲	vel0city an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Remote starters generally had really poor range. I know, I've owned a few of them over the years. Often you need direct line of sight and have to be somewhat close, usually only slightly better range than the regular fob assuming you installed it right. It was a terrible experience compared to being able to issue the command from anywhere. I can be in the middle of a shopping mall and start having the car cool down well before I get there, while before I'd practically have to already be on the right floor of the parking garage.

▲

calvinmorrison an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

in a room full of experts, sometimes it takes an idiot to point out, really none of these things requires Ford to store data in a way it can access

	▲	rootusrootus an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The technology required to make it possible for you to send a remote HVAC command to your car without Ford necessarily being able to tell that you did that is complex enough that I expect most FAANG companies wouldn't pull it off successfully.
	▲	vel0city an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It takes someone to store some of this data somewhere. I'd prefer more choices on how this data is handled, no doubt. See the last sentence of my previous comment. But yes, generally speaking and replying to your original question of "requires telemetry to remotely access certain features on their car", yes it takes some kind of access to telemetry data to access telemetry data. The whole feature is access to telemetry data in the end, presented in useful ways. Whether Ford uses some kind of homomorphic encryption to handle that data or sets up end to end encryption between your phone and the data receiver from the car or allows you to configure third party telemetry retrieval services is a whole different question to ask.