Electric vehicle nightmare: Technical failure at Volkswagen exposed data of at least 800,000 customers

Electric vehicles never cease to cause problems. Now Volkswagen is facing a situation in which the movement data of 800,000 electric vehicles, as well as the contact details of their owners, were unprotected on the internet.

According to an investigation by renowned German media outlet Spiegel, the data showed exactly when these cars were parked at home or elsewhere. In other words, the leak provided insight into the daily lives of those affected.

"All this information should not be publicly available. But it was. A volume of several terabytes of data on about 800,000 electric cars was largely unprotected and accessible for months in Amazon's cloud storage. VW, Seat, Audi and Skoda vehicles in Germany, Europe and other parts of the world are affected. And many of their owners," detailed the report made by the media.

According to the information, this occurred because customers must have an application that tracks and has their data in order to use all the features of the vehicle. German politicians such as Markus Grübel, member of the German Bundestag, were also affected.

Another of those affected was Nadja Weippert, mayor of Tostedt. The report detailed that "the politician's vehicle was often parked in front of the Tostedt town hall and the Lower Saxony state parliament, but from there you can also see her sports club, her favorite bakery and her physical therapist's practice, as well as her two-day trip to the state party conference in Oldenburg."

In that sense, the journalistic investigation showed that Weippert and Grübel were not the only politicians or personalities affected. Other politicians, businessmen and organizations may have been victims of the leak. In fact, the media outlet explained that the Hamburg police, with its roughly 35 electric patrol cars, and employees of intelligence services could have also been affected.

"For about half of those affected, including owners of VW ID.3 and ID.4 models, the data is especially detailed. It shows when the respective vehicle was turned on and when and where exactly it was turned off. Most of the data is from 2024, while other information goes back further," the report stated.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen assured that it is resolving the issue. Sources told Europa Press that allegedly there was no fraudulent leak of the data or sale to third parties.