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Texas sues GM, saying it tricked customers into sharing driving data sold to insurers

Texas filed a lawsuit Tuesday against GM over years of alleged abuse of customers' data and trust. New car owners were presented with a "confusing and highly misleading" process that was implied to be for their safety, but "was no more than a deceptively designed sales flow" that surrendered their data for GM to sell. The suit contends that at no point was selling driving data ever even suggested as a possibility, putting GM in violation of the state's consumer protection laws. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking a jury trial and at least $10,000 per offense (every GM car sold in the state since 2015) and a hefty add-on of $250,000 in cases where the victim was over 65. Texas seems to be flying high after a recent $1.4 billion settlement from Meta over other privacy concerns. This may well be a way to solve any pending budgetary issues in the Lone Star State.

Bosch builds an infotainment system that just might not suck

As far as we've come with in-car infotainment and interfaces over the past decade or so, we still have a long way to go — as most current systems show. Whether it's high-end brands like Mercedes-Benz with its kludgy COMAND system, which we hope will be replaced with the MBUX platform revealed at CES, or more mainstream vehicles like Hondas (with their frustrating, knobless Display Audio interface), getting the kind of content and ease of use in the car that we're used to having on other connected devices is far too complex and sometimes costly. While Apple and Google have tried to ride to the rescue with CarPlay and Android Auto, respectively, they're limited solutions. No automaker or tech supplier has been able to deliver an easy, economical, flexible and non-distracting infotainment solution. But Bosch could be closing in on this elusive goal, given the digital cockpit concept demo I recently received at CES. Displayed in a Cadillac Escalade, the concept featured five interconnected color screens: one in the instrument cluster, two in the center console, and two more in the front-seat headrest for second-row passengers. The digital cockpit concept demo had cool features such as haptic-feedback touch-screen controls that created an edge-like feeling similar to a physical button, facial recognition to confirm driver credentials, and the intelligence to know the location of a phone in the car to lock it out to keep the driver from texting. The most significant aspect of the Bosch digital cockpit concept wasn't visible — but shows the company's vision for a future of seamless, convenient, cost-effective and safe in-car infotainment. It's powered by a single electronic control unit (ECU) that can simultaneously run multiple operating systems and also separates vehicle and infotainment controls for critical safety and cybersecurity reasons. Most modern cars can have as many as 100 separate ECUs, Philip Ventimiglia, product manager for Bosch Car Multimedia North America, explained at CES, and several just for infotainment functions. "The goal is to reduce that to about 10 so that we can save cost throughout the vehicle and enable new technologies," he added. "OEMs want to put more technology into cars, but it costs money," Ventimiglia said.

2021 Cadillac Escalade price increases take starting price to $77,490

Update: This story has been updated with official pricing from Cadillac that includes the destination charge and pricing for the long wheelbase ESV model. The modified story continues below. As the 2021 Cadillac Escalade prepares behind-the-scenes for duty in front of real-life red carpets, more information on the brand new fifth-generation SUV bubbles to the surface. GM Authority got its hands on some MSRP figures the other day, but we have the official pricing from Cadillac now. GM kept pricing of the other full-sized SUV family — the Tahoe, Suburban, and Yukon — unchanged or close to the outgoing models. Escalade intenders will be happy to know the same goes here, the 2021 example priced at $77,490 after a $1,295 destination charge is added in, only $1,000 more that the soon-to-be retired 2020 Escalade for a fancier cabin and lots of new tech inside and out. Cadillac reworked the trim walk for 2021 to its Y-trim configuration, splitting into Luxury and Sport models above the base trim. There were four options in 2020, not including all-wheel-drive versions: Base, Luxury, Premium Luxury, and Platinum. There are five for the new year: Luxury, Premium Luxury, Sport, Premium Luxury Platinum, and Sport Platinum. The switcheroo makes it hard to compare all but the bottom and top trims, but the price walk for rear-wheel-drive versions goes: Luxury: $77,490 Premium Luxury: $84,290 Sport: $86,890 Premium Luxury Platinum: $101,290 Sport Luxury Platinum: $101,290  Add $3,000 to any of those trim prices, and you'll have the corresponding long wheelbase ESV price. Four wheel drive is a similar $3,000 charge on any trim. That means the base price on the top trim Escalade ESV with four-wheel drive is $107,290. The 2021 Platinum models are $7,700 more than the 2020 Escalade Platinum. The standard engine is the 6.2-liter V8, shifting through a 10-speed transmission. And the 3.0-liter Duramax diesel is a no-cost option, so take your pick. Customers could end up waiting for the Escalade as well, depending on when every kind of manufacturing can restart in earnest to serve the Arlington, Texas, plant all the parts it needs to build the new SUV. Related Video: