General
“Honda took less than $26,000 for driving data from 97,000 cars, roughly 26 cents per vehicle." (Caption: "Your driving data may have been sold for as little as 26 cents per vehicle. Honda reportedly received that amount per car...")”
This post lists 8 claims. We checked item 8.
Plain restatementHonda received a payment of under $26,000 from a data broker in exchange for driving data associated with approximately 97,000 vehicles, equating to approximately 26 cents per vehicle.
This number is real and checks out. A July 2024 letter from Senators Ron Wyden and Ed Markey to the Federal Trade Commission states that Honda shared driving data from 97,000 cars with the data broker Verisk, and that Verisk paid Honda $25,920, which works out to about 26 cents per car. The figure came from Honda itself in response to a Senate oversight inquiry. What the post leaves out matters though. That payment covered four years, from 2020 to 2024, and the 97,000 vehicles were ones whose owners had opted into Honda's Driver Feedback app feature, not all Honda drivers. The senators separately alleged the consent was undermined because the mention of Verisk was buried in long legal terms. Verisk shut down the driver scoring product in 2024 after New York Times reporting. The claim that this personally affected your insurance rate is not established by any source for any specific individual.
Honda [drifted from the evidence:] took less than $26,000 for driving data [drifted from the evidence:] from 97,000 [drifted from the evidence:] cars, roughly 26 cents per vehicle." (Caption: "Your driving data may have been sold for as little as 26 cents per vehicle. [drifted from the evidence:] Honda reportedly received that amount per car...")
Honda [added by the neutral restatement:] received a payment of under $26,000 [added by the neutral restatement:] from a data broker in exchange for driving data [added by the neutral restatement:] associated with approximately 97,000 [added by the neutral restatement:] vehicles, equating to approximately 26 cents per vehicle.
Red-tinted words in the claim drifted from the evidence. Green-tinted words are what a neutral restatement needs.
The trace / claim to source
- The dollar amount is correct. $25,920 is less than $26,000.
- The vehicle count is correct. 97,000 cars.
- The per-car figure matches the source's own phrasing of 26 cents (actual division yields 26.7 cents).
- Verisk is a data broker that supplied driving behavior reports to auto insurers, which is the mechanism implied by the post's insurance framing.
- The underlying document is real, public, and primary. This is not a fabricated statistic.
- Omitted qualifier (timeframe): the post presents the payment as a flat figure with no indication it covers a four-year period from 2020 to 2024.
- Omitted qualifier (enrollment): the post does not mention that the 97,000 vehicles were ones whose owners had opted into Honda's Driver Feedback feature through the app. The senators' separate allegation is that the consent was undermined by buried disclosures, which is an important distinction from "Honda sold everyone's data."
- Subgroup generalization in the caption: "Your driving data may have been sold for as little as 26 cents per vehicle" implies broad applicability to the reader. The 26 cent figure applies specifically to 97,000 Honda vehicles in one broker arrangement. Hyundai's rate in the same letter was more than double that.
- Omitted qualifier (status): the post does not note that Verisk discontinued the driver scoring product in 2024 and that the arrangement described ended.
- Framing of "took": the word implies unilateral seizure. The source describes a commercial payment from a broker to an automaker, with the consent dispute being the senators' allegation rather than an established finding. Secondary claims in the post, briefly:
- "19 of 21 cars tested were caught sending driver data to third-party companies" is supported. According to the Northeastern University study, 19 of 21 vehicles contacted at least one third party, including advertising and tracking domains, and the report analyzed traffic from 21 vehicles and 30 automaker apps. The research was conducted as part of a partnership with the nonprofit media group Consumer Reports.
- "GM sold location data from 14 million cars" is overstated as worded. The 14 million figure originates from the Texas Attorney General's 2024 suit describing data collection, not sales volume. In August 2024, Texas AG Ken Paxton sued General Motors for collecting driving data from over 1.8 million Texans and more than 14 million vehicle owners nationwide without meaningful consent. Separately, the FTC's January 2025 complaint detailed how GM, through OnStar's "Smart Driver" feature, allegedly collected precise geolocation and driving behavior data every three seconds. The "every 3 seconds" detail in the post is accurate to the FTC complaint.
- "In January the FTC finalised its order against GM and OnStar" is supported. The final order was announced Jan. 14, resolving allegations first brought by the FTC in January 2025, concluding that the automaker collected, used and sold sensitive vehicle data without adequately informing consumers or obtaining affirmative consent.
- Whether the $25,920 figure is complete. It reflects what Honda told Senate staff; no audit, regulatory finding, or court record independently confirms the exact sum.
- Whether all 97,000 vehicles' data was actually monetized or whether some was transferred without resale.
- Honda's full public response to the consent allegation was not retrieved in detail in this investigation.
- Whether any of the 97,000 drivers experienced an insurance premium change as a result. The post's caption implies a causal link to premiums for the reader personally. No source establishes that for any identified individual.
The figure traces cleanly to a single primary document. The Wyden/Markey letter states that between 2020 and 2024, Honda shared data from 97,000 cars with Verisk, which paid Honda $25,920, or 26 cents per car, and that it did so without obtaining informed consent from consumers, according to information Honda provided Senator Wyden's office. The senators' press release repeats the same finding: Honda shared data from 97,000 cars with the data broker Verisk, which paid Honda $25,920, or 26 cents per car. The same letter contains a comparison figure. Hyundai shared data from 1.7 million cars with Verisk, which paid Hyundai $1,043,315.69, or 61 cents per car. The letter was based on information Wyden obtained directly from the automakers about payments the data broker Verisk made to them. Context on how Honda's data was collected: Owners who opted into Honda's Driver Feedback program through the company's mobile app had their data disclosed to the analytics company, which paid Honda $25,920, or just 26 cents per car. The senators alleged that Honda customers who signed up for the optional Driver Feedback program saw an enrollment screen with prominent language asking consent to track them to gauge insurance discount eligibility, and after consenting were then asked to agree to far lengthier legal terms that buried the fact that their data would be shared with Verisk. The broker product has since been discontinued. One of Verisk's products, which it shut down in April 2024 following New York Times reporting, scored drivers on their safe driving habits using data from internet-connected cars; automakers shared drivers' data with Verisk, which mined it to prepare Driving Behavior Data History Reports that Verisk sold to auto insurance companies.
Complete reasoning
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Ask this case
Answers come only from the case file above; nothing is added.
Is it true Honda got less than $26,000 for data from 97,000 cars?
Yes. A July 2024 letter from Senators Wyden and Markey to the FTC states Honda shared driving data from 97,000 cars with the data broker Verisk, which paid Honda $25,920, or about 26 cents per car. The figure came from Honda itself in response to Senate oversight.
Does the 26 cents apply to all Honda drivers?
No. It applies specifically to the 97,000 vehicles whose owners had opted into Honda's Driver Feedback app feature, not to Honda drivers in general.
Did this payment happen all at once?
No. The $25,920 payment covered a four-year period from 2020 to 2024, not a single transaction.
Did Honda sell this data without consent?
The senators alleged that consent was undermined because the mention of Verisk was buried in lengthy legal terms after an initial consent screen about insurance discounts. This is an allegation from the senators' letter, not an established finding of unilateral data seizure.
Did this affect anyone's actual insurance rate?
The investigation did not establish this. No source confirms that any specific individual experienced an insurance premium change as a result of this data sharing.