Privacy

Privacy Policy

Last updated October 9, 2026

Volte ("we", "us") is an independent app for Tesla owners, operated by Ali U. This policy explains what Volte collects, where it is kept, who else sees it, and what you can do about it. Volte handles vehicle location and driving history, so this policy is specific rather than short.

The short version

• Volte keeps a copy of your vehicle readings on its own servers, not only on your device. That copy includes where the car was.
• With your permission, Volte polls your car in the background, with the app closed, so drives and charging still get recorded.
• Readings are kept for about 13 months, then deleted automatically.
• Nothing is sold, and nothing goes to advertisers, insurers or data brokers.
• You can disconnect the car or delete everything from Settings at any time.

What Volte collects

• Account information. Your name and email address when you create a Volte account. If you sign in with Google, Google shares your name, email address and profile picture with Volte; Volte never sees your Google password. If you sign in with Apple, Apple shares your name (the first time only) and either your email address or a private relay address that forwards to it, if you choose to hide your email; Volte never sees your Apple ID password. Passwords for Volte accounts are stored hashed by our authentication provider and are never visible to us.
• Vehicle data from Tesla. When you connect your Tesla you authorize Volte through Tesla's official Fleet API, under the scopes you approve on Tesla's own page. Within those scopes Volte reads battery level and range, charging state, power, current and energy added, climate and cabin temperature, odometer, gear position, speed, lock state, Sentry state, and the vehicle's latitude and longitude. Volte never receives your Tesla password.
• A history of those readings. Volte stores each reading as a timestamped row so it can show you drives, charging sessions, routes on a map, efficiency and cost. A recorded drive is a sequence of locations, which taken together shows where you went and when.
• Settings you enter. Electricity rates, saved places and their addresses, departure times, vehicle nicknames, alert and notification preferences, units, and theme.
• Commands you send. Lock and unlock, climate, charge limit and current, Sentry, and scheduled charging or preconditioning.
• A push address for each device where you turn alerts on. Your browser gives Volte an address that Apple, Google or Mozilla uses to deliver notifications to that device. Volte stores it with the device's time zone, used for quiet hours, and a device type such as "iPhone". It is deleted when you sign out on that device, when the browser withdraws it, or when you delete your account.
• Your device's location, only if you allow it in the browser, and only to show chargers near you and the distance to your car. It is used in the moment and is not stored on our servers.
• Support messages. If you contact support from the app, Volte receives your message, the topic you picked, your name and account email (so we can reply), and your car model, its software version, your device type and time zone to help diagnose the problem.
• Your Volte Pro subscription. When you subscribe in the iPhone app, Apple sends Volte a signed record of the purchase: the plan, its start and renewal dates, whether it is a free trial, and Apple's transaction ID. Volte stores it with your account to know whether Pro is active. Payment is handled entirely by Apple; Volte never sees your card or billing details.
• How you use the app. Volte records which screens you open and which features and buttons you use, with the time and your device type, linked to your Volte account. We use it to understand how Volte is used and to fix and improve it.
• Basic technical data. Request logs kept by our hosting provider, which include IP address and browser type, used to run and secure the service.
• Page-view statistics. Volte uses Vercel Web Analytics to count visits to its website and app: which page was opened, the referring site, and the country, device type, browser and operating system. It sets no cookies, drops the query string from each address before sending it, and does not identify you or follow you across other sites. We only see totals.

Background recording

If you connect a Tesla account, Volte runs a scheduled job on its servers that polls your car every few minutes while it is awake, and much less often while it is parked or asleep, so that drives, charging sessions and Finish-by goals are recorded even when the app is closed. The same job compares each new reading with the previous one and sends the alerts you have turned on as push notifications. If you create a routine that runs from Volte's server, such as turning on Sentry when you park away from home, the same job sends that command to your car for you. A routine set for a specific time may wake the car to do it. Routines saved in the car itself run there and send nothing to Volte. Volte deliberately never sends a wake command to a sleeping car. You can stop background recording at any time by disconnecting your Tesla in Settings.

How Volte uses it

• To show your car's status and run the features you turn on, including scheduled charging, cabin preconditioning, alerts and reports.
• To calculate drives, charging sessions, efficiency and estimated costs from your readings.
• To answer your questions in the assistant and act on your requests. When you ask the assistant something, your message, the recent conversation and a summary of your car's current state and Volte history (battery, charging, drives, costs, goals, routines, saved place names and the car's current street address) are sent to Anthropic's Claude to write the answer. Car commands it suggests are sent by the app, and unlocking or opening the car asks you to confirm first.
• To send the emails you can turn off in Settings: a weekly recap of your driving and charging, and occasional news about new Volte features. Every one has an unsubscribe link. Sign-in codes and account emails are always sent.
• To understand how people use Volte, so we can see which features work, find problems and decide what to build next. This is done by us, with your usage linked to your account; it is not shared with advertisers or data brokers.
• To keep the service working, fix problems and prevent abuse.

Volte does not sell your personal information, and does not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. Volte does not use your vehicle data for anything other than providing Volte to you. Volte does not use your data to train machine-learning models.

Where it is stored

Volte runs on Vercel and stores accounts and vehicle history in a Supabase database, both hosted in the United States. Your Tesla tokens are encrypted before they are stored and are used only to talk to Tesla's API for your account. Database access is restricted per user, so one account cannot read another's rows. Some settings are also kept in your browser's local storage on your own device.

How long it is kept

• Vehicle readings: about 13 months, then deleted automatically. Older history disappears on a rolling basis.
• Account information: for as long as your account exists.
• Hosting request logs: for the short retention period our hosting provider applies.
• When you delete your account, your account, settings and vehicle history are removed within 30 days.

Who else sees it

• Tesla. Commands and data requests go to Tesla's Fleet API on your behalf, under the scopes you granted.
• Apple. If you sign in with Apple, Apple handles that sign-in. If you subscribe to Volte Pro in the iPhone app, Apple processes the payment and tells Volte when a subscription starts, renews, ends or is refunded.
• Supabase stores your account and vehicle history. Vercel hosts the app and its server functions and provides the page-view statistics described above. Both process data only to provide Volte.
• Google. If you sign in with Google, Google handles that sign-in. If a map is shown, Google Maps receives the coordinates needed to draw it. If you tap "What's nearby" on a charger, Google Places receives that charger's coordinates (never your car's or your phone's) to return cafes and shops within walking distance. The app loads fonts from Google Fonts, which receives your IP address.
• Anthropic receives what you type into the assistant, the recent conversation and the car summary described above, to generate the answer. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, API data is not used to train its models and is deleted after a short retention period. The assistant is not sent your email, your Tesla tokens or your car's GPS coordinates.
• Resend delivers the emails Volte sends, such as sign-in codes, and delivers support messages you send from the app to our support inbox.
• Open-Meteo receives your car's approximate coordinates, rounded, to return the local forecast, and to check for rain when a window is left open if that alert is on.
• Apple, Google or Mozilla, depending on your browser, deliver push alerts to your device. Each alert is encrypted so that only your device can read it; they see when an alert is sent and its size.
• OpenStreetMap's Nominatim receives an address you type, or a set of coordinates, when a place needs to be looked up or named.
• Legal requests, if we are required by law to disclose information.
• If Volte is ever sold or merged, account data may transfer with it. You would be told before that happened.

These third parties handle your data under their own privacy policies, not this one.

Your choices and rights

• Disconnect your Tesla from Settings, or remove Volte from the third-party apps list in your Tesla account. This stops all vehicle access and all background recording immediately.
• Delete your account and everything in it from Settings, or by emailing us.
• Get a copy of your data. Email us and we will send you your account information and vehicle history.
• Correct anything wrong in your account or settings, in the app or by email.
• Turn alerts off per rule or all at once, and revoke notification or location permission in your browser at any time.

If you live in California, the CCPA gives you the rights above, plus the right not to be discriminated against for using them. Volte does not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined there. Volte is offered in the United States; if you use it from elsewhere, your data is processed in the United States.

Security

Traffic is encrypted in transit. Tesla tokens are encrypted at rest, and session cookies are signed, HTTP-only and restricted to this site. No service can promise perfect security, and Volte is a small independent app rather than a large company with a security team. If a breach ever affects your data, we will tell you.

Children

Volte is not intended for anyone under 18 and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Changes

If this policy changes in a meaningful way we will show a notice in the app and update the date above. Material changes that affect what we collect will ask for your agreement before they take effect.

Contact

Questions about privacy, or a request about your data: contact@thevolte.app

This policy describes how Volte works today. It is written by the person who built it, not by a lawyer, and it is not legal advice to you.

Volte is not affiliated with or endorsed by Tesla, Inc. Tesla and the Tesla logo are trademarks of Tesla, Inc.