It’s way more likely they have an informant in the chat or the phone itself is compromised. End to end encryption doesn’t protect the "end"s.

Sure, ideally, unless they’re doing something more sophisticated. VW passed emission tests by detecting they were being tested.

Some potential easy to implement gotchas: minimum mileage, geo fencing, how much braking is used

Correct.

The 1st century started at 1 A.D. and included 100. 2nd century started 101 to 200. Etc etc. If you change the 21st century to be 2000. You would to shift everything down. Eventually making the 1st century 99 years. Or creating a year 0 or using 1BC.