Funny enough, if we want to put it that way, US automakers actually do have clear ties to the US Military. “Ford and General Motors both hold active DoD contracts: Ford for military vehicle production, GM through its Defence division for light tactical vehicles. These relationships are contractual, publicly disclosed and actively sought by the Pentagon to address manufacturing capacity gaps,” Automotive World writes. “The logic applied to Chinese companies inverts this entirely: BYD and Nio are not listed because they supply the Chinese military—there are no publicly-known connections of this nature whatsoever—but because the US believes that under China’s central planning model, the boundary between civilian and military technological development cannot be trusted to hold
This is not new. Ford made trucks in N@zi Germany during WWII.
Chinese vehicles in the U.S. becomes more of a concern as EVs become computers on wheels. Someone has to worry abt possible use to spy on us.
Recall Huaway telephone exchange hardware. When you offer lowest price easy to sell in western democracies. But then they have assets they can control or use for spying.
Ditto anything w electronics. These days almost anything electrical.
A never ending concern from international trade.
I don’t fear them recording me singing in the car - which is about the worst thing they can get on me by spying on me.
Hawkwin
Who is on record stating he is opposed to a fully autonomous network of Chinese cars - that seems a bigger risk than being spied on.
Car does know everywhere you take it. And for all other owners of Chinese cars.
Not as bad as cellphones but can generate lots of data for analysis. Not hard to learn who works for govt and which location.
So does my insurance company, so does Google (Maps), So does Life 360.
I couldn’t care less. I don’t have a mistress.
There is nothing China can do with that data that the three listed above are not likely already doing.
Luckily, it’s not YOU they are after. That scenario is likely quite different for a working class TLA employee from Virginia. Or a research scientist working on contagious disease countermeasures.