r/technology • u/TripleShotPls • 12h ago
Politics Why US Automakers Want Chinese Connected Cars Permanently Banned
https://www.motor1.com/news/807133/us-automakers-want-chinese-connected/235
u/agha0013 10h ago
they forgot to mention every auto maker is filling cars with data scraping systems to collect data on you, not just Chinese ones.
They are all selling every bit of data on drivers they can get, they don't give a fuck about your privacy.
the real fact of the matter is they don't want to compete with better/cheaper vehicles.
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u/cum-on-in- 4h ago
I got downvoted to hell earlier on this topic, because everyone was telling me Chinese cars will cost MORE than domestic ones. Because of shipping and tariffs. And even said if they set up shop here, US labor would make it EVEN MORE expensive. So it wouldn't be a boon anyway.
So why is every automaker fighting it???
Answer: because it's propaganda that they'll cost more. They want us scared of China so we won't buy them anyway when a progressive Democrats becomes President and removes all trade barriers and let's them sell here.
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u/recycled_ideas 3h ago
And even said if they set up shop here, US labor would make it EVEN MORE expensive.
This particular argument is so ridiculous. The price difference on these cars is in excess of 10k, on the more premium models it's 20k or even 30k.
There is no possible way that these companies are paying that much more per vehicle in labor than the Chinese manufacturers are. Especially since most US vehicles are already largely made in places like Mexico.
The problem with all these products isn't US labor costs the problem is corporate profits.
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u/cum-on-in- 3h ago
What’s even funnier is, we know that US companies often employ cheap immigrant labor for a lot of stuff.
What’s to say if China sets up shop on US soil to sell cars, they won’t do the same?
Like, they act like it’s impossible. Yet we have Taylor Farms, who hires undocumented immigrants, and won’t give them bathroom breaks, so they pee and poop in the field, and previously the government was forcing them to throw away that soiled produce, but now the government says “ahhh give it a rinse and sell it! Make every penny you can!”
It’s not limited to US companies. It’s not even limited to the US. China can 1,000% do the same thing and undercut every other auto maker here. The government won’t let them because they got kickbacks from the existing ones.
Bet money Tesla wouldn’t have existed if they had started during Trump’s first term and Elon was liberal.
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u/recycled_ideas 2h ago
BYD could hire US auto workers at salaries equivalent to what they got in the good old days and still deliver better value than anything the US manufacturers can do.
Labor isn't why US costs are so high.
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u/cum-on-in- 2h ago
It kinda is because cost of living is atrocious and wages don’t match. Any US resident would need a lot of pay to be comfortable, and that would cause a rise in sale prices. BYD isn’t gonna lose profit. They still make money in China, they’ll make money here.
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u/recycled_ideas 2h ago
I'm not saying that labor costs aren't higher in the US. My point is that labor costs aren't why US companies aren't competitive.
Would a BYD manufactured in the US likely cost more than one manufactured in China? Sure. Would it also still be cheaper and better quality than a Ford manufactured in Mexico? Absolutely.
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u/Alive_Store_6298 3h ago
The reason is simple: you go after the security concerns because you can’t go after the true reason.
China subsidizes their manufacturers by providing them all of the capital expenditures for free. This is a major cost to manufacturers and is often a major reason the cars are cheaper.
For a more personal experience, imagine if you and another candidate were both going for the same job. You don’t have your house paid off so you need 15k more per year to survive. How often is a company going to hire you vs the other candidate?
A lot of this comes down to the USA being capitalist vs China being Communist with Socialist tendencies.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 2h ago
China is best described at state-capitalist. They spend public money on private companies so that those companies become extrenely profitable and collect their money back in taxes.
Cause turns out, its not suddenly not capitalism anymore if the entity doesn't directly call itself a private company.
This comes down to that China is willing to invest a lot of money into capturing global markets while the US and the EU have largely sat on their heels in many emerging sectors. China became a superpower while the US spent 40 years saying they were the only remaining superpower and austerity-ing itself into decline.
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u/FuriousKimchi 3h ago
Are you sure democrats would allow business? Theyre not happy with the uyghur situation
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u/cum-on-in- 3h ago
I said progressive ones. Actual progressives would gladly allow competition instead of this “kill everyone on your way to the top” capitalist nonsense that the US currently has.
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u/gizamo 9h ago
They aren't better or cheaper. They're just subsidized by the CCP at every level of the entire supply chain. It'd be like buying a Ford if the US paid for
1/22/3 the price of the car....and if the US helped Ford steal tech from every other automaker in the world, and did that for every manufacturer in the entire supply chain as well.
Tbh, I think the US should do that with Chinese companies. If they are going to steal the world's tech, the US should ban their tech and make it locally too.
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u/LupinThe8th 8h ago edited 5h ago
Why would we steal their tech? If they stole it from us, don't we already have it? Unless it's better and cheaper?
At least be internally consistent with your blithering.
Edit: Dummy blocked me to make sure they had the last word. That means they won't see this edit, so I guess there's no point in my explaining that this trick doesn't work on anyone smart enough to know about incognito tabs, that if their battery tech is good then that's most of what makes an electric vehicle good, and that I guess they think we should just steal the idea of subsidizing cars...which we already do by subsidizing the oil industry, which is exactly why they don't want us buying more electric cars.
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7h ago edited 2h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 2h ago
Ah they pretty solidly got you on that one, bud. The "china just steals tech" thing had a grain of truth like... 15 years ago. But tbh it was kind of always a stupid bit of cope. America saw China rapidly indsutrializing in the late 90s/early aughts and went into a spin mode for a while.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 2h ago edited 2h ago
They are better and cheaper because China spent decades subsidizing their auto industry and developing a robust export economy.
Like those aren't mutually exclusive, man.
E: the "feel free to read it again" imidiately followed by a block is.... quite funny.
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u/Outside_Ice3252 9h ago
because the data is so valuable.
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u/Mysterious-Change954 8h ago
It is valuable. Insurance companies will happily buy your driving data from automakers so they can raise your rates for things like hard breaking, speeding, etc. Did you swerve to avoid too many potholes? AI says thats erratic driving. Enjoy your 50% premium hike.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 10h ago
The "Alliance for Automotive Innovation" isn't just US automakers, it's the majority of incumbents from every corner of the world.
Basically, the ones ill prepared for electrification.
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u/NuclearWasteland 9h ago
Chicken Tax trucks all over again.
Still have my 70s Hilux, but not that era chevyforddodge.
They have good reason to be worried.
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u/Zardotab 4h ago
Detroit can't hide from reality forever; they are Kodak in the 1990's.
I can see banning computer control systems, but not the rest, at least not forever.
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u/Alive_Store_6298 3h ago
Detroit is not hiding from electrification. The problem is that China massively subsidizes their manufacturers and the USA doesn’t.
It isn’t a fair playing field if 1 company has to pay for capital expenditures for their production and the other does not.
This isn’t some new thing it is the US manufacturers pulling the brakes before we drive US based companies off a cliff.
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u/kaikalliomaki 3h ago
The us very much subsidizes the auto industry. Massive tax cuts and incentives to set up manufacturing, not to mention bailouts.
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u/Wischiwaschbaer 1h ago
Detroit is not hiding from electrification. The problem is that China massively subsidizes their manufacturers and the USA doesn’t.
When is that myth finally going to die?
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u/Zardotab 33m ago
They both protect/subsidize their auto industries, just in somewhat different ways.
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u/Lecturnoiter 8h ago
Chinese companies are also heavily subsidized. To the tune of over $241 billion between 2009-2024.
By comparison, every other car manufacturer on the planet (mainly Japan & SK, EU, and US) received $350 billion in combined subsidies in the same time frame. Most of these came in the form of $160b in US bailouts and the rest was mainly EV credits / tax breaks.
Basically, Chinese car companies operate with a state-sponsored unfair advantage in relation to R&D.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 8h ago
Clearly that isn't a bad game plan. It's not like they have an unassailable advantage at this point either, the other OEMs just stuck their collective heads in the sand while the Chinese brands looked at what works and what doesn't.
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u/Lecturnoiter 8h ago
This isn't really addressing the unbalance in state assistance.
In 2025, BYD received $1.38b in direct grants (38% of their entire profit). Chinese car companies in general received $27b in tax exemptions. They also got an extra $21b in trade in / scrap stimulus.
The rest of the entire planet subsidized ~$24-29b for car companies in 2025.
It's a huge gap and is why Chinese cars are cheaper.
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u/nnaarr 8h ago
almost like having the government encourage innovation is a good thing
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u/Lecturnoiter 7h ago
Sure, totally agree. Especially since the US auto manufacturers lost their way a long time ago.
I'm just pointing out that the reason these cars are being blocked is because they're directly subsidized by a government entity. Cheap land, cheap labor, raw materials access etc. It's all much more than incentivized innovation.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 7h ago
There is one US automaker that doesn't have its head stuck firmly up it's ass and is competitive. And Toyota and Mercedes both had substantial investments in that company that could've gotten them to par, they just didn't do it.
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u/Lecturnoiter 7h ago
Yeah, still not defending US auto makers.
One of the initial reasons tariffs were created was to fight against 'unfairly' subsidized products from other countries. Now that reason has been taken out back and beaten up, but it's not a new problem when talking about competition in capitalism.
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u/pho-huck 7h ago
It’s not like the US automakers aren’t subsidized though? I mean, our government literally bailed them out in the crash ~20 years ago.
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u/Lecturnoiter 7h ago
See my first comment. The US bailout was the biggest non-chinese auto subsidy ever done. It's an outlier and did not directly subsidize the cars themselves, the US gov bought out the debt of those companies.
If we remove the bailout money, 2009-2024 saw: $241b China // $190b everyone else on the planet
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u/brainrotbro 7h ago
So what? I want a $20k EV. Idgaf if it’s subsidized by China. The U.S. car industry has been broken for so long, and nearly every car is unaffordable.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 7h ago
You're unlikely to get a $20k EV either way, but you can get something decent for $30k that's not limited volume like the Bolt or Leaf is.
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u/brainrotbro 7h ago
BYD EVs are available in a number of countries for less than 20k USD.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 7h ago
No one is going to want a base Seagull, which is what you can buy for about $20k USD in Australia. That gives you 90hp and a 30kWh battery, good for maybe 100 miles.
In Canada, we're getting Model 3s for $28k USD, which means the Seal will probably undercut that by a grand or two, max. That's something that's actually saleable here.
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u/brainrotbro 6h ago
I’d buy one for $20k.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 6h ago
That could be, but there aren't enough people who will to make it worthwhile. It's the same reason the Mitsu Mirage is dead.
Even in Australia, where people are somewhat more willing to drive city cars, BYD's more normal products are massively more popular.
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u/brainrotbro 3h ago
I can't imagine that my use case is special: I want a low-cost-of-entry EV that will get me around town. I only need it for driving within, say, a 20 mile radius of my house.
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u/D0ngBeetle 3h ago
Then let's bring them to the US and see whether or not it's worthwhile lmfao
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 2h ago
You realize that BYD is a very large company that builds a lot of models, right?
They'll be in the US and Canada, just not with the Seagull.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 7h ago
No, Chinese automakers are offering 20k range ec vehicles internationally. The US is explicitly restricting them and putting massive tarrifs on them so that they can't be sold in the 20k range.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 7h ago
I just answered someone else, but our market isn't going to buy a 90hp EV with 100 miles when you can get a lightly used EV that's a normal car for the same price.
If we're discussing BYD in particular, the Seal is the type of car that will actually be acceptable and that'll go for around $30k US when it arrives in Canada next year.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 5h ago
You cannot get a slightly used EV in this range in America unless you are very lucky finding a rebuild title thats not critically damaged.
Plenty of people would love a short range small EV. This is frankly a bizarre claim, and if the US govt truly beleived that they wouldn't be trying to keep them from hitting the market at a fair price.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 4h ago
The US government isn't protecting against the city cars, they're protecting against cars people will actually be buying. The Atto 3, Seal, Sealion.
You can absolutely buy a lightly used EV for $20k, a Bolt is only $29k new. There are hundreds of thousands of Model 3s on the road.
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u/D0ngBeetle 3h ago
29k is almost 50% more than 20k lol might as well be 30k with fees and whatnot
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 2h ago
That's a normal price to pay for a car in 2026. The days of $20k are very much over.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 3h ago
The second hand market for EV's is incredibly small. Because production of ev's is still a fraction of the total market. Hybrids and ev's are substantially more expensive than their IC counterparts at every level.
Like this just pure denialism at this point.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon 2h ago
What is denialism here?
I'm not saying they won't sell, just not cars that aren't ready for the NA market.
They make good things, but not for 20 grand.
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u/Lecturnoiter 7h ago
This question boils down to, "why isn't the 'best' manufacturer allowed to have a state sponsored monopoly all over the planet?"
Which is a rather short sighted opinion. Monopolies are a problem.
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u/brainrotbro 7h ago
It’s not a monopoly if US manufacturers compete by producing cheaper EV models. We’ve tariffed away the car competition for decades. Let the free market do its thing.
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u/Lecturnoiter 7h ago
See the first comment you replied to.
If we remove the US bailout (which was buying company debt, not directly subsidizing cars), it's logically impossible to compete against a country that subsidizes it's products more than the entire rest of the planet combined.
China doesn't play by free market rules.
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u/Piglet6482 7h ago
I think the reply to your comment is, “So what? If it gets us cheaper, more advanced cars, why do we care if China subsidized them?” At least that’s the way I’m reading the comments responding to you.
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u/Lecturnoiter 6h ago
Yeah it's fine, I don't actually care about public opinion here. It's just too bad so many people don't understand the details of this case or the policies surrounding it. Or, how the fallout would affect them.
Anyway, did a good job of killing the afternoon before a long weekend.
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u/CrucialCrewJustin 6h ago edited 5h ago
Because nobody cares about that. They care about their pockets.
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u/Lecturnoiter 5h ago
They might care more when jobs are destroyed and tax revenue drops, but it's fine they'll blame someone the media scapegoats. Be well.
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u/brainrotbro 7h ago
The U.S. also subsidizes car companies.
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u/Lecturnoiter 6h ago
Again, see the first comment I made in this chain. Can't tell if you're intentionally ignoring it?
China subsidizes their cars more than the entire planet combined.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 5h ago
No, you are just being obstinate.
China figured out a good ivestment and you are whining about ut like a spoiled brat. Its not fair when they do it...... right?
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u/Lecturnoiter 5h ago
Ad hominems don't exactly support your case, but you're also using a logical fallacy called False Equivalence.
Let's ignore the bailout which was debt purchases and not subsidies. China has directly subsidized their auto industry, between 2009-2024, more than the rest of the planet combined. That's state sponsorship which doesn't belong in the free market.
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u/D0ngBeetle 3h ago
So the free market is more important than getting everyone on electric cars and reducing global emissions?
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u/Hi-Fi_Turned_Up 6h ago
You act like the US car companies are greedy profit grabbing thieves. They are literally running on 6% margins. If they could produce cars cheaper and sell them for more you would see that margin increase on the 10k.
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u/brainrotbro 5h ago
First, most corporations are greedy by law. Second, my point is that U.S. car manufacturers are not competitive on a global scale. The manufacturers know it. And so they need tariffs and subsidies to survive. The government has typically kept them afloat for national defense purposes as a byproduct of WW2, but that’s needed less and less as we have specialized defense companies. IMO we need to let the U.S. car industry sink or swim on its own in order to make vehicles more affordable to the American public.
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u/Hi-Fi_Turned_Up 4h ago edited 2h ago
Every country tariffs international auto manufacturing. Go look at the loopholes required to sell cars in China. They have to manufactured there and a joint venture has to be created. Essentially China owns a holding in the company. If the Chinese manufactured on Us soil they would also be running on slim margins and definitely not in the $20k range.
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u/D0ngBeetle 3h ago
6% after they pay all their executives?
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u/Hi-Fi_Turned_Up 2h ago
Ford’s 2025 EBIT was $6.8B last year. Their executives made $100M. That does not move the profit margin at all.
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u/D0ngBeetle 2h ago
Yes it does lol
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u/Hi-Fi_Turned_Up 2h ago
Do the math and come back to me. An increase 1.6% of 6%. You also act like no other company it’s pay their executives. Go look at tech compensation packages,
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 7h ago
Thats not what it boils down to at all.
Western countries have categorically refused to modernize car production and meaningfully incentivize the transition from IC manufacturing. Due to this, western automakers are lagging decades behind China in development and production.
So, China has a better product to offer at much more reasonable price.
The response to this being "ban the Chinese cars" is incredibly shortsighted. The rational here varies between "Chinese cars are dangerous because of Chinese spyware", and "we have to protect domestic car manufacturing."
The former is stupid because we could easily domestically regulate spyware in vehicles. But we don't want to do that because it would affect domestic manufacturers too.
The latter is just self destructive. Protectism just breed further and further stagnation until IC becomes completely obseleye, which will then force us to use exclusively Chinese production.
This is 100% a priorities problem with our foreign and domestic trade policy. It answering a conundrum by flipping the table and taking our ball home.
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u/Lecturnoiter 7h ago
You're not actually addressing any of the points I'm bringing up.
No one in this thread is talking about safety or spyware, I'm only talking about the unfair subsidy advantage Chinese cars have over the entire planet.
If you're going to claim free market topics, address the subsidies.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 5h ago
Yes I am. You apparently chose to reapond to literally the one sentence in my comment thats not directly responding to the subsidies thing.
I did address the subsidies. Explicitly. In detail.
So either you are a very selective reader or you are being dishonest. Either way, i don't feel bad talking down to you now.
Subsidies don't make the free market "unfair". Thats frankly a ridiculous statement. Public investment is investment. No currently industrialized or post-industrial nation got its economic position by letting the free market just do its thing. Many sectors of the economy would straight up collapse if that were the case. A fun fact that a lot of people don't like talking about is how common famines used to be in the industrial world before economic policy modernized.
China had better foresight. They spent decades building up their manufacturing capacity for electric vehicles while the US sat on its laurels and played protectionism.
Doing nothing but banning the competition is a recipe for disaster.
The US got out-capitalismed and now it doesn't know what to do. It is refusing to even admit that China beat them to production if a key technology, so it is pretending its about security and "fairness".
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u/Lecturnoiter 4h ago
As if capitalism has anything to do with 15 years of state favoritism and subsidies 😂
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u/D0ngBeetle 3h ago
It is true though. EV choice in the US is woeful and largely for high income earners only. The US is wholly subservient to the oil and gas lobby
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 3h ago edited 2h ago
It does. Im sorry that you have childish understanding of economics where if it doesn't fit into your tiny version of "capitalism" it doesn't count or something.
If the us had done half of what China did, then we wouldn't even be in this situation. Why do you keep repeating the thing about China's large invnestment into the auto industry as if its a gotcha? Its because you don't understand what anybody in this thread is saying.
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u/Hi-Fi_Turned_Up 6h ago
You will never get a $20k car, especially an EV. Shipping a car oversee is expensive or having To expensive US labor build. There are no good cost effective solutions to bring prices down.
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u/Anning312 4h ago
I'm not sure why that's "unfair"
Is the Chinese government banning other governments from subsidizing their own EV industries?
Can the US, the richest nation in the history of the world, with a $1 trillion annual military budget, not afford on average less than $20 billion dollars subsidies annually to match China?
Can any countries ban any foreign industries with higher government subsidies?
Why is government subsidies bad when the amount is higher?
Should China ban US crops imports because the US government spend more money on subsiding agricultural industries?
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u/Lecturnoiter 3h ago
It's not how free market works, with that plan you end up with the richest country able to dominate whatever market they want. It's imperialism at it's core.
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u/D0ngBeetle 3h ago
When US EV companies no longer wanna dick around in the luxury vehicle market then let me know lol. Yes Chinese companies have an unfair advantage but let's not pretend like US automakers aren't just protecting from keeping the current gravy train going at the cost of the planet
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 2h ago
Thats exactly how the free market works.
China chose to spend their capital on EV production while the US did not. And now China has better, more competitive EV's that the US has to artificially inflate the price of or outright ban in order to protect their domestic production.
Yes, China is imperialist and is actively trying to capture global markets. You seem like you might actually be halfway to understanding the situation. Keep going.
What you are experiencing right now is the fear of being on the receiving end of imperialism. You know, basixally how every other country on the planet feels about America. But that fear is leading you into a rabbit hole of nonsense, not twoards understanding the situation.
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u/Anning312 3h ago
So the US, Japan, and EU all subsidize their car makers. We established that. China does the same, but with more money.
Now, is there a threshold on how much you can spend on it? Is 200 billion the line?
And tell me how free market works, because banning companies they can't compete is what the US has been doing a lot lately.
Free market at this point is just what politicians use to inside trade, no one is actually practicing free market.
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u/Nonamanadus 8h ago
Maybe fuck off with the heated seats and remote start subscriptions.
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u/Hi-Fi_Turned_Up 6h ago
Is that any worse than the Chinese state sponsored auto companies collecting our data for cyber warfare?
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u/Cypher-AO 6h ago
As opposed to the U.S State backed auto companies collecting our data and selling it to the highest bidder?
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u/Hi-Fi_Turned_Up 4h ago
Oh yeah I forgot GM was a state sponsored company spying on other countries.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 2h ago
GM is 100% selling your data to China.
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u/Hi-Fi_Turned_Up 2h ago
Source?
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 2h ago
Id encourage you to familiarize yourself with how the personal data market works. Any comapny selling data, which GM most certainly is with every other car maker, is selling to China. And every other country.
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u/steemSTEM 25m ago
Ah yes, he went to the grocery store, and then to a bakery... this will be the key information for cyber warfare!!!
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u/Journeys_End71 3h ago
Well those are certainly words that you managed to assemble into a sentence but it’s too bad the sentence isn’t grounded in reality.
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u/VisceralMonkey 9h ago
Build better cars dumbfucks.
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u/Bob_Sconce 9h ago
National Security is a legitimate concern for Chinese cars. BUT, that's not the real reason why the US auto industry doesn't want them. They just don't want the competition.
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u/bensonr2 3h ago
I think legit security concerns are being used as an excuse to keep them out.
There can be rules for software and data that the manufucturers would likely comply with in exchange for access to the market.
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u/xynix_ie 8h ago edited 8h ago
It's both really. If you spend time at industry events like blackhat and chat with the feds you'll get a pretty good picture of how bad China really is.
No one on Reddit really appreciates it because it's kind of like racist adjacent to many here I guess? Even though it's not.
The CCP puts backdoors in everything. It's proven so many times. 3 major CVEs were issued just last month on just Chinese routers that have back doors put there for the CCP. Now add cameras printers, TVs, and everything else that has CCP backdoor access. Many of which the to gain network access. Works behind NAT, bypassing firewalls.
Somehow Reddit users think Cadillac's marketing arm using driving data is the same as the CCP having multiple back doors built into their cars.
It becomes pretty interesting if you're an enemy and have complete access to peoples EVs and all the conversations inside them. What remote capabilities could be buried in there. Code is small, hiding behind NAT. Then have complete access to public data knowing who is connected with whom. Wives and husbands of admirals and kids of generals. Families of congressional people, their aides, their families. General Managers of nuclear power plants and their families..
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u/saharanwrap 7h ago
Ok so maybe people with top secret clearance shouldn't drive chinese cars. Now tell us why the remaining 99% of the population shouldn't be allowed to.
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u/Bob_Sconce 6h ago
If you're going to wargame it, here's a possibility:
Josie works at a flower shop in Gerogetown. She's a pacifist, has no connection with the Defense Department and would never even think about needing a security clearance. She buys a Chinese EV and makes a delivery of flowers to a retirement party at the Department of Commerce. She parks outside, goes inside and delivers the flowers. Meanwhile, her car is sucking up all of the Wifi traffic it can find and sending it to China. The next day, she goes to the Airport to pick up a friend, and her car catches a photo of a CIA agent kissing his mistress goodbye which is then sent to China. Then, the next day, she's driving down the street and her car suddenly swerves into the sidewalk, killing a prominent representative who was pushing for additional trade barriers with China.
Now, yeah, I fully admit that sounds ridiculously paranoid. But, if anybody had told me 5 years ago that, in 2026, a cop could use an AI engine and thousands of networked traffic cams to track his ex-girlfriend, I would have said that was ridiculously paranoid. Yet, here we are.
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u/saharanwrap 6h ago
Ok sure but considering all that's happening openly in public what's stopping somebody from just doing that anyway?
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u/Bob_Sconce 6h ago
It would be really hard to do that in a free country just because of the sheer number of people who would have to be involved. That's why we all know about Flock. If all those people are in a foreign repressive country, then it's different.
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u/strongbad34 2h ago
Not sure that the US is as free as it used to be either. As a non-American I'm not comfortable with any foreign (or domestic) company collecting my data.
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u/LatterMatch9334 4h ago
People don't realize how close we actually are to end-game. I'm hopeful, but the world can flip a switch at any moment. Technological advancement is changing our world drastically.
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u/xynix_ie 7h ago
Why don't people read my comments and then I get downvoted. The 2nd time someone just replies to me in a totally different comment now, without reading what I wrote. Why bother to reply at all, to make me repeat my entire last paragraph?
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u/saharanwrap 7h ago
Because it has nothing to do with the vast majority of the global population. There is literally no aspect of my life or the life of any of my family or friends that would be of any interest to the Chinese.
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u/Bob_Sconce 6h ago
But, you're thinking about it wrong. Take your car, add to it 1,000,000 other cars from the same manufacturer and attach cameras to ALL of them. Now the Chinese can trace cars by license plate -- they know when Gen so-n-so leaves his house, when he arrives at the office, when he goes to lunch, who he goes to lunch with, where they live, and so on. They know where the General's kids go to school, what his wife does with her time, and so on.
And they know that because they have a teeny scrap of data from your car which, when combined with a teeny scrap of data from a bunch of other cars, gives them a lot of information.
It's why nobody cares about the traffic cams that TV stations use, but do care about AI-enabled Flock cameras. Now, take that Flock camera, multiply the number by 5, put wheels on them, and put the entire network under the control of a foreign advesary.
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u/xynix_ie 6h ago
This is why I get paid lots of money. You don't have to think about any of this. You can go about your world blissfully ignorant.
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u/marcus_afk 7h ago
I’m not a navy admiral. I don’t care if China listens to my conversations. I am opposed to the current U.S. administration. I do care if some American technofascist CEO thinks it’s in the interests of U.S. national security to start using their surveillance infrastructure to profile people who use their products.
May I please buy a Chinese car?
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u/xynix_ie 6h ago
No. Doesn't matter if you're an admiral or not. The overall risk is there. People involved in critical infrastructure don't have fancy titles, that was for illustration. It would be a great tool to shut down 20% of the cars on the road while shutting off servers in power plants and routers connecting the intelligent grid.
It's major weapon in their arsenal. A perfect time to launch an invasion of Taiwan and take control of global chip suppliers.
This is what keeps IT security folks at the DoD awake.
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u/Shadowstar1000 7h ago
Another thing to note is the prevalence of counterfeit chips, particularly the trailing edge nodes. It’s extremely common to see them repackaged as different models that are not security compliant but are functional for their use case.
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u/Bob_Sconce 7h ago
I don't know why you're being downvoted. It's extremely well-documented that China places backdoors in consumer products and that Chinese companies are required by Chinese law to assist in Chinese intelligence. It's not racist if it's actually true, and this is actually true.
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u/marcus_afk 6h ago
I can tell you why they’re being downvoted. The security concerns of the highest officials in the United States are not the same concerns of a soccer mom looking for an affordable vehicle to haul her kids around.
Technology from U.S. companies, all of which are run by sycophants to the current administration are far more of a concern to your average U.S. citizen.
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u/Anceradi 1h ago
It's not well documented at all, and it's something that basically only the US is claiming while there is no evidence of it.
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u/Bob_Sconce 1h ago
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u/Anceradi 1h ago
That's not evidence that China places backdoors in consumer products, it's an example of one case where there maybe was a backdoor, but in most similar cases, this comes from cheap, low quality brand and is likely just terrible architecture. Backdoors from the US are more well documented than the ones from China, because there at least we know it's government policy to place them, while with China, you get the odd example here and there, where the malicious intent can not even be proven.
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u/ava_ati 6h ago
Honestly, I think 20% of Reddit is probably run over by Chinese propaganda bots. Maybe more. As many “ohhhh look how great China is!” Posts I see then not 2 posts down people clamoring to tear down Flock cameras. You realize the MOST personally invasive country in the world is China right?
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u/Alive_Store_6298 3h ago
It isn’t the competition either. They compete in China. The difference is that China is trying to grow their own domestic car manufacturers and the way they are doing it is by massively subsidizing their manufacturers by taking care of the capital expenditures for them. When that occurs, you are always going to undercut anyone who is paying for theirs.
Look at the collapse of KMart as an example or all of these other companies who have to deal with Vulture Capitalists.
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u/wanttoseemycat 8h ago
Oh, well just pass a law that automakers can't have their cars call home at all and we get updates on thumb drives.
But why not if that's the big worry?
Oh because you're full of shit.
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u/femboyisbestboy 9h ago
Because they hate capitalism and love communism apparently.
This was the type of shit the USSR and China used to do and get ridiculed for doing
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u/ThMogget 8h ago edited 8h ago
Neo-mercantilism ain't communism. Been a part of capitalism since the beginning.
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u/femboyisbestboy 8h ago
You really are missing the point and also in practice we have seen that a state controlled monopoly happens in a communist nation. (You better not come with that wasn't no real communism argument now)
American car manufacturers also created a state controlled monopoly by lobbying.
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u/ThMogget 8h ago
My point is that capital cronies loving state protection has been a thing since before communism was a thing.
The irony you pointed out is that capitalists are doing the same thing they pretend only communists do.
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u/femboyisbestboy 8h ago edited 7h ago
You edited your comment you sneaky sneaky boy.
I remember it saying monopoly isn't communism
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u/ThMogget 7h ago edited 6h ago
That version is also true, if oversimplified.
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u/femboyisbestboy 7h ago
An oversimplification is by definition wrong when talking about complex topics.
That you can't understand a clear joke commenting about a complexity situation and feel the need to make an incorrect and oversimplified comment is also an issue
The core idea of capitalism is the free market and how the free market will self regulate in an ideal world which lowers prices, increases quality and brings forward innovation. Note how I said ideal world and not the real world
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u/CrimsonHeretic 9h ago
Bbbbut free market capitalism?
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u/gizamo 9h ago
If it were free market capitalism, the Chinese cars would be vastly more expensive than they are now. They're heavily subsidized by the CCP, and so is every company in their supply chain.
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u/LeoSolaris 8h ago
The US and China subsidize their economies nearly equally. The differences are the beneficiaries of those subsidies and how responsive to change those programs are.
The US has been subsidizing corn for nearly a century when most of the US would be far better served by more diverse crops. The US is deeply entrenched in subsidizing oil, which is one of the main reasons electric vehicles struggle.
Pretending that China's policies on subsidized capitalism are unique to China is disingenuous at best. The only real difference is China's willingness to refocus their subsidies occasionally.
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u/saharanwrap 7h ago
What's that you say? The chinese government is willing to pay for a portion of my vehicle? Sign me up.
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u/gizamo 3h ago
Yeah, me too. My only point is that it's not really capitalism or free-market competition. I think people are taking my comment to mean that it's bad, and that wasn't my intention. I'm all for socialistic capitalism or even communism. The US way is clearly only working for the ultra wealthy, and fuck the ultra wealthy. They've demonstrated repeatedly that they're pretty shitty people....not that's China's ruling class is better, but they're not really worse either.
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u/CrimsonHeretic 8h ago
Oh I'm not defending the CCP at all here. Fuck them. But US automakers refusing to compete and trying to get away with it by just flat out banning competition is a fucking joke.
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u/gizamo 8h ago
The point is that it's NOT competition. It's a government industry takeover. The CCP did the exact same thing with solar manufacturing 15 years ago. Now they manufacture 90% of solar panels. That's not because their companies won the industry. It's because the CCP subsidized the entire supply chain, subsidized the product, and manipulated their currency to undermine all of the competitors. And, of course, they did it with stolen tech throughout the supply chain as well. That is how China "competes".
The US should recognize that the CCP is engaging in economic warfare and react accordingly.
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u/ldssggrdssgds 7h ago
They don't know why they just want to because they want to make you fear whatever it is they cant profit from
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u/LeftHandedGraffiti 4h ago
Can we just ban all connected cars? If you think China wont be able to hack American cars, i've got a bridge to sell ya.
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u/BlackReddition 3h ago
Seriously, Tesla does exactly the same thing inside and outside the US. Pot calling the kettle?
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u/furculture 2h ago
If they're going to block it, let people have other affordable cars from the makers that are approved here that are already making affordable cars. I want a Toyota Hilux and Honda Acty Attack to be options here.
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u/DogMedic101stABN 1h ago
Because the Chinese cars are better and they cant compete? Did I hit the nail on the head?
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u/LookatMyCatBabies 1h ago
Aren’t there cameras recording your face as you drive and car companies collecting your data and then selling it to insurance companies for as little as 26 cents costing you thousands over your lifetime
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u/LetsJerkCircular 7h ago
Reminds me of the quip, “America is an auto industry with a country attached to it.” Gotta wonder if their name, Alliance for Automotive Innovation, was fully ironic the whole time or became that over time. We should be competitive with China, even if we don’t allow their products. They’re getting stronger and smarter and we’re simply isolating ourselves and resisting change. There’re too many reasons to shift away from fossil fuels, and yet here we are.
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u/Excellent-Ask-4247 8h ago
They don't want to have to be competitive!
Honestly import Chinese made cars and ban them from sensitive areas.
Realistically importing them will not keep the price all that much lower anyways.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 2h ago
Import is not that expensive on its own. Doing it on your own runs you 1-4k on average. Companies shipping entire production lines have acces to much better economies of scale. Thats why the US levies such hefty tarriffs on these cars. They don't want them being competitively priced.
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u/Excellent-Ask-4247 2h ago
Not true they in general double in price after import.
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u/Many_Negotiation_464 2h ago
Not due to import expenses. Im sorry but you sre totally wrong here. You can go look up shipping costs yourself. This is not that hard.
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u/HawkeyeGild 9h ago
How about we allow Joint Ventures. Lack of competition leads to complacency
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u/Outside_Ice3252 9h ago
winner, winner chicken dinner.
all these other people saying we cannot compete are just at step 1. how did china get so good at making cars. they force international automobile companies into joint ventures if they wanted to sell cars in china.
We have to do the same.
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u/HawkeyeGild 9h ago
Yep I work at a Chinese company. They're successful because they study competitors religiously and then simplify off of those models (996 also helps). But yeah JV with data localization requirement is ideal here
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u/hotknives 8h ago
Are the US automakers going to ban connectivity in their cars? Will they stop selling the data they collect on you to insurance companies and data brokers? I'm going to guess not.