The U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced on Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Commerce plans to release regulations for Chinese connected cars this fall to guard against national security risks.
Raimondo had previously stated that the Biden administration launched an investigation in February this year on whether Chinese imported cars pose a national security risk. Based on the investigation results, the U.S. may take “stringent measures,” including banning Chinese connected cars or imposing restrictions on them.
In early May, Raimondo likened today’s cars to “iPhones on wheels,” capable of collecting vast amounts of information. She expressed concerns that Chinese-made connected cars could be “collecting data from millions of Americans every minute.” She even envisioned a scenario where “if there were 3 million Chinese cars on U.S. roads, Beijing might shut them all off simultaneously.”
On Wednesday, Raimondo told the U.S. Congress, “We hope to introduce a regulation this fall.”
She added, “The national security risk is quite significant… We have decided to take action because this is indeed a very serious issue.”
Raimondo informed members of Congress that connected cars have “thousands of sensors, thousands of chips, controlled by software, and in the case of cars manufactured in China, the software comes from Beijing. They know where the driver has been, what the driving patterns are, and what is said inside the car. A vast amount of data from Americans will be directly transmitted back to Beijing.”
Raimondo stated, “This is not entirely different from Congress taking action against the TikTok threat.”
Last month, the U.S. passed legislation aimed at forcing ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets or face a ban.
She reiterated her previous opinion, “Just imagine, if there were millions of cars on the road and the software was disabled, what could be the most catastrophic outcome?”
This week, the Biden administration announced a tariff increase from 25% to 100% on Chinese electric vehicles and imposed new tariffs on electric vehicle batteries, components, and critical minerals.
U.S. industry experts have also called for limits on Chinese electric vehicles imported from Mexico to protect American car manufacturers.
After the hearing, Raimondo refused to further elaborate on the content of the regulations. When asked if the regulations could potentially cover cars assembled in Mexico by Chinese manufacturers, she said, “We need to figure that out, that issue is still under consideration.”
However, during the hearing, she mentioned that the Department of Commerce is monitoring reports about Chinese manufacturers planning to assemble cars in Mexico. She aims to prevent businesses from circumventing U.S. tariffs.
Raimondo stated, “We will spare no effort to ensure that China does not use Mexico to evade these new tariffs.”
(This article referenced relevant reports from Reuters)