An American senior official stated on Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Commerce plans to release proposed rules regarding connected vehicles in August, expecting to impose restrictions on certain software produced by China and other countries viewed as competitors.
Deputy Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, Alan Estevez, mentioned, “We are looking at some components and software – not entire vehicles – some key driving components of vehicles that manage software and peripheral data of vehicles, which must be manufactured by U.S. allies.”
Estevez made these remarks at a forum in Colorado on Tuesday, marking the clearest comments so far on the proposed U.S. regulation, sparking widespread attention.
He reiterated that connected vehicles have on-board integrated network hardware, can access the internet, and share data with devices inside and outside the vehicle, making the threat very serious.
“Cars are very scary things. Your car knows a lot about you,” he said. “Modern cars have a lot of software, they take a lot of pictures. It has a driving system that connects to your phone. It knows who you call, it knows your whereabouts, it knows you inside out.”
In May of this year, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo stated that the U.S. Department of Commerce plans to release proposed rules on Chinese vehicles this fall and suggested that the Biden administration may take “stringent measures” to ban Chinese vehicles or impose restrictions on them.
She mentioned that today’s cars are like “iPhones on wheels,” capable of recording vast amounts of information. Connected cars imported from China are equipped with thousands of sensors and chips, and the vehicle software can send out information about the vehicle and its surroundings, posing serious national security risks. Therefore, the U.S. deems it necessary to take action.
Raimondo said, “They know where the driver is going, what the driving mode is, what you are saying in the car. A lot of Americans’ data will go directly back to Beijing.”
She added, “You can imagine, if there are millions of cars on the road and the software malfunctions, it could theoretically have catastrophic consequences.”
Currently, relatively few Chinese light vehicles are imported into the U.S. The Biden administration is preparing to significantly raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and other goods, set to be formally implemented on August 1st.