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REUTERS: The Chinese military has banned Tesla cars from entering its housing complexes, citing safety concerns about cameras installed in the vehicles, according to two people who saw notices from the directive.
The order issued by the military advises Tesla owners to park their cars off military property, they said, declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Residents of military housing were notified of the ban this week, they added. Bloomberg News had previously reported on the move.
Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Chinese government was restricting the use of Tesla cars by personnel of state military companies in sensitive industries and key agencies as they could be a source of national security leaks. (Https: // on .wsj.com / 3r2NnVe)
It was not immediately clear if the measure applied to all of those facilities. Tesla shares, which rose more than eight times in 2020, fell nearly 2% in early New York trading.
China’s State Council Information Office and Tesla did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on Friday night. China’s Defense Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Tesla cars, which are popular in China and made in a factory in Shanghai, have several small external cameras to help with parking and autonomous driving. Your Model 3 and Model Y also have cameras built into the rear view mirror for driver safety that are disabled by default.
The Chinese military’s restrictions on Tesla came to light when senior Chinese and US officials held a contentious meeting in Alaska, the first face-to-face interaction of its kind since US President Joe Biden took office.
They come after a government safety review of Tesla vehicles, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the effort. Chinese officials found that sensors in Tesla cars could record visual images of surrounding locations, he added.
It was unclear if the decision was related to rising tensions between the United States and China. But the military’s apparent concerns underscore a broader challenge for automakers.
CARS AND CAMERAS
Vehicles of all kinds are equipped with cameras, radar sensors, and image-capturing lidar sensors that can assemble and transmit detailed information about what is around a vehicle and who is inside it.
Who controls how those images are used and where they are sent and stored is an emerging challenge for the automotive industry and regulators around the world.
Tesla boss Elon Musk has been open about the inner camera, taking to Twitter in 2019 to say, “It’s there for when we start competing with Uber / Lyft and people let their car make money for them like part of Tesla’s shared range fleet. In case someone breaks down your car, you can watch the video. ” (https://bit.ly/3s4uNNU)
Musk has often spoken about the value of the data that Tesla vehicles can capture and that can be used to develop autonomous driving functions. Other automakers, including Chinese manufacturers, are also equipping vehicles with cameras and other sensors that can capture images of objects around the car.
China, the center of the world’s electric vehicle market, is strategic for Tesla. Its Shanghai Gigafactory was Musk’s first production facility outside the United States. The factory currently manufactures the Model 3 sedan and the Model Y compact sport utility vehicle.
A Chinese state regulator said in February that government officials had met with representatives of Tesla Inc about consumer reports of battery fires, unexpected acceleration and failure of wireless software updates.
Tesla sold 147,445 vehicles in China last year. It faces increasing competition from national rivals like Nio Inc and Geely.
In 2017, the US Army ordered its members to stop using drones made by Chinese manufacturer SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd due to “cyber vulnerabilities” in the products.
(Reporting by Eva Mathews and Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru and the Beijing newsroom; edited by Maju Samuel, Anil D’Silva and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
