this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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There's a very large secondary reason that the gov should be blocking Chinese EVs beside the threat to our auto parts industry. Every new EV is a rolling data collector. Your phone captures a lot of data but its not covered in cameras that collect and transmit video/pics on everywhere you go and everything you pass and everywhere you park (like a Tesla does: https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/).
The Chinese are famous for copying everything they can and then producing it cheaper than the original and flooding the market with copies that are a fraction of the cost. Their goal is to dominate the world market in every area and they are well on the way. Look at home much stuff we now buy on Amazon/Aliexpress/Alibaba/Shein/Temu compared to just a few years ago.
With camera covered, GPS tracked, net connected EVs there is no way to keep the last vestige of our corporate and private lives from being collected and analyzed by the Chinese government and government linked corporations. And thats not just a threat to the auto industry thats a threat to every industry in Canada and I would dare to say, to our democracy.
We cannot and should not allow Chinese EVs into Canada. Ever.
They put cameras in gas cars too. Modern cars collect and transmit too much personal data regardless of propulsion. Nor is this a chinese problem. Every car company does this. You blame china but provide a link of americans doing the bad thing. The Germans do it too, so do the French and the Japanese. Anything with a computer in it is now a surveillance device. That's a bad thing. That's something that should be stopped. Its odd you only point to one kind of car and one country.
Canada needs laws to stop this behavior of data collection. No product from any country should collect personal data not directly necessary for its function. Laws can be written to solve problems. Banning one country from one type of product does nothing.
Not odd at all. Germany has no plans to dominate the entire world economy last I checked. Or the Japanese. Or France. China does.
then why bring up data at all? Or EVs? Proper data protection laws will protect Canadians regardless of the state of the market.
China dominating the world's market can be a bad thing on its own merits. There's no need to conflate these issues.
Because an EVs oft touted "feature" is over the air updates. Gas/diesel vehicles dont generally update anything significant over the air because you CAN'T update mechanical parts over the air but you certainly can for a car thats basically a computer on wheels with software that controls everything.
So despite your comment, no, most gas/diesel cars are not designed to be permanently connected to the internet and transmitting data at any time, without your knowledge like EVs are most definitely like Chinese EVs will be.
I wish I had your confidence in 'proper data protection laws' in Canada. The EU seems to have done a half decent job on that but Canada and the US are so far behind that by the time we update our privacy laws everything that can be collected already will be.
This is just not true. I work in this industry and most American brands have been doing OTAs for their ICE vehicles for at least half a decade, some for longer. Gas cars absolutely have central computers running Linux/QNX with monitoring and data collection capabilities and they've had them for over a decade. They've also been internet connected for about as long. Recall Jeeps got remote controlled back in 2015. The only thing that's changed with EVs in this regard is marketing - higher emphasis on infotainment features. But the exact same systems are shipping in ICE vehicles now that EVs have taken a back seat for NA autos. I'm literally working on this stuff. :D So what the parent says is absolutely true - the only way to save ourselves from vehicle surveillance is our own government regulation.
Gotta say, Id never heard of the 2015 Jeep hack before. I wonder whether the changes after that point secured data any better.
Secured against unauthorized remote access any better - very likely. Secured data against unauthorized access, probably. But Jeep is authorized. The broader important point is that there's no fundamental difference between the computer system shipped in that 2015 Jeep and today's Jeep. There's vehicle LAN network in addition to the CAN network. There's usually several computers on it talking to each other, with access to the internet and Jeep's servers (through a cell modem). There's typically a central computer that does core function, infotainment computer that drives the centre display, an ADAS computer that does driver assist. There could be more. Today they have faster CPUs, more RAM and more storage than in 2015. Think evolution of smartphone SoCs as they're typically related. Depending on the manufacturer and model, they could be combined into fewer or spread to more computers. Also depending on the manufacturer they collect and send different amounts of data. The overarching incentive is that data collection is profitable so every manufacturer has to contend with that and oppose it to what they're allowed to do. Pretty sure you know how competition for profit maximization works. You probably have to go back to early 2010s models to find ICE vehicles without these computers.
Mozilla did a study on cars and data collection. They found it was an industry wide problem. Every manufacturer tested collected tons of personal data and didn't keep it secure or private. Their writeup does not mention EVs, and it implicated brands like subaru which does not sell an EV in Canada or the US at time of writing.
This is not an EV problem.
Most cars have an internet connection. Many have a cellular modem built in. Modern infotainment systems use the internet and upload the data that way. Many cars also store data internally that is only accessible to authorized service centers through a proprietary tool, which will upload the data when serviced by a dealer. Data is valuable. Companies don't just refuse to exploit that value on principle.
I don't trust the laws as they currently exist, which is why I am advocating they be changed to stop this data collection.
All cars have this problem. EVs are not the issue. But not just cars, any device with a computer and an internet connection does this exact same thing. You can't play whack a mole banning countries in specific industries and do anything. The only solution is broad data protection laws.
The OTA updates thing is mostly the result of tesla's ineptitude and willingness to ship a defective product in the hopes they can fix it with a patch. They are not the only cars with internet connections.