Only two decades have passed since China’s car industry began out-producing that of the UK. Now, British officials are fearful of Beijing’s dominance bringing British roads to a standstill.
Concerns relate specifically to electric vehicles. These are 40% cheaper to manufacture in China than in Europe. It is expected that Chinese models will flood the market in the coming years given the Conservative government’s plan to ban the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars by 2030.
A new report warns of a major impending security risk in handing Beijing the power to immobilise thousands of cars owned by Britons—and many others across Europe. Professor Jim Saker of the Institute of the Motor Industry, quoted in The Times, said “the threat of connected electric vehicles flooding the country could be the most effective Trojan horse that the Chinese establishment has.” There would, he added, be no way to prevent Chinese state-owned manufacturers from including technology in cars set to be exported which could bring them all to a halt.
This comes just months after reports of a Chinese tracking device being found in a UK government vehicle.
It appears the British establishment has not learnt its lesson, even after deciding at the turn of the decade to purge Chinese Huawei phones from the 5G network by the end of 2027 due to security fears.
Some MPs have aired their concerns about the coming dominance of Chinese electric vehicles. Alicia Kearns, chairwoman of parliament’s foreign affairs select committee, is quoted in the Mail as insisting that
We must … not to allow the Chinese Communist Party to secure a back door into our security by forcing dependency or inserting technologies that map and exfiltrate data on our daily lives. We must learn from the Huawei experience. The Chinese Communist Party is seeking to build a tech totalitarian state.
A spokesman from the Department for Business and Trade told the paper that it was “committed to ensuring the future of the car industry in the UK.” Apparently, with net-zero policies in place, the warning message has yet to hit its mark.
