Tesla drivers should not park on military property; Residents of military housing were informed this week: Source
The Chinese military has banned Tesla cars from entering their housing complexes, citing security concerns over cameras mounted on vehicles, with two people noticing the directing notice.
The move is the latest sign of China’s growing scrutiny of the US electric carmaker amid tensions with Washington and analysts said it is close to US measures against Chinese telecom firm Huawei on national security grounds.
Tesla drew strong support from Shanghai when it built its first overseas factory in 2019 and its best model 3 Brexan was the best-selling electric vehicle in the country before overtaking the much cheaper Micro EV last year.
The directive states Tesla owners have advised to park their cars outside military property and residents were informed of the restrictions this week, two sources said, named because of the sensitivity of the issue Gone.
Bloomberg news This step was previously reported.
Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates, said the latest ban on Tesla is a closely parallel concern of the US government’s hostility to Huawei that Beijing may have access to American telecommunications infrastructure.
“Even if such concern is exaggerated, it can create clutter for directly affected companies,” he said.
separately, Wall Street Journal China’s government was prohibiting the use of Tesla cars by personnel in military, state-owned enterprises in sensitive industries and major agencies.
It was not immediately clear whether the measure implemented such facilities. The move comes after a government safety review of Tesla’s vehicles, the Wall Street Journal reported, cited people familiar with the effort.
Tesla shares, which rose more than eight times in 2020, fell nearly 2% in New York trading on Friday.
Tesla sold 147,445 cars in China last year, or 30% of its total deliveries, although it was sold to domestic rivals such as Nio Inc. And is facing increasing competition from Geely.
China’s State Council Information Office and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday. China’s Defense Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.
Cars and cameras
The military’s apparent concern about Tesla underscores a broader issue for automakers as they equip more vehicles with cameras and sensors that capture images of the car’s surroundings.
Who controls how those images are used and where they are sent and stored is a rapidly emerging challenge for the auto industry and regulators around the world.
Tesla cars have multiple external cameras to aid parking and self-driving, and chief executive Elon Musk has often talked about the value of data that Tesla vehicles capture that was used to develop autonomous driving can go.
Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y also have cameras in the rear view mirror for driver safety that are disabled by default.
Chinese military sanctions on Tesla came as a controversial meeting of senior Chinese and US officials in Alaska, the first face-to-face talks after US President Joe Biden took office.
Michael Dunne, chief executive officer of consultancy ZoZoGo, said, “China has a wide range of equipment – some direct, some indirect-foreign, such as enormous pressure on companies like Tesla. Pressure can come in any direction for any reason.”
It was not immediately clear whether Tesla’s decision was related to increasing US-China tensions.
A Chinese state regulator said in February that government officials had met with Tesla representatives on reports of failures in battery fires, unexpected accelerations and over-the-air software updates from consumers.
Musk is called the China Development Forum at a state-held annual global economic gathering in Beijing on Saturday. Chinese officials are also involved in the event.
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