Tesla sold up to just under 3% to Wall Street (and then recovered) after news broke that the Chinese government is restricting the use of US electric car house vehicles by military personnel, civilian personnel in state-controlled enterprises in key sectors of industry and employees of state agencies. The orders of the military leaders are to park the Tesla outside the military areas. The decision to limit their use – for example, by banning employees from driving them to work – was justified by fears of the cars’ collection of data, which could pose a threat to national security.
Data collection under observation
The decision was made after government-initiated checks and concerns over possible uninterrupted recording by car cameras, data collected on where, when and for how long the cars are used and telephone contact lists, a time synchronized smartphones to cars.
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The importance of the Chinese market
The Chinese market is becoming increasingly important for Tesla, which produces in its gigafactory in Shanghai, and has been instrumental in allowing Elon Musk’s company to reach its goal of 500,000 vehicles sold worldwide in one year, of which 139,000 are Model 3 sold in China, doubling sales compared to 2019, at 6.6 billion. Similar decisions have been made in the United States about Chinese tech companies, in a technology battle between Beijing and Washington that continues uninterrupted.