A group representing American automakers sent a letter (PDF) Thursday to congressional leaders asking for a “permanent ban” on Chinese-made cars in the U.S. John Bozzella, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation’s CEO and president, described in the letter China’s manufacturing industry as “rooted in a well-documented pattern of unfair trade, subsidies, intellectual property theft and surveillance.” Bozzella addressed his request to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) – urging them to back a “permanent ban on the sale, import and manufacture of Chinese connected vehicles,” before the 119th Congress concludes in January

      • supersquirrel@lemmy.ca
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        5 hours ago

        But but but non-chinese automakers aren’t evil like China is and surely they won’t shove their vehicles full of spyware crap!

        • seang96@spgrn.com
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          5 hours ago

          They are still evil but some are still better. Subaru has one of the better privacy policies, though still sucks. At least they don’t sell your usage to insurance companies so far.

            • seang96@spgrn.com
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              4 hours ago

              That’s the state of our privacy laws or the lack of them. The talks of telemetry in cars are starting to be discussed in politics though I have low expectations on any positive outcome lol

              • supersquirrel@lemmy.ca
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                4 hours ago

                I mean look of course I don’t trust China blindly to sell me an electric car that doesn’t have some kind of privacy invading aspect to it… that is why you have good cybersecurity regulations with agencies focused on maintaining a high level of standards in domestic markets… but I ALSO sure as hell don’t trust US or “western” automakers to not do equally evil shit with privacy invading crap and unlike China… there is much more of an economic incentive to invade my privacy by domestic interests.

                I also for the record don’t trust the US government or other “western” governments to properly penalize automakers for invading my privacy, to the point that even if it is “illegal” international corporations surely just see it as a minor cost of doing business.

                so shrugs my opinion is do better “western” car companies

                • seang96@spgrn.com
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                  3 hours ago

                  Yeah IMO if I had choice of US made car that sucks and has a ton of telemetry versus a Chinese car that is better but has telemetry and cheaper well why not get it and disable the telemetry lol.

  • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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    5 hours ago

    “Chinese-made”. We had this exact conversation over 40 years ago. The result was Honda opening their factory in Marysville, OH. Under the laws at the time, cars manufactured at this factory were American-made, and not covered by any trade restrictions.

    Now you might be thinking they’ll use a different definition, like company ownership. Except Chinese companies already own minority stakes in several western brands. And since companies can own other companies, or stakes in other companies, it’s trivial to setup a chain of shell companies. Chinese brands can own a company in Sweden that owns a stake in (e.g) GM.