China recently banned Tesla vehicles from its military complexes while citing security concerns, and this has “finance Twitter” in a bit of a tizzy. Reuters reported that Tesla vehicles can not enter Chinese military complexes due to security concerns over the cameras installed on Tesla’s vehicles.
The directive advises Tesla owners to park their cars outside the military property, according to sources that Reuters spoke with. The article noted that it wasn’t clear whether this measure is applied to all such facilities but that the move came after a government security review of Tesla’s vehicles.
Ray4Tesla, who often has a few news-related tweets about Tesla, Tesla China, and Giga Shanghai, shared his thoughts in a Twitter thread. He noted that the initial Bloomberg report about the Chinese military ban on Teslas may have spooked some people but the ban only applies to the use of the Teslas on the military complex.
This is to prevent the “leaking of military secrets,” and Ray added that iPhones have also been banned by the Chinese military for the same reason. “Has it affected sales? NO.”
In 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported that China labeled the Apple iPhone as a security threat. The state-run China Central Television (CCT) labeled Apple’s iPhone location-tracking features a “national security concern.
In the broadcast, the anchor referred to a function in the Apple iOS 7 mobile operating system that records the time and location of the owner’s movements. The report cited researchers who said that anyone with access to that data could gain knowledge of China’s economic situation or “even state secrets.”
Tesla was the first car factory in China that was wholly foreign-owned, meaning that it was allowed to operate without a local partner. It is also the largest overseas manufacturing investment in Shanghai, and The South China Morning Post noted that it possibly surpassed Walt Disney’s $5.5 billion spendings on the Shanghai Disney Resort.
Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk says his company’s cars would never be used for spying in China, in response to reports that the country’s military has banned the vehicles over such concerns.
“There’s a very strong incentive for us to be very confidential with any information,” the billionaire said Saturday at the China Development Forum, an annual conference organized by a unit of the government’s State Council. “If Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, we will get shut down.”
Just hours before he spoke, Reuters and Bloomberg reported that China’s military had banned Tesla vehicles from entering its complexes, expressing concerns over cameras equipped onboard.
Additionally, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the government was restricting “military staff and employees of key state-owned companies” from driving the US automaker’s cars, “citing concerns that data the cars gather could be a source of national security leaks.”
Tesla was the first car factory in China that was wholly foreign-owned, meaning that it was allowed to operate without a local partner. It is also the largest overseas manufacturing investment in Shanghai, and The South China Morning Post noted that it possibly surpassed Walt Disney’s $5.5 billion spendings on the Shanghai Disney Resort.
