Automakers selling new cars, trucks, and crossovers in the United States are keeping the pressure on the U.S. Congress to shut the door on Chinese connected vehicles before the calendar runs out.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the trade group that speaks for most of the automakers selling cars in the United States, is pretty blunt in what U.S. car companies want: a "permanent ban on the sale, import and manufacture of Chinese connected vehicles, hardware and software before the conclusion of the 119th Congress."
In other words, do it now, and codify it permanently.
Alliance president and CEO John Bozzella laid out the argument in a letter to House and Senate leadership, addressed to Speaker Johnson, Majority Leader Thune, Minority Leader Jeffries, and Minority Leader Schumer. His framing leans entirely on national security rather than competition on the showroom floor.
"Right now, Chinese automakers are dumping subsidized vehicles with connected software and hardware around the world," Bozzella wrote. "China is capturing market share in Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, Mexico and South America with vehicles capable of collecting, processing and transmitting sensitive vehicle and consumer data to the Chinese Communist Party."
Bozzella concedes the one inconvenient detail: it hasn't happened here. "This hasn't happened inside the U.S. yet," he wrote, before pivoting to "the scale and urgency of this threat" as reason enough to act preemptively.
The data-collection angle is the legally useful one, since it hands Congress a bipartisan security hook rather than a naked protectionism argument. But the subtext is not subtle. Bozzella describes China's "strategy to dominate global automotive manufacturing" and wants a ban that sends "a clear and bipartisan message" back.
The Alliance represents a broad slice of the industry: the automakers building the bulk of the country's new cars, autonomous-vehicle outfits, suppliers, battery producers, and semiconductor makers. By its own accounting, the group says the sector supports roughly 11 million jobs across the country and accounts for north of five percent of economic output. That's a lot of members with a lot of reasons to prefer Chinese EVs stay on other continents.
Whether Congress acts before adjourning this year is another matter. The request is on record. The vote is not.
[Images: Buick, Toyota, Ford, Chevrolet]
Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.
via Autobuzz Today
Comments
Post a Comment