Secret Agent Tesla?
A Chinese coastal district will be banning Tesla cars from travelling its roadways in July, for fears of the EV company spying on a leadership summit taking place there.
The ban - which could last as long as two months - is not the first time these specific fears have been voiced about Tesla’s vehicles, a similar ban in Chengdu having been put in place ahead of a visit there by Chinese President Xi Jingping.
This time, the event seems to be a leadership summit in the coastal district of Beidaihe.
Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, have attempted to assure the Chinese government that they simply wouldn’t have a vested interest in spying on the Chinese state; and they’ve been very careful about even criticising the country for quite some time now. But, it seems the Chinese are taking no chances when it comes to their top leadership.
And, looking at the vehicles, you might be able to forgive them for that caution. Tesla’s use a series of cameras - instead of radar - for their FSD software. These systems could be rigged to take and store those images - or load them to the cloud for easy dissemination.
And it’s not like the U.S. has never used a private company to help them spy on another country before, so maybe China is smart to play it safe.
“There’s a very strong incentive for us to be very confidential with any information. If Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, we will get shut down.”
Of course, it’s pretty unlikely that Tesla would spy on anyone. Like Elon mentioned, if they got caught, they’d be shut down, and would have spent the last couple of years of investment in Shanghai for nothing. That’s a strong incentive indeed.
But it is fun to think that a Tesla vehicle is only a couple of modifications away from being a candidate for a Bond car.