China lifts restrictions on Teslas after data security compliance

BEIJING — Following compliance with China’s data security requirements, local authorities have lifted restrictions imposed on Tesla cars. The company announced this development over the weekend as CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing for a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, an unplanned interaction at Asia’s leading motor exhibition currently being hosted after four years of hiatus due to COVID-19 pandemic concerns.
Teslas have been banned from some government properties because of data security issues that raised fears about the amount of information Tesla could collect in China. The U.S.-based automaker is one among a host of foreign firms scrutinized for national security risks over their capacity to gather and send sensitive details back home, with an investigation ordered by the Biden administration earlier this year on imported cars from China along these lines.
While Chinese officials haven’t clarified which specific bodies removed restrictions on Tesla models due in 2015 since Thursday night local time as published at Forbes, several other electric vehicles that passed data security requirements were also identified: BYD’s new energy automobiles (NEV), Lotus, Nezha, Li Auto and Nio.
The Chinese government introduced the rules for connected cars in November 2021 to be implemented from this year onwards while providing exceptions till March as it encouraged producers worldwide that intend publishing fresh vehicle lines into China’s marketplace by submitting them voluntarily for inspection. The new data security requirements cover automobiles released between 2022 and 2023, which Tesla is a part of.
The rules mandate anonymizing facial recognition information outside the car, defaulting to not collecting cockpit details unless otherwise stated by users while processing such info inside cars as well as prominently informing drivers about personal data handling procedures. The Chinese Association for Automobile Manufacturers and National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China both published the results at different times yesterday after a battery of tests confirmed that Tesla, BYD’s NEVs, Lotus’, Nezha’s vehicles as well as Li Auto & Nio cars all met data compliance standards.
In addition to its localised data storage policy initiated in 2021 via the Shanghai Data Centre and ISO/IEC 27001 international standard for information security following a third-party audit, Tesla’s statement also revealed that it had passed these requirements as well.
While analyst JL Warren Capital CEO Junheng Li noted that Tesla may introduce Full Self Driving (FSD) software in China’s ‘supervised’ format – she doesn’t anticipate such an outcome being achievable for the US company given obstacles with local operation of its technology as a foreign entity. She also added that there is no strategic value to Beijing supporting FSD’s domestic rollout when other homegrown brands, like Xpeng, have high-quality driver assistance software.
Premier Li visited several companies at the auto show on Sunday and called for innovation and demand driving production in line with state media reports. Tesla did not exhibit its products during this year’s edition as has been typical since 2021 when a protestor stood on one of its vehicles, disrupting proceedings.