Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – China restricts the use of electric vehicles from Tesla by some state and military personnel, according to a Wall Street Journal report from Friday. As reported by Bloomberg, they said that the cars were banned in certain areas.
The move was also taken because of security concerns over cameras installed on electric cars made by the United States (US) company. Because of this, Tesla’s shares fell as much as 4.4% in early trading, Friday (19/3/2021), but managed to close up 0.26% to the level of US $ 654.87 / share.
The Wall Street Journal wrote that Tesla could obtain key data, such as when and where the car was used. It is even said that Tesla could also track more personal information, such as a cellphone contact list if it is connected to a car, according to the report.
China is ultimately worried about the information and is afraid all the data can be sent back to the United States, according to the Journal.
Tesla’s automatic driving features, such as Navigate on Autopilot, rely more on cameras than similar features on other manufacturers’ autonomous cars.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk famously rejected lidar (proximity sensor and light detection) as too expensive and unnecessary for an autonomous vehicle system.
Tesla Made in China Model 3 and Model Y took about 13% of the electric vehicle market share in China in the first two months of 2021, according to an analysis by JL Warren Capital.
Tesla faces increasing competition in China, even where features like Navigate on Autopilot are a concern. JL Warren founder and CEO Junheng Li said Xpeng (XPEV) was the first Chinese automaker to use Nvidia hardware to develop state-of-the-art driver assistance software within the company, and the system is seen as the best performing in the country, ahead of similar products from Nio and Tesla.
On Thursday (18/3), SAIC Motor, China’s largest automaker, announced plans to develop an automatic propulsion system using lidar sensors and software from Luminar Technologies.
Tesla’s sales in China more than doubled last year to $ 6.66 billion, or 21% of the $ 31.54 billion total. In 2019, Tesla’s sales in China totaled $ 2.98 billion, only 12% of the total $ 24.58 billion.
Tesla could not immediately be reached for comment.
(hps / hps)
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