Recently, the Biden administration announced that it would investigate electric vehicles made in China "in the name of threatening national security". There is also a growing debate about whether China's electric vehicles will steal data, and even the current growth rate of electric vehicle exports has slowed. Do China's electric vehicles really threaten national security? What is the basis of the U.S. investigation? Who exactly do Chinese electric vehicles offend?
In order to find the source of all the information, we built an AI database using the latest large-scale model technology. Get real-time access to more than 600 million stories per day from around the world. And, for the first time, digital journalists were able to search for clues in a virtual database. Let's uncover the truth of the facts.
The starting point: a letter riddled with holes
When we grabbed the labels of China's electric vehicles and national security in the large model system, and chose the emotional tendency as negative, in the past 30 days, more than 5,000 reports. And when we turn back the clock, we find that the search volume has been stable until July last year, and it has gradually increased.
What happened last July? The system found the most relevant content with these tags, pointing to such a letter. This is a letter written by four members of Congress to U.S. Commerce Secretary Raimondo and U.S. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg, which happened to be in July last year.
At this time, however, the letter was aimed at self-driving vehicles in China. It is proposed that Chinese companies have successively registered and carried out tests in California, the most populous state in the United States, in order to collect more data on Americans.
It seems to make sense, is that really the case?
On the California Department of Vehicles website, we found information on all vehicle tests for the last two years. When we screened out the vehicles belonging to Chinese companies, we found that:
In 2022, there were 124 vehicles from 7 businesses
In 2023, there are 74 vehicles left from 4 companies
Carefully comparing the two lists, we find that Pony.ai, which ranked first among Chinese companies in 2022, will disappear in 2023 along with its 44 test vehicles.
Pony.ai, the name seems to have appeared in the letter. In the letter, Pony.ai is singled out as a typical example of stealing data. Was it really expelled from California because of this?
When we inquired about the specific time when Pony.ai was forced to leave California, we found that it was as early as May 2022.
It has already begun to expel Chinese companies, but in July 2023, the old matter will be brought up again in the name of national security. How can we steal data when the cars are gone? Such a letter, which is full of loopholes and even fabricated out of nothing, has become the starting point for the United States to investigate Chinese automobiles.
Means: Concepts are constantly confused
Within 72 hours of the letter being exposed, we found that the search volume in the field of public opinion was actually only more than 2,000, which is very different from the current discussion heat. It's only been 9 months since the letter was sent, but what has happened in between?
We used an AI database to find all the remarks made in public by all U.S. politicians and think tank scholars:
In October 2023, someone began to speak out. At this time, the subject of discussion changed from "self-driving cars" to "connected cars", and the more popular expression increased the number of searches in three days from more than 2,000 times to more than 500,000.
In November 2023, the scale of the participating dignitaries was expanded again, and the content was still this letter, and the object of discussion changed again, blurring into a broader "smart car". This time, within 72 hours, the search volume reached more than 17 million.
In January 2024, the same basic content of the letter, but after self-driving cars, "and electric vehicles" was quietly added.
Since then, the discussion has become more and more heated, but the concept of self-driving cars has gradually disappeared, leaving only Chinese electric vehicles.
We see that after the analysis of big data, we have obtained such an evolutionary process. Based on this flawed letter, the concept of self-driving cars has been extended and confused: first into connected cars, then into smart cars, and finally into electric vehicles. The pertinence is getting stronger and stronger, and it also guides the public opinion to continue to rise.
What is the result of such a change?
Reporter: I heard about the negative information about China's electric vehicles, will you still buy them?
U.S. car owner: I'm in the technology business, so I'm more worried about that, there's a lot of discussion around whether Chinese technology is safe, and if the investigation is approved and they figure out how to do it, I'll follow up.
American car owner: If it enters the market, and it's something I'm interested in, I'll consider it.
U.S. car owners: I think it's important to be cautious about things that come from foreign countries because it can be dangerous.
We see that in this way, it has begun to raise concerns among the American public about the safety of electric vehicles in China.
Fact: Chinese cars have long been unable to enter the United States
If the United States is so worried that China's electric vehicles will steal data, how many Chinese electric vehicles are there in the United States? When we look up the export data of China's electric vehicles since the beginning of this year, we find that the number of passenger cars exported to the United States is almost negligible due to high tariffs and other sanctions.
Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers: It's almost zero, I haven't heard of any company selling to the United States, and there were some buses in the early days. In the case of passenger cars, the U.S. has adjusted its policy to limit the export of electrification technology.
There is the same problem as the investigation of Pony.ai, that is, the car is gone, how can we talk about the so-called theft of data?
What exactly is the United States worried about?
Again, we look for clues in the database. These two paragraphs caught our attention.
This is a video of Raimondo's interview, and when referring to the data collected by Chinese cars, the accompanying image of the video points to BYD.
This is a recent campaign speech by Trump, in which he will "impose 100% tariffs on Chinese cars produced in Mexico" as a bargaining chip for his campaign.
BYD and Mexico, what is the relationship between this? We found BYD's latest financial report data and industrial layout, and such a piece of information appeared.
BYD expects to determine the location of its plant in Mexico by the end of the year. ”
The information was released in late February. It was also at this time that the United States began to trumpet the threat of China's electric vehicles to national security.
To this end, the reporter tried to contact a number of European and American economic experts, and when the reporter mentioned questions about BYD's construction of a factory in Mexico, most of them refused to be interviewed because "it involves the United States and it is inconvenient to answer". Only Professor John Quelch, former senior associate dean of Harvard Business School, who has long studied Sino-US and Sino-European relations, gave his own views in the face of reporters' questions.
Reporter: Recently, many Chinese companies have announced plans to build factories in Mexico, is this the reason why the United States is claiming to investigate Chinese electric vehicles at this time?
Professor John Quelch, an expert in American business management: The brands of Chinese electric vehicle companies are basically non-existent in the U.S. market at present, and production in Mexico may be supplied to the U.S. market, which is obviously a good move from China's point of view, but the entire U.S. auto industry feels threatened overnight, and naturally has to make some precautions against this.
It turns out that the construction of factories by Chinese companies in Mexico, in the eyes of the United States, means that Chinese cars may be exported from Mexico to the United States, which has become a kind of crack to the current "strict defense". In particular, BYD just last year with an annual sales of 3.02 million units, the world's first electric vehicle sales, let Chinese car companies for the first time among the world's top ten car companies.
Detective: The politicization of the economy is no longer an isolated case
Such competitors have made the United States not hesitate to confuse concepts and lead public concerns about data security to prevent it from entering the American market. And when we search for such a means to stretch the timeline, Zhenhua Heavy Industries, TikTok, Huawei, familiar Chinese companies continue to appear.
Continuing to expand the search, this is the French Alstom in 2014, which faced a $770 million fine and was eventually acquired by the American General Electric.
We found that in this timeline, it is no longer just Chinese companies that appear, as long as the "giant enterprises" in the world at that time, even the allies of the United States, have not been spared. Not only France, but further on, we find Japan in the 80s of the 20th century.
At this time, Japan had 50% of the world's semiconductor market. One of the most notable companies is Toshiba, which developed the world's first laptop computer and has the world's largest market share for seven consecutive years.
However, in 1987, the United States launched an investigation into Toshiba in the name of national security. What is the result of the investigation? Toshiba closed its factories in the United States, imposed 100 percent tariffs on Toshiba's products sold to the United States, and imposed a hefty fine of 1 trillion yen.
When we searched for the development trend of the global semiconductor industry in the AI database, the system generated such a graph for us. In 1987, when the Japanese semiconductor industry entered a 30-year depression, the United States began to rise rapidly and finally regained its monopoly.
So, where will China's electric vehicles go today?
Recently, various car giants have expressed their intention to continue to deepen the Chinese market, increase investment, and accelerate transformation.
Senior Executive Vice President of Mercedes-Benz (China) Investment Co., Ltd. Ou Lifu: Mercedes-Benz's determination to promote the transformation of electrification remains unchanged, and we continue to expand our local R&D layout in China.
Electric vehicles are a highly globalized industry, and only fair competition can lead to technological progress, and only open cooperation can achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.
Editor: Fan Meiling
Source: CCTV news client