Carmakers Rush To Remove Chinese Code Under New US Rules
10 141"How Chinese is your car?" asks the Wall Street Journal. "Automakers are racing to work it out." Modern cars are packed with internet-connected widgets, many of them containing Chinese technology. Now, the car industry is scrambling to root out that tech ahead of a looming deadline, a test case for America's ability to decouple from Chinese supply chains. New U.S. rules will soon ban Chinese software in vehicle systems that connect to the cloud, part of an effort to prevent cameras, microphones and GPS tracking in cars from being exploited by foreign adversaries.
The move is "one of the most consequential and complex auto regulations in decades," according to Hilary Cain, head of policy at trade group the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. "It requires a deep examination of supply chains and aggressive compliance timelines."
Carmakers will need to attest to the U.S. government that, as of March 17, core elements of their products don't contain code that was written in China or by a Chinese company. The rule also covers software for advanced autonomous driving and will be extended to connectivity hardware starting in 2029. Connected cars made by Chinese or China-controlled companies are also banned, wherever their software comes from...
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, which introduced the connected-vehicle rule, is also allowing the use of Chinese code that is transferred to a non-Chinese entity before March 17. That carve-out has sparked a rush of corporate restructuring, according to Matt Wyckhouse, chief executive of cybersecurity firm Finite State. Global suppliers are relocating China-based software teams, while Chinese companies are seeking new owners for operations in the West.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
10 comments
Re: Canâ(TM)t the Chinese just buy all the i (Score: 5, Informative)
by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @05:52AM (#65977258)
Yes, they are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/04... [cnn.com]
Re:Connected cars are a plauge (Score: 5, Informative)
by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @04:24AM (#65977178)
The original Nissan Leaf had connectivity for driving stats, charge monitoring, and remotely turning on the AC before you set off so that the car is defrosted and warm using AC power. It was free and was supposed to become a paid service, but they never got around to charging for it.
The driving stats were of limited use. The charge monitoring was useful. The remote AC/defrost is one of the best features of EVs.
What killed it in a lot of Leafs is that the originals had 2G modems, which are no longer supported by the networks. You can replace them with an open source module with a more modern modem and your own SIM.
The chinese aren't the problem (Score: 5, Insightful)
by cshark ( 673578 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @12:53AM (#65977020)
Our government is the problem.
They're well beyond what they're allowed to do at this point in terms of surveillance, and the law doesn't protect people like it should.
Cars shouldn't be building psychometric profiles on you and selling them to everyone and anyone who wants to know how often you've used your drink holder.
The adversaries to personal freedom here are local.
Re:The chinese aren't the problem (Score: 5, Interesting)
by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @04:25AM (#65977180)
You can expect the quality of these cars to drop rapidly as tested, debugged software is replaced by hastily lashed together vibe coded crap.
Maybe that's the point. Easier for the US government to hack it.
This will fail. (Score: 5, Interesting)
by Puls4r ( 724907 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @10:39AM (#65977658)
Chinese companies that have been "locked out" of competition in specific areas using legal means. Their response has been to continue to do all the engineering in China, then hire a small American firm to do both the build and programming. But the 'programming' consists of grabbing code that the Chinese firm has uploaded to git-hub, and then debugging it online with the Chinese in zoom calls. And the Chinese still profit from it. Essentially, Chinese tele-presence. In the end, the product has the name of the small American firm on it, but it is a Chinese product, with Chinese code, Chinese design, and profit that goes back to the Chinese.
Re:Corrected title (Score: 5, Informative)
by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Sunday February 08, 2026 @09:59PM (#65976854)
This isn't about the ethnicity, it's about geopolitics and the different goals of our government and theirs. That said, I question the value of that when half our electronics are manufactured there and can have hardware level spying already there.
Re:Corrected title (Score: 5, Insightful)
by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday February 08, 2026 @11:23PM (#65976954)
Compared to the US government, I'm far less concerned about what China does with my data. The Chinese government can't send masked secret police to my home to abduct me.
Re:Corrected title (Score: 5, Insightful)
by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @08:25AM (#65977392)
And how many masked men did Obama deputize? How many American citizens did these masked men murder under Obama? Zero.
Re:Corrected title (Score: 5, Insightful)
by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday February 09, 2026 @09:13AM (#65977484)
You know Obama deported more people, then Trump...right?
No one is complaining about the number of deportations. They are complaining about the *method* of deportations.
To equate Obama's deportations with Trumps where multiple constitutional guarantees are violated and American citizens have been executed summarily in the street makes you a truly despicable piece of shit. I'm only sad that you're not being deported in lieu of the immigrants contributing to actually making American great rather than your efforts of simply tearing the country down with bullshit partisan politics.
Re:Corrected title (Score: 5, Insightful)
by djinn6 ( 1868030 ) on Sunday February 08, 2026 @11:42PM (#65976984)
Sooner or later we'll have geopolitically aligned software. The Israeli pager attack showed how dangerous it is to not have a friendly superpower produce your electronics. The same problem exists in software, perhaps to an even greater degree.
In that world I expect open source to win, because that's the only way to create trustworthy software while avoiding doing a huge amount of duplicate work.