This kind of data collection is not limited to China (or the future they imagine in the article), as in Germany many car manufacturers do this kind of data collection since at least 2016, often without people really realizing the scope of it. Here's a good article about this (from Switzerland actually but also applicable to other countries in the EU and probably beyond):<p>* <a href="https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/wie-uns-autobauer-ausspaehen" rel="nofollow">https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/wie-uns-autobauer-ausspaehen</a> (in German)<p>For example, Mercedes Benz forced people to accept this kind of data collection when signing the buying contract (no consent -> no car), though I think they might no longer be able to do this now due to restrictions imposed by the GDPR, which forbids making an entire contract dependent on the consent to a data collection measure that is not strictly required for the purposes of the contract.<p>The data does (to my knowledge) not get centralized yet, but a conglomerate of car companies is working on a platform that will make the data accessible to third parties (supposedly with user consent), so that e.g. gas station operators can offer tailored discounts to people based on their route.<p>In general there's nothing fundamentally wrong with collecting this data, as a German I was very surprised to learn about this though as normally people are pretty privacy-aware here, and having all your movement data (and more) continuously streamed to your car manufacturer didn't seem like something that most people would take lightly. Seems I was wrong about this though as of today no one really seems to mind.
This is the danger of China dominating electric vehicles in the future, which is to say China will dominate <i>most</i> of the car industry in the future, because EVs are the future of all cars.<p>Obviously, this isn't just about the spying and China "invading your privacy". If they have access to the car data, they probably have remote access to other components in the cars, too. Baidu's open source Apollo program is another trojan hourse that the China government would like the western markets to adopt.
HN headlines like this is why China discourages April fools day.<p>People who don't have time to read the article will have the idea of "China is spying on all cars using Chinese 5G Modems" in their mind and it's hard to correct wrong beliefs.<p>You can't expect the whole population to have time to read the content and be informed and careful enough to distinguish fiction and facts, especially if it comes from a reputable source like Economist.