China will remove its tariffs on Canadian agriculture — including on canola products — if Canada scraps its levies on Chinese electric vehicles, that country’s ambassador says.
They’re far too computerized, and connected, at this point.
The last thing I want is the ability for the Chinese government to disable a quarter of the Canadian vehicle fleet if they decided they wanted to. Or potentially even worse than disabling them in some cases.
This is possible with most modern vehicles today. They nearly all have cellular modems built in and very few have the driving related systems separated from the ‘infotainment’ crapware. 2014ish jeeps could be bricked by OTA updates to the fucking radio, there’s a good Defcon talk about it
A vulnerability was found this year in an undisclosed major car manufacture in the USA that gave total control to an attacker over all vehicles sold by that manufacture’s dealerships. Remote start/shutoff, unlock doors, GPS tracking, even transferring the ownership to another person. All modern vehicles are a security nightmare, the chinese are no better, no worse. https://eaton-works.com/2025/10/13/def-con-33/
I’m far less concerned about the American government disabling vehicles in Canada. If America wanted to take us over we couldn’t even dream of stopping them.
At this point it’s not even inconceivable for Americans to do something as retaliation for, say, Dougie Ford shutting down electricity. Or use it as a bargain chip as part of playing it tough in a negotiation.
Or forget the taking us over bit. It’s not the taking over that is hard for them, it’s keeping control. We can very effectively resist and make the occupation extremely costly for them. Every bit of leverage they have makes this harder.
Fuck, is it that inconceivable that if they go full Gilead they wouldn’t start shit like controlling whether you can drive your car to an abortion clinic?
I have a security concern with Chinese EVs.
They’re far too computerized, and connected, at this point.
The last thing I want is the ability for the Chinese government to disable a quarter of the Canadian vehicle fleet if they decided they wanted to. Or potentially even worse than disabling them in some cases.
This is possible with most modern vehicles today. They nearly all have cellular modems built in and very few have the driving related systems separated from the ‘infotainment’ crapware. 2014ish jeeps could be bricked by OTA updates to the fucking radio, there’s a good Defcon talk about it
Yes, but I’d much rather have the company controlling the official switch not be directly under the control of China.
The US is only marginally better right now, but they have less incentive to do it and less control of their car companies.
A vulnerability was found this year in an undisclosed major car manufacture in the USA that gave total control to an attacker over all vehicles sold by that manufacture’s dealerships. Remote start/shutoff, unlock doors, GPS tracking, even transferring the ownership to another person. All modern vehicles are a security nightmare, the chinese are no better, no worse. https://eaton-works.com/2025/10/13/def-con-33/
They are worse, because the Chinese government has direct access to an official kill switch if they want it.
Just because there can be other problems doesn’t make that any less of a problem
Canada should not buy those american F35’s for exactly the same reason(s).
I don’t disagree with that.
American cars are the same, and China hasn’t joked about making us their 24th province.
No, China hasn’t joked about that, but they will do so if they can.
I’m far less concerned about the American government disabling vehicles in Canada. If America wanted to take us over we couldn’t even dream of stopping them.
China could benefit from causing problems though.
At this point it’s not even inconceivable for Americans to do something as retaliation for, say, Dougie Ford shutting down electricity. Or use it as a bargain chip as part of playing it tough in a negotiation.
Or forget the taking us over bit. It’s not the taking over that is hard for them, it’s keeping control. We can very effectively resist and make the occupation extremely costly for them. Every bit of leverage they have makes this harder.
Fuck, is it that inconceivable that if they go full Gilead they wouldn’t start shit like controlling whether you can drive your car to an abortion clinic?