Any connected device creates vulnerability. As someone who’s spent a considerable amount of time on cyber security I can tell you that narrowly focusing on the vulnerabilities of cars is futile. It’s the equivalent of double checking the dead bolt on your front door and leaving your garage wide open. Why go after cars when you can wreak havoc by going after our porous cyber infrastructure and inflict 10x the damage? And eavesdropping is already happening, you don’t need to spend resources on engineering it into a car.
And don’t kid yourself about how we’re different than the Chinese when it comes to subsidizing industries. Our modern day military industry exists as a subsidy to defense contractors and the oil and gas industry. We’ve spent billions over the last few months affirming that. Meanwhile the Chinese are pouring their dollars into infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities much of which is paid for on interest from our debt. Talk about a subsidy.
And our U.S. automakers have no qualms about partnering with the Chinese government to build and sell cars in their country.
) but I could see that it was aspirational (not hell or high water) and likely announced primarily to get the supply base to focus on it and take seriously the development of technologies to support.