Tesla vehicles are equipped with cameras that can record and send videos to the cloud
The city of Beidaihe will be hosting a secretive party conclave in a few months
China is paranoid about possible spying by foreign nations
A city in China has announced it will ban all Tesla vehicles from entering its limits for a period of two months starting on July 1st due to concerns about Spying.
Tesla vehicles are equipped with a number of cameras that are used for the driver assistance features as well as the Sentry mode, which records movement next to the car while the owner is away.
These cameras are also capable of sending the images they have recorded to the cloud, where they can be stored in Tesla-controlled servers.
This last element is what pushed the city of Beidaihe to ban all of the company’s vehicles for two months while it will host a secretive party conclave where government officials will discuss sensitive information.
The Chinese government had already expressed concerns about possible spying from the company by claiming that Tesla vehicles could enter high-security locations such as military base and then send videos back to third parties.
In order to ease the tension, Tesla assured it would keep all of the footage captured by its vehicles in China in a new server based in the same country, but this has apparently not been enough of the government.
Regardless, Tesla’s relationship with China is among the best of any company since the automaker is the only foreign one allowed to operate a Chinese factory on its own, without having to form a joint venture with a local car manufacturer.
In addition, Tesla has benefited from a number of Covid-related exemptions that have allowed it to restart production quicker than most other businesses, notably by allowing it to operate in a closed system, with workers living at the plant for a while in order to limit their risk of exposure to the virus.
