Chinese-connected surveillance packages on wheels facing Senate ban

Mercedes-Benz faces a potential ban on selling connected vehicles in the US under legislation targeting automakers with significant ownership ties to China.The Senate Commerce Committee advanced a measure last week that would bar the sale of connected vehicles in the US by companies with more than 15% ownership by Chinese entities, potentially affecting German automaker Mercedes-Benz, in which two Chinese investors hold stakes totaling nearly 20%.Sens.Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, sponsored the bipartisan legislation, which would codify and expand restrictions established under the ​Biden administration, arguing that it “closes the door on Chinese-origin vehicles, software, and key components at every stage, from production, importation, to sale, so that data gathered on US roads can’t be funneled back to the Chinese government.”“Chinese cars are surveillance packages on wheels, with the ability to collect on American citizens and transmit that data back to Beijing,” Slotkin said in a statement.Moreno said the measure aims to prevent “an absolute, total, and complete destruction of our industrial base.”“China’s auto industry was not built to compete, it was built to destroy American manufacturing, gut the middle class and undermine our national security,” he said.But Sen.

Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who chairs the Commerce Committee, warned that Mercedes-Benz could effectively be shut out of the US market if the legislation becomes law without changes and said the bill needed changes.Cruz accused General Motors of pushing for the measure to cut Mercedes-Benz out of the market and make its Cadillac brand more appealing.“We would never consider” banning Mercedes-Benz sales in the US, he said.GM ​contended that the legislation does not attempt to target an individual automaker, saying it “supports policies that protect and strengthen American manufacturing and the ​global competitiveness of US automakers.”“...