It is a bitterly cold day in mid-December 2027. China is blockading Taiwan and Britain is set to join the United States in rallying in defense of the beleaguered democratic island, a move that could herald World War III.
And then comes a brutally blunt message: every one of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese-made electric cars on UK roads comes to a screeching halt.
The drivers frantically pounded on the controls, but to no avail. They try to get out. But the doors refuse to open.
Then the pile-ups begin, as other vehicles crash into the cars that have suddenly stopped. Traffic jams prevent emergency services from reaching accident sites and thousands of injured people die in agony.
As time passes, people locked in their cars become increasingly desperate and implore passersby to break the windows to escape suffocation or hypothermia. Some are lucky, some are not.
Netflix’s apocalyptic film Leave The World Behind depicts a dramatic scene in which hundreds of electric vehicles pile up on a highway after being remotely hijacked.
Chinese electric car bursts into flames on street in communist state
Trade is also strangled. Even with all the relief trucks mobilized in the country, it takes weeks before our transportation system returns to normal.
The economic and human cost is colossal. Our decision makers, and those in other countries, easily come to the conclusion that now is not the time for a military confrontation in a distant land.
Beijing’s thugs have just won an early and decisive battle in the fight for global domination.
Last month, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo raised exactly this danger. “Imagine if there were thousands or hundreds of thousands of Chinese-connected vehicles on American roads that someone in Beijing could immediately and simultaneously disable,” she said.
But why would business-minded automakers risk destroying their brands by allowing them to be used for sabotage? No foreign customer would trust a product made in China again.
The answer is simple. The Chinese Communist Party enjoys absolute control over its subjects, at home and abroad. If you deem a cyberattack necessary for geopolitical purposes, that attack will occur, regardless of any transitory commercial costs.
We should have no doubt about the danger China represents. The Government’s vital Integrated Review of our national security calls it an “epoch-defining challenge to the international order” and last month MPs were told of a new wave of interference aimed at undermining our democracy.
Just this week, the scale of China’s ambitions became clear when images emerged showing specialized trains that can transport electric vehicles across the Eurasian landmass. Unlike the old and slow shipping method by sea, rail transport allows vehicles to reach Europe in just twenty days.
We have already taken steps to counter some of the dangers threatened by this tsunami of Chinese technology. Huawei components were removed, albeit belatedly, from our next-generation 5G mobile phone system, for example.
But we have been naïve, greedy and complacent when it comes to other threats.
What we don’t understand is that China’s relentless data collection in the West provides Beijing with the raw material to understand, penetrate and control foreign countries.
Artificial intelligence software running on the world’s most powerful computers sifts and scans every particle of information, looking for patterns and anomalies to exploit.
The biggest new vulnerability relates to the so-called “Internet of Things” (IoT). It involves the interconnection of a wide range of equipment, from thermostats, smart meters, doorbells and home audio devices to video equipment and lighting systems in industry, commerce and utilities.
At the heart of IoT are the small “modules” that connect equipment to the Internet. Chillingly, China provides more than three-fifths of these cheap and ubiquitous data transfer devices. By their nature, they are controlled remotely and can be updated by the manufacturer when necessary. They also run software that is rarely, if ever, subject to a security review.
Chinese automakers like BYD and Geely are on track to dominate the global electric vehicle market. In the photo: Chinese vehicles will be transported to Europe by freight train
Chinese carmaker BYD started selling its cars in the UK last year.
The gain in comfort is enormous. Who would complain about life becoming cheaper and easier?
But we are ignoring the negative side. Only a compromised device can be used to infect others, allowing a distant enemy to steal data or wreak havoc.
Electric cars add a new dimension to the threat, adding to the picture what are, in effect, mobile surveillance devices.
The result of China’s voracious appetite for our data will be that all commercial, political, military and intelligence secrets of all Western countries are potentially compromised. So is every facet of our personal privacy, making us vulnerable to blackmail and harassment.
Following a warning from US Commerce Secretary Raimondo, Washington has launched an investigation into the safety dangers of “foreign-made” (i.e. Chinese) vehicles connected to the Internet.
This is a positive development, but it has arrived dangerously late. Unhindered by environmental and labor regulations, and with the full backing of their government, Chinese automakers like BYD and Geely are on track to dominate the global electric vehicle market.
Working according to a plan as cunning as it is ruthless, they have gained enormous advantages in the global market for lithium (vital for batteries) and rare minerals needed in the production of high-tech devices.
Although their products may lack the polish and dynamism of Western brands like Tesla, they benefit from a huge domestic market, which offers them economies of scale and the opportunity to hone their technology and expertise.
That helped China become the world’s largest auto exporter last year, and its competitive advantage in electric vehicles will grow further as it builds factories abroad.
Yes, EV market share fell last month but, with Chinese electric cars costing around £9,000 less than their Western-made counterparts, it seems likely that companies like Tesla will bear the brunt of this crisis.
Tens of thousands of Chinese cars will be sold in Britain this year. This not only creates an economic bonanza for Beijing, but also gives it a geopolitical advantage.
For modern electric cars they are computers on wheels. To function properly, they must be constantly connected to the Internet so that they can receive, collect and share data about their performance and their environment.
This is a recipe for chaos. Hackers demonstrated years ago how easy it was to remotely disable a single vehicle. With the full weight of a state cyberwarfare agency behind it, such attacks would be much more devastating and widespread.
And sabotage is not the only threat. Like our phones and computers, computerized cars offer enormous insight into our daily lives, collecting data on everything from our location and driving behavior to our music taste, our mobile phone use and our “driving fingerprints.” voice” (graphic representations of a person’s voice that show the frequencies that make it up).
A Chinese-made tracking device was found embedded in the electronics of at least one Downing Street vehicle last year, but, in a Chinese-made car, there would be no need to fit a listening device. Car is the bug.
It is no coincidence that Chinese authorities strictly control the movement of Western-made electric vehicles, such as Teslas, prohibiting them from approaching sensitive government and military sites. We do not impose such restrictions.
In July, cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) MPs and peers reported that China was attacking the UK “prolifically and aggressively” but that our government lacked the “resources, experience or knowledge” to reply.
The truth is, when it comes to Chinese EVs, the decision makers are still asleep at the wheel.