The Ministry of Defence is working with other government departments to understand and mitigate potential national security threats posed by Chinese-manufactured electric vehicles, including concerns about remote kill switch capabilities, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard confirmed in a parliamentary answer on 21 April.

Asked by Labour MP Graeme Downie what assessment the department had made of the risks, Pollard said the MoD “takes the security of defence assets very seriously” and that “policies and procedures take account of the potential threats from all types of vehicles, not just electric vehicles or those manufactured in China”, adding that work was underway across the department to “ensure risks are appropriately managed in accordance with the needs of different communities.”

A separate question asking when the Defence Secretary had last met his US and Australian counterparts to discuss the threat from Chinese-made connected vehicles drew a similarly cautious response, with Pollard confirming the Defence Secretary “speaks with his US and Australian counterparts regularly on a range of national security topics to ensure coherence and alignment between our nations” but declining to provide specific details of when the issue had been directly discussed.

Allied governments have been moving to address the risks from Chinese connected vehicle technology at pace, with the US having introduced regulations requiring automakers to certify that core connected systems contain no Chinese-developed software from March 2026, as part of a broader framework that will extend to hardware-level restrictions from 2030, with the rules covering vehicle connectivity systems including telematics, cameras, GPS and automated driving systems.

Australia has also faced calls from security analysts to take similar steps, though its government has so far stopped short of a ban, with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute among those arguing the country needs a more comprehensive approach to the risks posed by Chinese technology in connected vehicles.

George Allison
George Allison
George Allison is the founder and editor of the UK Defence Journal. He holds a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and specialises in naval and cyber security topics. George has appeared on national radio and television to provide commentary on defence and security issues. Twitter: @geoallison
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37 COMMENTS

  1. According to Auto Express, Chinese EVs are already banned from military installations. And China already bans Teslas from government locations.

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    • Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer?
      There are pros and cons with that decision.
      The cables thing is a bit of a red herring in my view.

  5. Israel made a catastrophic error two years ago and replaced all their military cars with Chinese EV’s which allowed China to track the movements and potentially listen in to their entire officer corps.

    • Interesting. I have just looked this up and it looks like they ordered the withdrawal od the Chinese Evs last year.

  6. What’s worrying is not if they have a kill switch but instead have a thermal runaway switch.. essentially you have an impossible to put out car sized firebomb… a few hundred thousand of them all going off at the same moment in a county would cause a lot of deniable damage… not us guv it must have been a hacker…

    • Much better to just put them on full charge cycling it on and off at an inconvenient frequency for the grid to handle….much more deniable…..

      Save the thermal runaway for when the car is in the perfect location….

  7. Having just returned from HK and China I’m struggling to see the near threat. We’re thinking too deeply.

    HK is booming under China and the vibe (economically and socially) is one of positivity and with a growth mindset. There’s a minimal civilian enforcement presence but I have no doubt it’s there hence the zero existence of litter, graffiti and louts! China hasn’t turned HK into a socialist enclave, instead it’s embraced it’s enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit under the one country, 2 systems principles. It’s booming!
    I expect that’s what’s waiting for Taiwan, if it can see it. It has a positive future if the same one country, 2 systems approach applies.

    As for China it’s adoption and development of technology is impressive – everything is digital. It’s people are positive, polite, respectful and hard working.
    This isn’t Russia! I’m not seeing a nation that is gripped by insecurity or superiority

    Our risks in the next 5 years are RU as it recovers from their drubbing in Ukraine and quickly learn from their mistakes.

    If you don’t believe me – go there and judge for yourself.

    • Just because it’s well ordered society has zero bearing on its willingness to go to war over its read lines.

      Is China some hyper aggressive all conquering nation, no it’s not.. but it has some red lines and goals it will achieve and if your in its way you had better be prepared for a nation that is not going to back away.

      As preset the US is in the way of a number of its red lines and through NATO contagion us…

      Does China want a war with and or threaten Europe, no it does not, will it if it needs to do so to achieve its main geostrategic goals and Europe stands in its way. yes it will.

      • “Is China some hyper aggressive all conquering nation”

        How do you explain the island building and occupying?

        • Because they want to control the china seas.. I’m not saying they are not out for themselves.. but they have a pretty specific set of goals.. In reality they have been no more aggressive than any western power taking forward its interests.

          • When did any western power last physically build an island in an attempt to annex control over a stretch of international water?

            • Well the last time we did a bit of mid ocean rock claiming was the 1955 annexation of Rockall were we dropped a couple of guys onto a tiny rock built a hut on it and pretended we has colonised it so we could claim it as sovereign territory.. we later doubled down an insisted categorically with zero real justification that it’s our sovereign territory.. UNCLOS Article 121(3) is very clear we cannot claim Rockall or the 12 miles of territorial waters around it or the EEZ and despite a number of European nations refusing and challenging… we still claim it…so the only difference between what we have done and China has done is China has expanded on the rocks they claimed so they are habitable… we could not be arsed to even pretend to make it habitable and have just told everyone “fuck off” it’s ours if we want it.

    • A lot of what you say is true, don’t cause trouble and you can have a decent life, the Ben Fogle series caught the issues pretty well and balanced I thought but some of the underlying poverty was deeply shocking. Fact is though it’s run by an authoritarian leadership technically called the Communist Party but in reality it hasn’t been run on Communist principles for years, it’s pretty much run on National Socialist lines these days not dissimilar to what Trump would love to impose. Indeed some older citizens express their sorrow for the loss of the ‘good old days’ when the State looked after their needs in a Maoist philosophy. But it has to be said this mix of old school authoritarian overlordship mixed with free market capitalism gets things done more effectively than the far more erratic and social democratic norms of Western Capitalism. As I think Alistair Campbell put it when discussing with a Chinese diplomat in the time we have been mired and wrangling over the question of a third runway at Heathrow (ie the late 1990s) China has built more than a dozen new airports from scratch. It’s not a system I want just as I wouldn’t a similar state of affairs in 30s Germany of strict central control but allowing free reign to capitalists who benefitted that centralised power structure, but one can sure admire the achievements.

      Whether it is better or worse in Hong Kong or would be in Taiwan is perhaps arguable, the former was doing rather well as it was and the ‘two systems’ is arguably as existent now as the mythical Special Relationship is here, thousands of mainlanders have been introduced and it’s little different from the technological cities in China itself, differentiated only by its history now in reality. The latter is thriving and has its own freedoms and values and I doubt it would actually be doing better or the citizens feel better if absorbed into China proper, indeed they would have much to lose as their advantage is that they have the technological nous and invitation of the mainland but also the markets and support of the West. As part of China its IP and technology would be absorbed and taken to the mainland, Western Markets closed where it excels as it no longer can be relied upon in western eyes any more than China, so its strengths and benefits to the west will be lost. And of course China will be deeply suspicious of it for decades I suspect due to its history. No I see no short to medium term benefit to Taiwan while it would become a massive military benefit to China as it would break the Western hold on the island chain that limits Chinas expansion into the Pacific, so its future would be one big Chinese military base and asset settlers introduced on a massive scale and no doubt the indigenous kept on a tight chain as such to keep it that way.

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  9. Too bloody late innit? Chicom cars are spreading like a plague. Encouraged by the Fabian communists known as HM Government.

  10. So I’m going to make a prediction: The risk will be thoroughly characterised, its severity laid out in no uncertain terms in a confidential report, followed by a lack of any meaningful action because the government is for some reason desperate to secure better trading terms with a geopolitical adversary.

  11. from comments the cars potentially can be programmed to have a runaway battery explosion, listen to in car conversations, track movements, mess with charging network and and i suppose record pictures and hack into the wifi and drivers phone??? etc

  12. Unrepairable Chinese EV cars are pushing up insurance premiums. Our lack of tariffs, mean they are being dumped in the UK, killing UK vehicle factories. It is 29% cheaper to build an EV in China rather than Germany. UK insurance assessors do not trust cheap Chinese steel or the quality of the welds. They do not want to sign off that the repair is safe. Chinese EV makers are not supplying repair data. This is why they get written off for only a small amount of damage. Allegedly.

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  14. China inflicted huge costs on the UK through their lack of honesty about Covid. Rather than a Trump style tariff, we should impose a temporary Covid compensation levy on Chinese vehicles and keep it in place until we have recouped our costs. 100% levy on OTR price would either raise money or stop sales. Either way we win.

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