American Automakers Have Asked Congress To Ban Chinese-Made Cars; Is This Something We Want?

I know people lament that letter writing is dead, but I’m happy to say I don’t think that’s true. I say this because just yesterday the Alliance for Automotive Innovation – a trade group made up of a large number of automakers, including GM, Ford, Ferrari, BMW, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Mazda, McLaren, Toyota, Subaru, hell, even VinFast, among many others – sent a heartfelt, personal letter to congressional leaders asking about enacting a “permanent ban” on Chinese-made cars in America.

Their argument in the letter is essentially that they believe Chinese carmakers don’t play fair, and are determined to surveil Americans and, when able, steal intellectual property. Here’s what they say in the letter:

“Multiple committees in the House and Senate have devoted time and attention this session to the Chinese government’s industrial and manufacturing policy that’s rooted in a well-documented pattern of unfair trade, subsidies, intellectual property theft and surveillance.

This behavior is a feature of the Chinese approach and especially acute when it comes to China’s strategy to dominate global automotive manufacturing and critical supply chains.

Right now, Chinese automakers are dumping subsidized vehicles with connected software and hardware around the world. China is capturing market share in Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, Mexico and South America with vehicles capable of collecting, processing and transmitting sensitive vehicle and consumer data to the Chinese Communist Party.

This hasn’t happened inside the U.S. yet, but given the scale and urgency of this threat, we urge you to enact a Chinese vehicle, software and hardware ban before adjourning this year and make this policy the law of the land.”

 

Now, I’m not exactly sure how I feel about all of this; are these genuine concerns, or is this an industry just trying to protect themselves from a lot of significant competition? We’ve seen some impressive new cars coming out of China lately, in pretty much the full spectrum of the market, from the extreme low end to ultra-premium luxury barges, laden with technology. It makes sense that they’d be a bit scared. They should be a bit scared.

Then again, it’s not like the claims made by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation are all made up; China absolutely has a history of being pretty, let’s say “relaxed” when it comes to intellectual property. That car above there sure looks like another extremely famous car, but did that stop China’s Ora from pretty shamelessly cribbing the design? Not a bit.

And, yes, there is rampant data-gathering and privacy violations with many Chinese cars and how they gather data. Then again, it’s not like other global companies aren’t guilty of this as well, because they absolutely are. I wish this was a China-specific problem. But are Chinese companies sending all that data right to the Communist Party? Maybe? I have no idea. Is it any worse than companies taking data for their own use and using it to track us and sell us even more things and find new ways to monetize our every action? Again, maybe? Maybe no one is an innocent here.

The letter urges that bills like the Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026 (S. 4429) in the Senate and similar bills in the house be passed before the end of the year. These bills would ban automakers from selling in America if they have over a 15% Chinese ownership stake. This limit would effectively ban the sale of Mercedes-Benz cars in America, for example, as they have a 20% ownership stake from Chinese investors.

So, what do we, as painfully obsessive car geeks, make of all of this? Should the US ban Chinese cars, or is this just protectionism for American and other global brands that will only end up harming consumers? Are there genuine security concerns? Concerns that are qualitatively different from what other, non-Chinese companies are doing? Is protecting domestic automakers a good idea? Is that protectionism? If so, will we get exciting things, like how Brazil’s protection of their local industry gave us so many weird Volkswagens? Or will we just end up with uncompetitive, boring cars?

I’m not ready to absolutely give an opinion on all this just yet, which is why I’m curious about what all of you – the brightest, best-informed, wittiest, and best-smelling automotive community on the inter-net – has to say about it all.

Let’s figure this out.