Tesla, Intel and other electric vehicle makers deny illegal mapping in China

Last Wednesday, China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) accused an unnamed foreign company of illegally mapping the country and stealing state secrets under the guise of a smart car project.

Naturally, fingers were pointed at some popular smart car manufacturers in the US. So, in response to this announcement, many popular electric vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla, Geely and Intel (owner of Mobileye) confirmed that they are not involved in any such activity.

What exactly happened?

Speaking about the scandal, China’s Ministry of State Security released a post on its official WeChat account saying that a foreign company, which has been described as a contractor for sensitive national projects, appears to have had delivered a mapping project to a licensed Chinese company.

The Ministry also said so the necessary legal actions have been taken against the guilty company, and the personnel responsible for this scandal have also suffered legal consequences.

What do popular smart car manufacturers have to say?

Grace Tao, vice president of Tesla China, took to Weibo and said, “Compliance is the bottom line of business operations! Tesla has always believed that compliant intelligence is sustainable intelligence.”

Intel also issued a statement on Weibo last Thursday, saying that they have always invested in maintaining data compliance and complying with local regulations wherever they work, and the same goes for China.

In fact, Intel in China works under the strict supervision of licensed entities, so there is no way the company’s Mobileye could have committed such a shocking legal breach.

Read more: China accuses Intel of endangering its national security interests

Other electric vehicle manufacturers

A local car manufacturer named Geely was also named in the rumours. Geely has an electric vehicle brand “Zeekr” that some people mistakenly linked to the news. Geely’s vice president and head of brand PR, Victor Yang Xueliang, had to take a screenshot of the news to clarify that Zeekr had no involvement in the scandal.

In addition, the legal department of the company issued a separate statement criticizing the rumours. He also added that the company reserves the right to take legal action against those who try to remove its image.

A local media outlet also asked another popular ride-hailing service called Didi to comment on the matter. He did, and has denied involvement in the case.

Finally, a Beijing-based self-driving company, Navinfo, also denied involvement. Since this company is also a provider of high-precision maps, the suspicion was quite high, but the company cleared the air and made sure that it was not involved.

The most interesting clarification came from Alibaba Cloud, which had one mapping license in China which he recently canceled. According to the company, the cancellation was voluntary and had nothing to do with the recent scandal.

They actually requested cancellation in April and hadn’t used it in a year. This may seem suspicious given the timing, but the Zhejiang Department of Natural Resources also confirmed that the unnamed company is not Alibaba.

After the clarifications from these companies, we are not left with much guesswork, but it is also important to note that until the guilty company officially takes responsibility or the authorities make an announcement, it will be wrong to make assumptions.