Recently, there has been another big melon in the automobile circle.
The Ministry of State Security issued a document saying that in recent years, as the state security organs have intensified their efforts to crack down on illegal surveying and mapping activities, some overseas organizations have gradually turned to so-called project cooperation with domestic enterprises to evade supervision and illegally collect the mainland's original surveying and mapping data, threatening the security of mainland countries. The work of the state security organs found that a certain overseas company, Company A, illegally carried out geographic information surveying and mapping activities in the mainland under the cover of carrying out research on intelligent driving of automobiles through cooperation with Company B, which has surveying and mapping qualifications in the mainland.
Through the way of multiple outsourcing of the project, paralyzing domestic enterprises and illegally collecting original surveying and mapping data? Threat to national security? This is a proper act of espionage, you know, through lidar, almost 360 degrees of mapping and modeling without dead ends, what buildings are in the whole city, how the urban road network is distributed, can be mapped and mapped very accurately, this can be done at that time to achieve precise strikes.
Some netizens speculated that it was a Japanese car company, but it was quickly refuted by netizens, because there is no high-end intelligent driving in Japan now, so there is no need to collect data at all.
Some people began to speculate that it was Tesla, after all, Tesla is an American car company, and some people speculated that it was with Mobileye, which is an Israel company, and the spearhead was also aimed at SAIC and Geely and other car companies that cooperate closely with Mobileye, but the problem is that these are all speculations, and no evidence is equivalent to rumors.
In this regard, Tesla, Geely, and NavInfo have denied it one after another.
Tao Lin, Tesla's vice president of external affairs, posted on Weibo that compliance is the bottom line of business operations. Tesla has always believed that the intelligence of compliance is the intelligence of sustainable development. Our goal is to provide consumers with safe and reliable products and excellent and stable services.
The senior vice president of Geely Holding Group also responded to the incident on Weibo, saying that "it has nothing to do with ZEEKR, nor is it done by ZEEKR's partners, and the rumors stop at the wise."
NavInfo also issued a statement on its official Weibo last night, saying that NavInfo has always adhered to the principle of running a business legally and compliantly, resolutely opposed all online rumors that smear and slander the company's reputation, and will take necessary legal measures to defend it.
I checked, as of the end of 2023, there are a total of 21,008 domestic units with surveying and mapping qualifications, but there are only a few foreign-funded companies that develop intelligent driving solutions, Horizon, Mobileye, Renesas, NVIDIA, HiSilicon, AMD, and some small suppliers with a little less popularity.
In fact, before the results of the investigation come out, we don't need to guess other car companies, there is no evidence to guess, this matter is not a trivial matter, no car company will let public opinion ferment, so it is easy to receive a lawyer's letter.
But this incident has sounded a wake-up call for us, that is, intelligent driving technology, in fact, is also closely related to national security, how to achieve domestic collection and storage of data, to prevent leakage and illegal use, is a problem, relevant departments must do a good job of supervision.