Don’t know why exactly are you downvoted but this is exactly what is going on as cars get more ”connected”, following Tesla & BYD lead.
Just like with phones at the moment, everything tries to spy on you a little to tap into that sweeet targeted ad revenue, or something else.

For example I bet the insurance companies love to have some driver behaviour data about you, and the big retail likes to know where/what time you are on the move (though they already get it from the dozens of apps on your phone that have access to location data, like Google Maps).

Then what's this

Show me the youth unemployment figures.

spreading the contact of Chinese people with westerners through for example XiaoHongShu (RedNote) or TikTok, which is why the US wants to ban access to these apps

You missed the part where China hurried through a tiktok like curtain to silo users.

You must have also missed the social credit scoring. The HK protests.

You may or may not think that this is justified, but it's quite literally the definition of "closing up", and China is engaging in exactly the opposite.

This is textbook tolerance paradox stuff, either accept propaganda or you ae against free speech. Oligarchical authoritarian cunts should not have access into a foreign population, that is why Trump is in power. Are you telling me the EU has less press freedoms than Russia or China? Because closing the gap doesnt mean much if its by a tenth of a degree.

I beg you tell the same to a Ukrainian or to a Vietnamese

Its clear you are passionate and refusing to take on board an alternative view. There is nothing in what I have said that should lead you to reply with this. Understand proxy wars and realise that military spending kept the direct warfare cold.

Ukraine is atrocity that is only tied to the cold war by way of Russia continuing fighting it while the US got complacent and allowed their government to fall which lead to a lack of support/tacit support for Russia.

Show me the youth unemployment figures

According to SCMP, "The urban jobless rate among those aged 16 to 24 – excluding students – fell to 15.8 per cent last month, down from 16.5 per cent in March, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday". What's your point? It literally says "released by the National Bureau of Statistics", what's the government hiding??

You missed the part where China hurried through a tiktok like curtain to silo users.

Can you source this claim, please?

You must have also missed the social credit scoring

This is a nothingburger made up by western bad-faith actors. There is no such thing as a social credit score in China. Unlike in the US, where you can go into your bank account to check your "good citizen meter" and see how likely you are to get a mortgage.

The HK protests

Nothing compared to ICE kidnapping people from their literal homes masked, putting them into unmarked vans, and deporting them without due process or putting them in prison.

This is textbook tolerance paradox stuff, either accept propaganda or you ae against free speech

So, China forbidding western media is oppressive and dictatorial because western press good, but the West forbidding Russian media is cool and based because Russian media bad? You're only showing your bias here if you think western media has any semblance of objectivity, especially when it comes to international politics.

Are you telling me the EU has less press freedoms than Russia or China?

Not than Russia, Russia is further advanced towards fascism than the EU, so it's worse. But China is getting better and the EU is getting worse.

Its clear you are passionate and refusing to take on board an alternative view.

It's clear that you only care about deaths if they take place on the first world. You want to avoid "direct confrontation" because you care more about Europeans and Americans than you do about Vietnamese, Korean or Iraqi. You take pride in how much the "military expenditure in the cold war prevented direct conflict" without caring about how much more conflict it stoked outside the west.

Ukraine is atrocity that is only tied to the cold war by way of Russia

False. The invasion of Ukraine is a policy pursued by the Russian goverment as a way to preserve the sphere of influence that the west is eroding each day through NATO and economic/soft power. You can condemn it, it's cruel and abhorrent, but it's not exclusively Russia to blame, and in 10 years from now this will be clear to everyone.

China would love so much to rule the world, that's why it hasn't entered any war in the past 40+ years, and that's why all countries in the global south are happy to enter the comparably advantageous economic deals and infrastructure investments that China offers in comparison with the magnificent western democracies.

How many countries has China bombed in the past 40 years? Let's now make a list for the USA, see who wins!

As for "dictator", look at the approval rates of Xi in China and compare them to those of Kid Starver in the UK, Trump in the US, or Macron in France. I guess democracy is best represented by the system that lets you choose which hateful ghoul will apply social austerity policy and invest 5% of GDP in NATO.

You' ve been explained this whole scenario years ago when Putin was pushing for Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

That was EU chance to get dirt cheap energy and raw materials.

And now - EU heavy industry is dying, car manufacturers are sold to China one by one. Decision made decade+ ago.

Competition is good for the consumer. More options from more players will encourage more charging infrastructure and (ostensibly) more innovation. It's not just Elon Musk vs China. Every automaker that wants to sell cars in the USA is on notice. If they want to compete in the EV subcategory, they need to focus on price and performance. People want budget-conscious EVs.

but saying that a Chinese company isn't "under the control of Xi Jinping", the guy who crushed Hong Kong for having too much independence and wants to do the same with Taiwan, is laughable.

Just take that sentence at face value and consider the ridiculousness of actually believing the guy alone has that amount of crushing power.

You're just regurgitating unfounded US propaganda which, this being Lemmy, is very unfortunate to see.

the country of free market capitalism...

In a couple months a drug fueled musk did to the US what Xi and Putin have been trying to do for decades. It most certainly wasn't just his salute that made me think that.

You could change my mind if you brought any information to the table that shows how those two are worse than musk.

Enjoy your day.

the guy alone has that amount of crushing power.

Nobody of right mind takes this at face value. This isn't a pro wrestling heavyweight championship belt, with Jinping suplexing the Hong Kong protestors.

It's obviously as head of an autoritarian communist regime, using corona measures and a militarized police to suppress people for the extravagant act of desiring freedom from the CCP.

SpaceX should be nationalized. We paid for it, it's ours.

Even before the current political situation I wouldn't have bought a Tesla. They have a documented quality problem and not very good customer service at least outside of the US.

Why would I buy a car that is not only more likely than most to break but when it does break it's hard to get fixed. Spare parts are notoriously hard to get hold of and you usually have to deal with Tesla directly which is a problem because they don't have a lot of dealerships in the UK. Also they won't come to you, so if your car won't start you have to arrange a pickup.

USA could have spent money developing an electrified economy but the republicans are focusing on bringing back coal mining and reshoring shoe manufacturing instead.

This admin has set the USA back 100 years.

ETA - what I mean is that China is rampaging on in electrification, developing manufacturing skills, infrastructure, and design/engineering/technology around renewables and electrification. Europe is thinking about it but not going crazy to the extent China is, because legacy - China doesn’t have 100 years of cars and 150 years of trains; they’re building new. USA meanwhile is actively regressing under Republican policies.

Oddly libertarians never acknowledge that market leaders ask for theses things. The biggest threat to the free market are capitalists themselves.

But even that is incorrect.

Yes, Xi Jinping is powerful as the Chairman of the party, but the communist party of China is not the military, and there is a fair amount of decentralization in decision making.

Further, the guy above goes "look at how Xi is suplexing Taiwan?!?!" even though he isn't because guess what, he doesn't actually have the power to do so.

Also, none of this has anything to do with the topic of EV production, which is in the hands of a private company which largely operates independently of the government, much like millions of other companies that operate in China.

Which is why I said the dude is just spewing brainless US state propaganda and Red Herring.

Okay there's a ton of spyware in the car, but - just . . don't . . . connect it. Or whatever.

Here in the UK Musk is just seen as an idiot. Some decent European EV solutions coming along but the Chinese cars are so much better value than Tesla OR the main European makes. Couldn't happen to a nicer megalomaniac and as a plus I love seeing the monthly SpaceX explosions

Further, the guy above goes "look at how Xi is suplexing Taiwan?!?!"

I think you're the only one reading it that way. The rest of us understand that it happens within a context of an autoritarian regime.

which is in the hands of a private company which largely operates independently of the government

Independent untill the party decides they're not independent. (Eg).

And you think ICE cars don't have spyware these days?