Will China use electric cars to spy on UK drivers?

China’s dominance of the electric car market poses a security threat to Britain on the scale of the crisis over the tech firm Huawei, senior MPs have warned.

Forecourts are expected to be flooded with up to 25 brands of cheap Chinese electric cars when new petrol and diesel cars sales are banned in 2030.

Beijing outflanked the West to become the main power in the electric vehicle (EV) market when most major manufacturers were focused on traditional vehicles.

The rush to phase out petrol and diesel cars, which the Daily Mail is campaigning to have reconsidered, will make Britain reliant on China and hit UK manufacturers.

It has fuelled fears among senior Tories that having vast numbers of Chinese cars on British roads will rekindle the national crisis of 2021 when the UK began purging Huawei from its 5G networks over fears that it was a security risk.

Concern about Beijing’s intent intensified in January when the Security Services took apart a UK government car after a Chinese SIM card capable of transmitting location data was found inside.

Tu Le, of Sino Auto Insights, a consultancy that follows China’s auto industry, warned that the sensors used for driving assist systems can be used to map neighbourhoods, which ‘in the wrong hands’ could allow hostile states to map sensitive Government buildings or military compounds.

Dan Marks, of the Royal United Services Institute security think-tank, said a range of EV suppliers from different nations was needed, adding: ‘When the supplier is China, there should be rigorous, prescriptive security controls.’

Alicia Kearns, chairman of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, said: ‘We must… not to allow the Chinese Communist Party to secure a back door into our security by forcing dependency or inserting technologies that map and exfiltrate data on our daily lives. We must learn from the Huawei experience. The Chinese Communist Party is seeking to build a tech totalitarian state.’

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, ex-Tory leader and co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: ‘Anything to do with China is a security threat. China is doing its level best to break us. We have to get rid of devices inside the technology in their cars that report back things like locations. They could even lock into the systems of the car and hear what you say.’

Chinese workers assemble batteries for electric vehicles at the plant of Delta Electronics (Jiangsu) Ltd. in Suzhou City

He warned ministers: ‘For God’s sake, wake up to the threat.’

China dominates the EV market partly due to its grip on the supply chain. It controls much of the mining of crucial raw materials, 80 per cent of the battery-making for EVs is controlled by Chinese firms and it is the world’s top car exporter.

Chinese firms including BYD, Ora and Maxus are expected to take a slice of the British market.

BYD – reported to be ahead of Tesla for the world’s most electric vehicle sales last year – is said to want 100 UK dealerships by 2026.

Tory MP Bob Seely, whose Huawei investigation in 2019 made the Government act, said: ‘We already have a massive supply-chain dependency on China – it’s going to get worse if we are dependant for the production of batteries.’

The Department for Business and Trade said it was ‘committed to ensuring the future of the car industry in the UK’.