US demand grows for Chinese cars despite privacy and security fears

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/10/us-demand-grows-for-chinese-cars-despite-privacy-and-security-fears/

Jonathan M. Gitlin Oct 15, 2025 · 4 mins read
US demand grows for Chinese cars despite privacy and security fears
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More than half of American car buyers would consider a Chinese car brand for their next purchase, an increase of almost 25 percent compared to last year. That's according to a survey of prospective car buyers conducted annually by the research firm AutoPacific. And yes, those car buyers are conscious of the privacy and security fears.

AutoPacific spoke to 18,000 people who said they were planning to buy or lease a new car within the next three years for its 2025 Future Attribution Demand Study, and the company has been releasing snippets of data as it analyzes them, ahead of the full report's release later this year.

There has already been at least one surprise. Last year, partially automated driving systems like General Motors' Super Cruise or Ford's BlueCruise, or those developed by Tesla, were not in high demand. This year, that tech went to the top of the most-wanted list, with 43 percent of consumers saying they want hands-free partial automation. The same percentage also indicated a demand for rear automatic emergency braking. Wireless device charging, No. 1 in the list in 2024, didn't make the top 15 for 2025.

Can I buy a Huawei to drive on the highway?

In 2024, just 53 percent of surveyed consumers said they were familiar with Chinese cars, and only 41 percent said they would consider one. This year, 65 percent were familiar with Chinese brands, and 51 percent said they'd consider one for their next vehicle.

Huawei came first among the Chinese brands, with 27 percent prepared to consider one. Xiaomi placed second (23 percent), with the Tesla-outselling BYD in third place (19 percent).

Chinese cars are fast being recognized for offering a level of digital integration that is far ahead of the connected cars on sale in the US. "Aside from the responsiveness of screens... I feel like people hate screens here because they're not done very well," said Kevin Williams, an automotive journalist who has spent time getting to know the latest in Chinese vehicles.

"Versus in China, it just seems so intuitive," he said. "Not just how easy it is to use, and I barely understand any sort of Chinese characters... [but] just like the support it has for popular apps. When I was in the Xiaomi SU7, it had a full-fat, full-service Apple Music, like it looks like what I would get on a computer. And it wasn't just Apple Music; they had whatever the Chinese equivalent of Spotify and other popular apps—Chinese TikTok—they all have these full-fat apps that run with, like, no real running issues."

The trick to making the user experience tolerable appears to be to bring in the phone people. Huawei and Xaiomi both have plenty of knowledge there, and even Geely got into the game when it bought Meizu in 2023.

Spy vs. Spy

That deep integration of connected-car technology sounds anathema to the core Ars Technica audience, which frequently indicates its distaste with any car that comes with an embedded modem. AutoPacific's survey respondents were not ignorant of those concerns: 77 percent said they were worried about their privacy, and 79 percent said they were concerned about the national security risks of Chinese connected cars. Both are slightly decreased compared to 2024, but only just.

Indeed, national security concerns are the official reason that most Chinese brands are excluded from the US car market. Last year, a bipartisan effort in the US Senate found favor with then-President Joe Biden, resulting in a ban on Chinese-connected car software (from model year 2027) and hardware (from model year 2030), as well as the use of diplomatic pressure to prevent companies like BYD from setting up shop in Mexico. The Biden administration also hiked tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, before current President Donald Trump decided to engage in a more erratic trade war.

But the threat to the US automotive industry—which employs around 2 million people in total—is probably as much of a reason for excluding Chinese car imports as the privacy and national security concerns. Much of the coverage in the media of the Chinese auto market has concentrated on how cheap cars can be over there—the BYD Seagull's $10,000 Chinese price is incredibly seductive to Americans facing average car prices that now start north of $50,000. (We should note that the Chinese cars currently dominating European sales are much closer in price to local rivals.)

The Chinese government has long been directly subsidizing its automakers to be able to sell their products abroad cheaper than anyone else while decrying local subsidies like the now-dead IRS clean vehicle tax credit. Now that the domestic Chinese car market is cooling, Chinese automakers are stepping up their exports, which doubled in September compared to last year.