Bolt’s China-Backed Driverless Car Program Clashes With Intelligence Warnings

Bolt’s Lidar Is Only the Tip of the Iceberg: We Need to Talk About Chinese Cars

Lidar is spreading across Europe, and it should not be treated solely as an issue concerning Bolt, but as a broader problem that needs to be addressed. Many Chinese electric vehicles already have lidar, even if they are not part of a ride-hailing service like Bolt. In China, for example, many BYD models come from the factory equipped with lidar sensors. In 2024, Postimees named BYD Estonia’s best-selling electric-car brand.

Although BYD models intended for the European market are not currently pre-equipped with lidar, that may be the case in the future. BYD is very popular in Estonia, and if lidar is added to European BYD models in the future, Chinese lidar technology will end up recording Estonian streets regardless of whether Bolt does so or not. That would only not happen if Estonia banned the sale of Chinese electric vehicles equipped with lidar, or banned Chinese electric vehicles altogether, which is extremely unlikely.

It is also notable that some Chinese electric vehicles sold in Europe are already equipped with lidar, including the NIO ET7, EL7 and EL8, which are sold in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and elsewhere. One example is the NIO EL8 model sold in Sweden, which has lidar.

The risk is not limited to lidar technology, but also includes electric-vehicle cameras, which are already recording our streets. Some electric vehicles, such as Tesla, do not use lidar. Elon Musk has called lidar technology unnecessary and expensive and has favored a vision-only, camera-based approach. Yet from China’s perspective, Tesla also poses a security risk even without lidar sensors and with cameras alone.

In March 2021, Reuters reported: “Tesla cars banned from Chinese military complexes on security concerns.” The reason was that electric-vehicle cameras can record their surroundings, and that data can be used for intelligence and espionage purposes, in exactly the same way as data collected with lidar.

BYD models sold in Estonia are all equipped with multiple cameras as standard. For example, the BYD SEALION 7 model sold in Estonia has a 360-degree panoramic camera. This means that regardless of whether Bolt brings lidar-equipped vehicles to Estonia or not, Chinese electric vehicles capable of recording their surroundings with cameras are already on Estonian roads. Given BYD’s popularity, there are likely already hundreds of such vehicles in Estonia. Therefore, while the introduction of lidar technology adds another type of data that can be collected, our critical infrastructure may essentially already be being recorded.

Toomas Hanso, junior research fellow at the International Center for Defense and Security.