It might be, but with the state of EVs in North America (or the auto industry in general), it could also be true.

Not that I’m holding my breath. China is certainly capable of competing with the half-assed efforts seemingly more intended to prove that EVs are bad than actually sell them, but I also wouldn’t put it past them to make their cars into even worse spy devices than the other companies have made them into. The only reason I think this might not be the case is they’ll get a lot of attention from people specifically looking for stuff like this. But if they include any kind of connectivity features that those security people give a pass on, then future updates can add in the spying stuff later.

I really just want a car that isn’t capable of connecting with anything other than a charger, which then only uses the data connection to manage the charging, and payment is managed separately. Even those code readers could be bypassed by just showing that information on the dash display, though I will give a reluctant “this feels like you’re just making people spend extra money to do maintenance/repairs” pass for that connection.

I’d prefer a basic connection to my phone, too, like just audio, since a full connection could use the phone to send data home.