Chinese-Made Rental Cars Recorded Military Movements, Secret Gate Codes

Chinese-manufactured Hertz rental cars recorded military movements and secret gate security codes, according to a new report. 

Norwegian Armed Forces discovered the security breach last month after renting the cars from Hertz Norway. 

“It is correct that recordings were made in vehicles belonging to a Chinese-owned car rental company,” a spokesman for the Norwegian Armed Forces told Fox News. The Norwegian military rented the cars under a multiyear $32.8 million contract for daily tasks and operational activities but has not stated whether it will seek to get out of the contract. 

A Chinese manufacturer is one of Hertz’s largest fleet suppliers, though the rental company also sources vehicles from manufacturers in North America and Europe. A source familiar with the matter told The Daily Wire that Hertz Norway is operated by their franchise partner, First Rent A Car Norway AS, and that franchises decide how to source their fleet.

Hertz does not share customer information with its vehicles’ manufacturers, and the vehicles sourced by Hertz Norway are not operated in the United States, the source confirmed.

China is also pushing to manufacture cars in the United States.

“They want to come in and build a plant to hire you, to hire your friends, and your neighbors,” Trump said in January. “That’s great, I’d love to have China come in.”

After meeting with President Xi Jinping in September, however, Trump said he was “the one that kept them [Chinese automakers] out. The tariffs kept them out.”

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are pushing to keep Chinese vehicles off American roads. Senators Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) introduced the Connected Vehicle Security Act in April, targeting Chinese vehicles, software, and critical components. The bill advanced out of committee in July with unanimous support. 

“Chinese cars are surveillance packages on wheels, with the ability to collect on American citizens and transmit that data back to Beijing,” Slotkin said.

Similar concerns have followed Waymo’s expansion into Washington, D.C., where its camera-equipped vehicles could travel near the nation’s most sensitive government buildings and security sites. 

“These things are covered in cameras, and now you’re gonna send them around all the most sensitive national monuments, national security sites, without the ability to recognize the President needs to be extricated from a situation like we saw at the correspondent’s dinner,” a source familiar with White House security told The Daily Wire. 

A Waymo spokesman told the Daily Wire that it complies with all applicable U.S. laws and federal requirements and has a strong commercial incentive to protect its technology from Chinese competitors seeking to expand into markets such as Europe.

Waymo also uses Chinese-built vehicles in its fleet but says it installs its proprietary autonomous driving system at an Arizona facility before sending the vehicles out on the roads.