Here’s why China has been testing its autonomous car technology in the U.S. for years

Published

6 months ago

October 23, 2024

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Chinese companies are aggressively developing autonomous vehicles. In August, China announced that it had issued 16,000 test licenses for driverless cars and opened up about 20,000 miles of roads nationwide for autonomous vehicle testing.

But Chinese autonomous vehicle companies have also quietly been testing their technology on U.S. streets.

Baidu, Didi, WeRide, Pony.ai and AutoX all have offices in northern California, right alongside many U.S. autonomous car outfits. Collectively, these five companies logged over 1.6 million test miles on California’s roads between 2017 and 2023, according to data from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which is responsible for issuing test licenses for companies aiming to test autonomous cars in the state. Out of these five companies, Didi, is the only one that no longer has an active AV testing permit according to the DMV’s website.

Michael Dunne, CEO and founder of consulting firm Dunne Insights, told CNBC that China had “carte blanche” when it comes to testing AVs in California.

“They recognized that Silicon Valley was the cradle of autonomous vehicle technology,” Dunne said, adding, “They hired a lot of people who had previously been working for Apple or Tesla or Waymo or Cruise and said, ‘Let’s get the best talent in the world. We have funding, and we want to build a world-class company. Take that knowledge, bring it back to China, apply it to our massive home market, and we’re off and running.'”

But now, concerns about the massive amount of data being collected by these cars and the potential implications for national security have led the U.S. government to propose a ban on Chinese connected vehicles.

Missy Cummings, a former senior safety advisor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told CNBC the ban was a good start.

“These vehicles are very much surveillance machines,” Cummings said. “They have multiple cameras looking at everything from many different angles, and they can do the same pattern every day, over and over and over again, under the guise of testing.”

Cummings added that the vehicles gather “critical information that may not seem confidential, but certainly is sensitive, about patterns of life, about vehicles that go in and out of certain installations, about how we actually do supply chains.”

Representative Marc Veasey of Texas told CNBC he is also concerned. Last year, he and three other representatives wrote a letter to the Biden administration, detailing their fears that Chinese autonomous vehicles operating in the U.S. pose threats to national security and competitiveness.

Feeling the increased scrutiny, Chinese autonomous car companies have been pulling back from the U.S.

At the peak of Chinese AV testing, Dunne told CNBC there were more than 14 companies testing their vehicles in California, Nevada and Utah, but today, Dunne said he sees “very little evidence or intention among Chinese autonomous vehicle makers to launch products in the United States.”

“There’s a recognition,” he said. “‘Oh, we had a nice run in the United States. We learned a lot. From here forward, maybe we have enough that we can build our own innovation inside China.'”

Watch the video to find out more about how these AV companies are testing their vehicles on California’s roads and what impact the increased scrutiny around Chinese connected vehicles could mean for the industry in the future.

Technology

Trump aims to cut $6 billion from NASA budget, shifting $1 billion to Mars-focused missions

Published

2 days ago

May 2, 2025

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Trump aims to cut billion from NASA budget, shifting billion to Mars-focused missions

The Trump administration has floated a plan to trim about $6 billion from the budget of NASA, while allocating $1 billion of remaining funds to Mars-focused initiatives, aligning with an ambition long held by Elon Musk and his rocket maker SpaceX.

A copy of the discretionary budget posted to the NASA website on Friday said that the change focuses NASA’s funding on “beating China back to the Moon and on putting the first human on Mars.”

NASA also said it will need to “streamline” its workforce, information technology services, NASA Center operations, facility maintenance, and construction and environmental compliance activities, and terminate multiple “unaffordable” missions, while reducing scientific missions for the sake of “fiscal responsibility.”

Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator, said in an agency-wide email on Friday that the proposed lean budget, which would cut about 25% of the space agency’s funding, “reflects the administration’s support for our mission and sets the stage for our next great achievements.”

Petro urged NASA employees to “persevere, stay resilient, and lean into the discipline it takes to do things that have never been done before — especially in a constrained environment,” according to the memo, which was obtained by CNBC. She acknowledged the budget would “require tough choices,” and that some of NASA’s “activities will wind down.”

The document on NASA’s website said it’s allocating more than $7 billion for moon exploration and “introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs.”

SpaceX, which is already among the largest NASA and Department of Defense contractors, has long sought to launch a manned mission to Mars. The company says on its website that its massive Starship rocket is designed to “carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.”

Musk, who is the founder and CEO of SpaceX, has a central role in President Donald Trump’s administration, leading an effort to slash the size, spending and capacity of the federal government, and influencing regulatory changes through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk, who frequently makes aggressive and incorrect projections for his companies, said in 2020 that he was “highly confident” that SpaceX would land humans on Mars by 2026.

Petro highlighted in her memo that under the discretionary budget, NASA would retire the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, the Orion spacecraft and Gateway programs.

It would also put an end to its green aviation spending and to its Mars Sample Return (MSR) Program, which sought to use rockets and robotic systems to “collect and send samples of Martian rocks, soils and atmosphere back to Earth for detailed chemical and physical analysis,” according to a website for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Some of the biggest reductions at NASA, should the budget get approved, would hit the space agency’s space science, Earth science and mission support divisions.

Petro didn’t name any specific aerospace and defense contractors in her agency-wide email. However SpaceX, ULA and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are positioned to continue to conduct launches in the absence of the SLS. Boeing is currently the prime contractor leading the SLS program.

“This is far from the first time NASA has been asked to adapt, and your ability to deliver, even under pressure, is what sets NASA apart,” she wrote.

President Trump’s nominee to lead NASA, tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, still has to be approved by the U.S. Senate. His nomination was advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

WATCH: CNBC’s interview with NASA’s astronauts on their nine months in space

Technology

Temu halts shipping direct from China as de minimis tariff loophole is cut off

Published

2 days ago

May 2, 2025

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Temu halts shipping direct from China as de minimis tariff loophole is cut off

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Chinese bargain retailer Temu changed its business model in the U.S. as the Trump administration’s new rules on low-value shipments took effect Friday.

In recent days, Temu has abruptly shifted its website and app to only display listings for products shipped from U.S.-based warehouses. Items shipped directly from China, which previously blanketed the site, are now labeled as out of stock.

Temu made a name for itself in the U.S. as a destination for ultra-discounted items shipped direct from China, such as $5 sneakers and $1.50 garlic presses. It’s been able to keep prices low because of the so-called de minimis rule, which has allowed items worth $800 or less to enter the country duty-free since 2016.

The loophole expired Friday at 12:01 a.m. EDT as a result of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in April. Trump briefly suspended the de minimis rule in February before reinstating the provision days later as customs officials struggled to process and collect tariffs on a mountain of low-value packages.

Jeff Bezos discloses plan to sell up to $4.8 billion in Amazon stock

Published

2 days ago

May 2, 2025

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Jeff Bezos discloses plan to sell up to .8 billion in Amazon stock

Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, takes the stage during The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Dec. 4, 2024.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to sell up to 25 million shares in the company over the next year, according to a financial filing on Friday.

Bezos, who stepped down as CEO in 2021 but remains Amazon’s top shareholder, is selling the shares as part of a trading plan adopted on March 4, the filing states. The stake would be worth about $4.8 billion at the current price.

The disclosure follows Amazon’s first-quarter earnings report late Thursday. While profit and revenue topped estimates, the company’s forecast for operating income in the current quarter came in below Wall Street’s expectations.

The results show that Amazon is bracing for uncertainty related to President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs. The company landed in the crosshairs of the White House this week over a report that Amazon planned to show shoppers the cost of the tariffs. Trump personally called Bezos to complain, and Amazon clarified that no such change was coming.

Bezos previously offloaded about $13.5 billion worth of Amazon shares last year, marking his first sale of company stock since 2021.

Since handing over the Amazon CEO role to Andy Jassy, Bezos has spent more of his time on his space exploration company, Blue Origin, and his $10 billion climate and biodiversity fund. He’s used Amazon share sales to help fund Blue Origin, as well as the Day One Fund, which he launched in September 2018 to provide education in low-income communities and combat homelessness.

WATCH: Amazon has levers to pull with tariffs