‘Made in China’ EVs are taking over the streets, but just how safe is your data? Beijing: Under the bright lights and flashy displays at China’s annual auto show, electric vehicle companies are pulling out all the stops to lure in customers and push further into overseas markets. China’s EV golden child BYD sought to wow audiences with its five-minute “flash” charging technology, even setting up a frozen cage set to minus 30 degrees to demonstrate their vehicles could charge in sub-zero climates. Xpeng spruiked its inhouse “super brain” AI chip that powered its vehicles’ autonomous driving functions. The same chip, it says, will enable its prototype flying cars to be mass-produced and take to the skies by 2027. Other companies deployed humanoid robots alongside the vehicles to help capture the attention of live-streaming influencers at the show. On their home turf, Chinese EV brands are locked in a price war death spiral. With the exception of BYD and a handful others, most brands are unprofitable and face collapse when state subsidies and tax breaks dry up. Its fuelled a technology race to make their vehicles as “smart” as possible as they chase an edge over their rivals while constantly trimming their profit margins. ‘We’ve got to the point where Chinese EVs have a dominant market position, and therefore you have to at some point ask, are our cars critical infrastructure?’Simeon Gilding, a former director-general of the federal intelligence agency Australian Signals Directorate At the same time, the Iran war has handed them an opportunity to ramp up exports – which have boomed by 140 per cent from March last year – as motorists, including Australians, have rushed to make the switch to EVs to escape sky-high fuel prices triggered by the throttling of the Strait of Hormuz. But as