Volkswagen aims to ensure compliance with China’s tough data protection rules
Volkswagen will ensure it is fully compliant with China’s “tough” new rules around data protection, which have ensnared companies from ride-hailing giant Didi Global to Tencent Holdings.
Carmakers are at risk of being caught up in China’s datasecurity crackdown because electric and self-driving cars generate a treasure-trove of data including information about popular destinations and the routes taken to get there. Already, Tesla cars have been banned from military sites because of concerns their inbuilt cameras can collect sensitive data.
VW is “closely observing” the new regulations, “which are not only about electric vehicles, but also how we as a company have to deal with data protection for customers,” China CEO Stephan Wollenstein, said during a briefing on the carmaker’s first-half sales.
The German-based company will adjust its organisational structure to make sure it is “fully compliant” with the regulations, “which are pretty tough”, Wollenstein said, without providing further detail.
VW delivered 1.84 million cars in the six months ended June 30, a 16% increase from a year earlier.
It held on to the No 1 spot in the world’s biggest vehicle market, with an 18% market share. It delivered more than 2,900 of its new ID.4 electric sports utility vehicle in June. Tesla, which sold 28,138 locally built EVs last month, last week unveiled a cheaper standard-range Model Y SUV, which will compete head-to-head with VW’s ID range.
Total sales of the fivemodel ID range, including one to be released later this year, should reach 80,000 to 100,000 vehicles by the end of the year.
The current quarter “remains dynamic and hard to predict,” Wollenstein said. Fresh Covid-19 outbreaks across Asia are forcing semiconductor factories to close, exacerbating a shortage of chips that has crunched global automakers.
“We hope the chip supply crisis will bottom out this summer and expect to see an improvement in this situation within the second half of the year,” he said.
“However, the global chip shortage will continue into 2022, albeit, hopefully, in a weakened form.”