OPINION:
This week, the U.S. House Select Committee on the CCP will convene a hearing to address the Chinese Communist Party’s growing threat to the American auto industry. Lawmakers will refer to China as a “Trojan horse” and examine the serious risks facing the United States if our domestic industry fails to keep pace with Chinese advancements.
It’s about time.
Chinese dominance is indeed a threat to American automakers and, most important, American national security. Chinese electric vehicles are light-years ahead of American rivals. Their latest models can travel 500 miles on a single charge and can be almost fully recharged in 10 minutes. Considered artificial intelligence on wheels, they feature high-tech components such as rotating passenger seats and, perhaps even more chilling, drones that can launch autonomously from the roof while the vehicle is in motion.
For an additional fee of just 16,000 yuan (about $2,197), drivers in China can press a touch-screen button to open the car’s roof, launch a drone from a built-in platform and have it follow the vehicle from above as they drive.
As one might suspect, the CCP’s strategy isn’t to flood vehicle showrooms with flashy drones today. It’s about advancing dual-use technology to flood a battlefield tomorrow.
In China, automotive innovations serve a larger purpose. They facilitate advancements in China’s defense capabilities and build manufacturing capacity to efficiently produce technology on a large scale. That means the CCP can quickly field more advanced autonomous systems, better batteries for military drones and specialized sensors for surveillance.
Unfortunately, the American auto industry lags behind. Our supply chains remain fragmented, with hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs unfilled and infrastructure bottlenecks stalling domestic production. Even worse, many American automakers have become reliant on purchasing batteries made in China, which only exacerbates our national security vulnerabilities.
China now controls 80% of global lithium iron phosphate battery cell production, mostly owed to giant Chinese firms such as CATL and BYD. In fact, China’s LFP batteries are now everywhere, powering everything from EVs to hypersonic missiles to swarms of drones. The risk of allowing Beijing to maintain near-total control over such strategic technology is impossible to ignore.
For American automakers, it’s a time for choosing. They can continue down the dangerous road of importing Chinese-built batteries and parts for their vehicles, furthering their dependence on our adversary, or they can fight back.
For example, under Elon Musk’s guidance, Tesla is doubling down on domestic gigafactories. In fact, Tesla is nearing completion on its first North American LFP cell manufacturing facility in Nevada. Rather than relying on China to make their cars and batteries, Tesla is choosing to only license battery technology from CATL so physical batteries and vehicles can be produced here in the United States.
Ford is another firm refusing to become dependent on China for EV production. Ford already builds more vehicles in the United States than any other automaker, including every F-Series pickup sold here. Now, it is investing $3.5 billion in a wholly owned LFP battery plant in Michigan, expected to begin production next year. Like Tesla, the Ford facility will simply license LFP technology so the batteries can be built in the United States, keeping Ford batteries and vehicles fully built in an American-owned factory, operated and staffed by American workers.
Companies like Ford and Tesla are modeling the best approach to prioritize American national security. It means U.S. jobs and competitive cars, and it aligns with the “America First” vision of full U.S. assembly of vehicles and parts while pushing back against Beijing’s flood of subsidized imports. Without urgent reshoring, we’re not just losing market share; we’re also jeopardizing our national defense.
America simply cannot afford to cede the race for automotive innovation and industrial capacity to our adversary. We cannot allow Beijing’s AI on wheels to steer us into a future where the CCP dominates in defense technology. It’s high time America took the wheel.
• Jeremy Hunt is a former U.S. Army intelligence captain and the chairman of Veterans on Duty.
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