Police cars, ambulances and buses could be vulnerable to remote disruption because Britain relies heavily on Chinese electric-vehicle technology, security sources have warned The Mail on Sunday.
The warning comes as intelligence officials express growing concern about the Government’s cautious approach to Beijing and China’s potential ability to interfere with vehicles remotely.
The alleged threat centres on so-called ‘kill switches’ embedded in Chinese-made components used in electric vehicles, transport systems, hospitals, the power grid and renewable-energy equipment, including solar panels.
The Metropolitan Police alone has around 1,600 electric and hybrid vehicles powered by lithium batteries. The vehicles contain Chinese cellular devices that connect them to mobile communications networks.
Security specialists say that, without coordinated safeguards, remote actors could potentially gain access to a vehicle’s electronic systems and force it to stop or even cause a crash.
Whitehall sources told the MoS that some emergency vehicles using Chinese technology have therefore been dismantled and effectively rebuilt, with components removed to eliminate any possible capacity for remote sabotage.
Sources told The Mail on Sunday that China, under President Xi Jinping, could potentially disable police cars, buses and ambulances remotely.
The sweeping review of Chinese-made components comes amid several wider security concerns:
A forensic examination in 2022 of a hybrid car used by the three prime ministers who served that year reportedly uncovered a tracking device suspected of transmitting information to China.
Chinese manufacturers have also rapidly expanded their position in Britain’s car market. Their share doubled over the past year to almost one in five new vehicles sold.
Investigators have likewise found alleged kill switches in the power inverters that connect solar panels and wind turbines to the national electricity grid.
The components did not appear in the installation plans supplied to engineers. They were discovered only after security experts inspected the energy equipment and compared it with the manufacturer’s official documentation.
Similar concerns have emerged over Yutong electric buses currently operating on British roads.
Norwegian bus operator Ruter, which first identified the alleged kill switch, found that the vehicles contained a SIM card connecting them to a Romanian mobile provider.
The connection is designed to monitor the battery remotely and help prevent overheating. However, experts say a software update issued from another country could potentially be enough to disable the buses.
Experts have cautioned that the Chinese chips are so sophisticated that removing or disabling the SIM cards may not be sufficient to stop the vehicles being remotely shut down. Despite those concerns, the Department for Transport has ordered more Chinese-built buses, reportedly against the advice of security specialists.
Electric vans and heavy goods vehicles are also raising alarms. One source said: ‘If China gets into electric vans and HGVs it poses a serious threat. They could switch them off, crash them, block roads or bridges. They would have control of our entire logistics network.’
Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturers, like other supposedly private companies in the country, operate under the Chinese Communist Party’s National Intelligence Laws. Those laws require organisations and individuals to ‘support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work’.
The concerns have also cast a shadow over Uber’s plan to introduce driverless taxis in London next year in partnership with Chinese technology giant Baidu. Experts fear that foreign agents could exploit the vehicles’ infotainment systems.
Driverless vehicles in San Francisco were halted during a recent city-wide power failure, leading to blocked roads.
It follows the revelation in this newspaper last month that Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband was regarded with suspicion by Whitehall security officials over his doveish approach to Beijing.
One source accused Mr Miliband – who pledged to go ‘further and faster’ on replacing gas and oil with renewable sources such as solar power while in his previous job as Energy Secretary – of ‘appeasing’ China.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has taken a soft line on China, leading to suspicion from Whitehall security officials
This is despite the risks it poses to British security because the UK is so reliant on Beijing for the supply of solar panels, with two-thirds of our stock coming from China.
John Hemmings, the inaugural Director for the National Security Centre at the Henry Jackson Society, said the so-called ‘Made in China’ hacking strategy had been driven by the certification of Chinese universities as ‘world-class cyber-security schools’.
The strategy focuses on embedding secret components into Chinese electronics to bypass firewalls and establish a direct back-channel to Beijing’s battalions of state-backed hackers.
The hacking is the result of more than a decade of investment by China’s president Xi Jinping, including state-sponsored ‘hacking competitions, which has led to the creation of more than 30,000 new cyber-security experts each year.
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Dr Hemmings criticised the ‘wet’ attitude of the UK Government to the Chinese threat, saying: ‘Even the EU is taking a more robust approach to Beijing than we are, which tells its own story.’
In March, the EU froze the assets of the China-based Integrity Technology Group and Anxun Information Technology in response to claims it had been involved in hacking critical infrastructure across the bloc.
It has also drafted legislation to exclude Beijing-linked companies such as Huawei from sensitive projects.
In contrast, a security source said the Government is struggling to catch up. ‘These are all pretty new ministers who change on a regular basis,’ the source said. ‘And most of them don’t understand the science and tech. Even inside the civil service it’s a mess.
‘Abolishing the science and technology department and putting it into trade means they have not got their eye on the ball. There’s a couple of people looking at this but their minds are elsewhere. At every level this issue is slipping through the cracks.’
But ideology matters, too.
‘There’s a belief in Government that growth can only come from Chinese trade and investment,’ said the source. ‘That is definitely Ed Miliband’s view. He signed a deal with China and didn’t tell anyone until a year later.
‘Ministers need their noses rubbed in it to stop them crapping all over the pavement.’
MI5’s warning last week about British academics was the first time the service has independently published a so-called ‘Espionage Alert’ – it is usually done under the direction of the Government.
It said that Chinese intelligence had tried to ‘covertly benefit’ from British AI and technology research after the academics contributed to projects funded by the China General Technology Research Institute, which it said has ‘very strong ties’ to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), because its ‘primary purpose was to fund academic research that directly improved the MSS’s technical capabilities for espionage’.
UK cyber-security experts also warn that China has the ability to shut down hospitals.
The NHS has been regarded as the country’s ‘softest underbelly’ because of its antiquated IT systems – which are now being updated frantically to counter the threat. Chinese agents attack and test the hospital systems on a regular basis.
The most audacious recent example of Chinese hacking was an operation codenamed Salt Typhoon, when aides close to former prime ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had their private calls tracked and text messages intercepted.
Aides close to former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak previously had their private calls tracked during a Chinese hacking attack
The state-backed group APT31, acting on behalf of China’s MSS, also gained access to the servers of the Electoral Commission, exposing the personal details of roughly 40 million voters.
APT31 has also targeted members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China – a coalition of China-sceptic MPs and peers.
In April, the National Cyber Security Centre warned that Chinese state actors are building vast ‘covert networks’ by hijacking household items and office routers to ‘burrow’ into vital infrastructure.
Last year, it was reported that the Ministry of Defence had banned electric vehicles with Chinese components from military bases.
Staff working at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire and the Salisbury Plain training area were told they must park the vehicles at least two miles away from key buildings in case sensors in the cars collected intelligence and sent it to Beijing.
RAF Wyton houses officials from Five Eyes, the intelligence-sharing alliance formed by the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Defence minister Lord Coaker said at the time: ‘We are aware that individual defence organisations may have stricter requirements relating to electric vehicles on some sites, but we do not provide specific details for security reasons.’
Personnel have also been advised not to hold conversations in electric cars in case they are bugged.
The Five Eyes alliance issued a warning in the summer that Chinese military intelligence was targeting professional networking sites and online job platforms to obtain sensitive information.
One of Mr Miliband’s first moves after he moved to the Foreign Office in the summer was to arrange to meet Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.
Many senior members of the UK’s diplomatic and intelligence community regard Mr Miliband as ‘weak’ on the security threat posed by the country.
Mr Miliband supports building closer ties with Beijing – because, they suspect, the regime is so central to his zealously advocated Net Zero goals.
A National Police Chiefs Council spokesman said: ‘UK policing follows Government guidance on protecting all our infrastructure, including vehicles.
‘Any assessment of national security risks relating to vehicle technology, telecommunications or overseas supply chains is a matter for Government and the national security authorities.’