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It turns out that many of the large industrial products coming out of China, things like buses, solar panels, cranes, inverters, things like that, are coming equipped with communication devices that can send signals back to China. And furthermore, some of this equipment is coming equipped with kill switches, meaning that these things can be switched off, sabotaged and deactivated with the click of a few buttons, but by some communist cadre. Very cool. Let's go through it together right after you smash those like and subscribe buttons so those information can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. Now, to start with, there have been a lot of videos online recently of people basically glazing Chinese electric vehicles. How good they are, how fast they are, how well designed and sleek they are, how luxurious they are, how good they are on power, and even how good they are in price. Basically how they knock it out of the park compared to American EVs. Also, alongside those videos, there have been a lot of people criticizing the US for not allowing Chinese EVs into our market because of a fear that it would basically collapse US Auto manufacturing. Now, that might all be true. However, there is another factor to consider here, which is that when you're dealing with a non normal country, a communist nation like China, nothing is ever as it seems. Case in point, Norway is now finding out that the electric buses that they've been purchasing from a Chinese manufacturer have a back door installed which allows them to be disabled remotely, I. E. By someone outside of Norway. You see, Norway, they basically set an ambitious climate goal, specifically that 100% of the new passenger cars sold in the country should be zero emission by the year 2025. And even though that sounds unrealistically ambitious, they've actually pretty much achieved it. Looking at data from the Norwegian road federation, in 2023, 82% of Norway's car sales were EVs. By 2024, it was 89%. And 2025 numbers aren't in yet, but the trend is obvious. If it's not going to be 100%, it's going to be close. Also, if we look at Norway compared to other developed countries, they are really off the charts. The graph right there up on your screen, it uses slightly different data that comes from the International Energy Agency. And so they basically combine EV sales with hybrid SAL number. That's why the data is a little bit different, but the trend is the exact same. Norway is almost completely 100 electric. Now, the country was able to achieve this milestone by using a two pronged approach. They penalized gas and diesel car sales with higher taxes, while at the same time giving electric vehicles a lot of government incentives. EVs were exempt from import fees and EV users only paid half price on tolls, making evs much more attractive to the end consumer. Also worth noting, Norway does not have its own car manufacturing industry, and so they're 100% reliant on imports. And which makes the transition easier because for one, imports can basically be taxed however the government sees fit. And secondly, it also means that Norway does not have an automaker lobby that could have pushed back against these EV policies. Instead, what Norway did have was the Norwegian EV association, whose president was quoted as saying the following quote, Norway will be the first country in the world to pretty much erase petrol and diesel engine cars from the new car market. Now, amidst this general backdrop of transitioning to EVs, you had the capital city of Norway, Oslo. They took this ambition even further by announcing a net zero emissions policy altogether. And among other things, this meant that the city council was working to slowly convert their fleet of city buses to electric. And this has been a long time in the making. Back in 2018, Norway became the first European country to put into circulation articulated electric buses that were made by a Chinese company called BYD. And so that was the beginning. 2018. You fast forward to this year and by early 2025, Norway saw 287 additional Chinese electric buses added to their fleet, these ones manufactured by Yutong Group. This means that as of this year, roughly 20% of all the buses in Oslo were Chinese made. And these new Chinese buses, they were specifically noted to have been customized for local needs. Here's in fact how a publication called chinabuses.org described the modifications made for these buses sold to Norway. Quote to provide citizens with a safer and smarter travel experience, U Tong has applied a series of innovative technologies to its vehicles. Based on the actual demand for safe driving in the European market and the requirements of EU general regulations, UTONG has newly developed intelligent advanced driver assistance technologies that meet EU standards. The adaptive cruise control system monitors the speed and distance of the vehicle ahead in rear real time and automatically adjust the speed of the host vehicle to ensure safe and comfortable driving, whether in highway cruising or urban congested traffic conditions. The system can accurately judge and respond promptly, making driving easier. A second additional feature allows the bus to actually brake itself. Quote the collision mitigation and control system further safeguards vehicle safety. When it detects a potential collision risk, it quickly sounds an alarm and if necessary, or automatically applies brakes, significantly reducing the risk of accidents. The Vehicles equipped with this advanced driver assistance system demonstrate utong's unwavering commitment to the path of intelligent development. Now, one feature along this path of intelligent development that U Tong seemingly failed to inform Norway about was a backdoor capability that allows Utong or China in general to shut down their electric buses at a moment's notice. In this article here published in a Norwegian newspaper on October 28, it was revealed that over the course of the summer Ruter, which is the public transportation authority for Oslo, they conducted secret tests on two of their electric buses. They compared a Chinese made Utah bus to another brand that came out of Europe, vdl, based out of the Netherlands. These tests, they were conducted in underground mines which basically act as a natural Faraday cage and they eliminate all external signals coming in. And what these researchers found was, you can say, alarming. They discovered that the Chinese made bus, through the use of over the air software updates could be remotely disabled from within China. While the European buses were not able to be disabled, the researchers noted that the Chinese they can remotely access software updates, diagnostics and the battery systems alongside with the ability to render them all unusable, which by the way, just rough. Imagine having to be the local government official, having to tell your constituents that the fleet of electric buses that you recently purchased from China using tax dollars have a backdoor kill switch. Regardless, according to Reuter, the Oslo Transportation Authority, the good news is that the buses cannot be driven remotely because the cameras on board the buses are not actually connected to the Internet. Still, though they can be stopped remotely, Reuter said that the manufacturer can access the control system for battery and power supply via mobile network. It said that means that in theory, buses can be stopped or rendered inoperable by the manufacturer, which is a capability that you can easily imagine being used in a wartime scenario to basically hamper public transport and clog up the roads. Now for their party spokesperson for the Utahn Group, they told this Norwegian newspaper that quote, the data is encrypted and is used solely for vehicle related maintenance, optimization and improvement to meet customers after sales service needs. But again, that might actually all be true. But the question is not why they have this capability, it's the fact that they do have the capability to turn the buses off today and for the next 20 years. It might be used for benign purposes like maintenance software updates and optimization. But if in the future the ccp, if they have a reason to, they apparently can turn off a large swath of the public buses in Norway. Now, as a response to this finding, two things were Announced firstly, moving forward, Ruoter said that, quote, it's responding by imposing tougher security rules in future procurement, developing firewalls that ensure local control and prevent hacking, and working with authorities on clear cybersecurity requirements. And so that's for the future, a future fix for later procurement. The more immediate fix for the buses that are already on the roads is that the bus's SIM cards were removed in order to basically disconnect them from the Internet. And so that's what's been happening over in Norway. And it really is the perfect example that has everything. You have local officials who want to procure the best technology at the lowest price. You have the Chinese manufacturer who claims to be acting in completely good faith. You have a full investigation that had to be conducted in secret in order to figure out the truth. And then you have the sudden realization that some CCP cadres over in China can remotely disable your buses. And while that example was of course, over in Norway, we here in the US are not exempt from the same problems. For instance, last year a congressional investigation discovered that cranes made by a Chinese manufacturer called ZPMC, which just for your reference, makes up roughly 80% of the cranes currently in operation here in the U.S. it contained communication equipment as well as cellular modems with no documented purpose as well as no record of installation. They basically, they had these modems and these, this communication software that would allow the cranes to send data from the US dock back to China, which even if it doesn't contain a kill switch, it could still give the Chinese valuable intel about the real state of the US economy. Also, though, some things do contain kill switches. For instance, in May of this year, you had similar unexplained communication devices being found inside of Chinese made solar power inverters. Quote, power inverters, which are predominantly produced in China, are used throughout the world to connect solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids. They are also found in batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers. While inverters are built to allow remote access for updates and maintenance, the utility companies that use them typically install firewalls to prevent direct communication back to China. However, rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by US Experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues. Now, just to pause there for a moment, it means that these communication devices were not listed on the product manifest drawings. You had to literally go in, take the thing apart in order to find out that they were there. And in terms of what these things are capable of. Quote, the rogue components provide additional undocumented communication channels that could allow firewalls to be circumvented remotely with potentially catastrophic consequences. Using the RO communication devices to skirt firewalls and switch off inverters remotely or change their settings could destabilize power grids, damage energy infrastructure and trigger widespread blackouts. And so I'm sure you're kind of getting the picture of what's happening here. Just like those beepers that the Israeli government was secretly supplying to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which they could detonate on command at their will, the CCP appears to be sending out all this huge industrial technology equipment that has remote kill switches in it. And on command, these kill switches can be used to do something as drastic as to cause widespread blackouts. Now, in terms of buses specifically, fortunately for us here in America, the Utah group does not sell electric buses to North America. However, there is still another Chinese based electric bus manufacturer that does do big business here in the US that's BYD. BYD is a wholly owned subsidiary of BYD Co. Ltd. Headquartered in the People's Republic of China. And according to this report here, which came out In March of 2025, there are approximately 6,453 battery electric transit buses either awarded, ordered, delivered and or operational here in the US over a thousand of those buses, so roughly 15%, come from BYD. Now, in May of this year, you had the House Committee on Homeland Security issue this letter right here to BYD's North American subsidiary requesting documents as a part of their ongoing investigation into potential national security risks posed by the buses. Now the letter that was sent by the committee, it set a due date of June 11, 2025, and it warned the company that failure to comply with their request may result in the committee pursuing further compulsory measures. Now, it has been roughly six months since that due date and thus far the Committee on Homeland Security, they have not produced any reports on their findings. For our part, we here at the Epoch Times, we did reach out to the committee for an update, but they have yet to get back to us. If they get back to us or if they release a report, we'll do a follow up episode about these Chinese electric buses here in the us. Until then though, leave your thoughts in the comments about whether you think these 1000 Chinese electric buses here in America also potentially have a kill switch just like the solar panel inverters do. And also tell me whether you think that government officials should be allowed to continue to buy these materials directly from China at a time when the Chinese Communist Party is pretty open about using any and all means necessary to subvert America. I'd love to know your thoughts. Otherwise, all of the links to my research notes, you'll be able to find them down in the description box below this video if you want to get deeper into the weeds on anything that we discussed in today's episode. And as always, if you haven't already, smash those like and subscribe button so that this video, and in my opinion, this important content, can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. And and then, until next time, I'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times. Stay informed and most importantly, stay free.
