In January 2025, Commerce Department regulators finalized a rule targeting Chinese technology in American cars, and lidar sensors were sitting right in front of them. They chose to carve lidar out.
The final rule from the Bureau of Industry and Security explicitly excluded lidar from its restrictions, even while acknowledging the sensors posed a national security risk, according to the Federal Register notice. Regulators called it a lower priority than the wireless hardware they were targeting and left the door open to revisit it later.
That later appears to be now. Idaho National Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility, is quietly testing whether Chinese lidar sensors could be hacked, disabled en masse, or used to funnel data back to China if adopted widely on American roads, according to TechCrunch, which first reported the review.
Any finding, positive or negative, could reshape which lidar suppliers automakers are willing to be seen buying from.
A spokesperson told TechCrunch in June and again in July that the project was not something the lab could discuss with reporters.
The review is being funded by an unnamed company or group of companies in the electric and autonomous vehicle industry, TechCrunch said, and it is unfolding as lawmakers draft multiple bills aimed at restricting Chinese lidar nationwide.
Two risks explain the urgency around Chinese lidar
Innoviz CEO Omer Keilaf, whose Israeli company competes directly with Chinese lidar makers, described two distinct threats to TechCrunch.
One is a mass shutdown: sensors disabled in bulk, standing vehicles already in motion. The other is quieter, involving compressed sensor data funneled out through a cellular chip.
Keilaf said he had not heard of the Idaho review before TechCrunch asked him about it. A cybersecurity assessment serious enough to draw private funding has apparently run for months without reaching the executives who build competing sensors for a living.
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Automakers’ silence is a strategy, not an accident
Rivian, General Motors, Ford, Kodiak, Lucid, Nuro, and Uber all told TechCrunch they had no knowledge of the review.
Nvidia, Zoox, and Aurora did not respond to questions about it at all.
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That is a wide swath of autonomous vehicle industry professing ignorance of a study that directly concerns hardware many of them already use or plan to use.
Rivian’s own public record shows why staying quiet might be the safer posture. In May, CEO RJ Scaringe told Reuters the company was weighing building its own lidar sensors domestically, potentially through a joint venture using Chinese technology, because “all the real choices are coming out of China” at the price point automakers need.
A month of whiplash, then a policy vacuum
Rivian’s chief financial officer, Claire McDonough, walked that back weeks later, calling the in-house lidar reports “an erroneous headline” and saying the company has no plans today to bring the work in-house, in remarks at a UBS investor conference.
That reversal shows how fast the ground shifts under any automaker that admits reliance on Chinese sensors.
Washington’s own rules explain the caution. Section 164 of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act already bars the Pentagon from operating or procuring Chinese-made lidar, naming Hesai (HSAI) directly, according to congressional commitee documents.
A newer bill from Senators Ted Budd and Tammy Baldwin would extend similar restrictions to Department of Transportation contracts, according to the bill text.
Neither law touches the vehicle a consumer buys at a dealership. Hesai remains on the Pentagon’s list of alleged Chinese military-linked suppliers and is fighting that designation in court, a case still unresolved, the Associated Press reported.
Hesai’s Nasdaq-listed shares have traded well below their 52-week high of $30.85 for months, closing the week at $19.10, offering evidence that investors were pricing in regulatory risk before this review surfaced.
Every rule written so far carves a hole around exactly the vehicles ordinary drivers buy. Idaho’s review may be the evidence that finally closes it, whether or not the automakers staying silent are ready for the answer.
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