According to a study, concerns about data protection could slow down new car brands from China. For every third driver, protecting the vehicle from hacker attacks is now an important criterion when buying a new car, according to the results of a representative survey by the Center of Automotive Management (CAM) in Bergisch Gladbach. And manufacturers from China are by far the least trusted. 43 percent of those surveyed even cited concerns about data security as an exclusion criterion for buying a Chinese car.
“The German manufacturers have a certain amount of trust here,” says CAM expert Stefan Bratzel, who conducted the study together with network equipment supplier Cisco Systems. When asked whether they trust the manufacturer to keep their data safe, Mercedes, BMW and VW came first: 39 percent have “high” or “very high” trust in Mercedes, 37 percent in BMW and 32 percent in Volkswagen. Ford and Opel came in fifth and sixth with 26 percent each, directly behind Toyota (29 percent). The VW subsidiaries Audi and Porsche were not asked individually.
The new Chinese challengers MG, BYD and Nio, on the other hand, come in last among the 19 brands examined: only 16 to 17 percent of respondents trust them when it comes to data protection. The discussion about the exclusion of Huawei from the expansion of the 5G mobile network is apparently rubbing off on the car manufacturers. “That could become a problem for them.”
Opportunity for data protection made in Germany
For the German car industry, however, this opens up the opportunity for a new sales argument. “This is a real competitive advantage that we must now exploit,” says Christian Korff, member of the management board at Cisco in Germany. Data protection made in Germany could even become the new export hit and “take over from the combustion engine as a global trademark,” says Korff. “This can be our brand of the future.”
However, the prerequisite is that the companies now tackle the issue with vigor. Because, says Korff: “At the moment, this is a leap of faith. That still has to be proven.” To do this, manufacturers would have to invest in appropriate security architectures for networked vehicles. “A single incident can be enough to lose this trust. This is a very sensitive issue.”
“There will be attacks”
Manufacturers should therefore be open about the threats posed by hacker attacks and data theft in cars, advises Bratzel. “The issue must be taken out of the shadows.” Because: “There will be attacks. And then it will be decided which platform is more resilient.”
Because of the trust that is placed in German manufacturers, the “fall height” is the highest, warns Bratzel. “You have to be as transparent as possible about where the risks are and how you handle the data. And if something does happen, the fall height is not so great.”
For the study, the YouGov Institute surveyed 1,149 drivers from across Germany in July.
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