General Motors already got caught selling your driving data to insurance companies – and that was just the beginning.
Now an Italian tire company with a Chinese communist government investor wants to put a sensor inside your tire that uploads your every move to the cloud.
And the company behind it has a secret that Washington almost buried.
Pirelli Cyber Tire Embeds AI Sensors That Upload Your Driving Data to the Cloud
Pirelli announced its Cyber Tire technology last week at the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Washington, D.C.
The company describes it as "the world's first hardware-and-software system capable of collecting data and information from sensors embedded in tires."
That sensor lives inside the rubber – built to survive 1,000 Gs of force at 168 mph – feeding a continuous stream of data to your car's electronics, to other vehicles on the road, and to the cloud.
Piero Misani, Pirelli's chief technical officer, explained the vision: "Cars will be more and more connected. The point is that cars are being able to speak to one another. With V2X – vehicle to everything – the possibilities are limitless."
Pirelli CEO for North America Claudio Zanardo called production at the Rome, Georgia, plant "a significant milestone" for the company's American operations.
But there's something Pirelli didn't mention at the Investment Summit.
Your Connected Car Has Been Selling Your Data to Insurance Companies for Years
Pirelli's largest shareholder is Sinochem Group – a Chinese state-owned conglomerate holding a 34 percent stake in the Italian company.
The Chinese Communist Party holds a claim on a company embedding AI-powered sensors in the tires of American vehicles – sensors transmitting location data, road conditions, driving behavior, and real-time telemetry to cloud servers.
The U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security saw the problem immediately.
In a letter dated April 25, 2025, the BIS warned that vehicles equipped with Cyber Tire technology would likely require special authorization to be sold in the United States – part of a broader federal crackdown on Chinese-linked technology in connected vehicles.
Bloomberg reported the concern directly: Pirelli's software was developed with Chinese suppliers, and Sinochem's ownership put the company in the crosshairs of regulations prohibiting Chinese and Russian technology in connected American vehicles.
Software restrictions were set to kick in with the 2027 model year. Hardware restrictions in 2029.
Pirelli makes roughly 25 percent of its revenue in the United States.
Sinochem and Chinese Government Ties Triggered a US National Security Warning
Rather than let Beijing's investment kill a lucrative American market, Italy's government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni activated a national security provision allowing Rome to override foreign control of strategically important companies.
Meloni's government stripped Sinochem of its ability to appoint Pirelli's CEO, removed its board representatives from executive positions, and barred the Chinese company from accessing sensitive corporate information.
Washington accepted the restructuring and cleared Pirelli to manufacture Cyber Tires at its Rome, Georgia, plant.
Sinochem still owns 34 percent of Pirelli.
Lawyer Steve Lehto put the broader problem plainly this week: "I don't care how secure anybody claims anything is. We have heard about data breaches from everybody. Banks? Sure. From actual internet security companies? Turns out they're not real good at internet security."
The track record on connected vehicle data is already ugly.
FTC officials banned General Motors from selling driver data after a New York Times investigation revealed GM had been feeding trip-by-trip driving records – 640 trips over six months for one driver alone – to data brokers like LexisNexis, which sold the profiles to insurance companies.
Honda sold data from 97,000 cars for 26 cents per vehicle.
Hyundai moved data from 1.7 million cars for 61 cents apiece.
Your location, your speed, your hard braking, your rapid acceleration – packaged, sold, and used to raise your insurance premiums without your knowledge.
Now Pirelli wants to add road surface data, tire temperature, and AI-processed environmental telemetry to that stream.
By 2030, industry analysts project more than 95 percent of new passenger cars will carry some form of internet-connected surveillance – and every new feature added to every new model expands the footprint of what can be collected, sold, or stolen.
No federal privacy framework governs what tire manufacturers can do with this data and no opt-out has been announced.
Beijing has been running the longest data collection operation in human history – TikTok, Huawei, biotech, port equipment, and now the rubber under your wheels.
Every sensor added to every American vehicle is another node in a surveillance network China is building inside our borders while Washington debates the paperwork.
Trump's Commerce Department drew the right line last year – then watched Italy shuffle the org chart and waved Pirelli through anyway.
Washington got a delay, not a victory.
Sources:
- Mark Vaughn, "This Pirelli Cyber Tire Gathers Data and Sends it to Your Car and the Cloud," Autoweek, May 22, 2026.
- Reuters, "Italy's Pirelli Says Chinese Control Over Company Has Ended," SpaceDaily, 2026.
- "U.S. Warns Pirelli on Possible Sale Restrictions Over Chinese Investors," Reuters/Yahoo Finance, May 2025.
- Chris Markus, "Pirelli Cleared to Build Smart Cyber Tyres in Georgia After Italy Curbed Chinese Influence," MotorExclusive, May 11, 2026.
- Sean Tucker, "GM Banned From Selling Driver Data," Kelley Blue Book, January 17, 2025.
- Sean Miller, "Your Tires Uploading Driving Data To The Cloud, Coming Soon!" Alpha News, May 27, 2026.
