Feds Bust Chinese Firm's Hybrid Car Data Heist

coondoggie writes "An FBI investigation has led a Michigan couple to be charged with stealing hybrid car information from GM to use in a Chinese auto outfit. A federal indictment charged Yu Qin, aka Yu Chin, 49, and his wife, Shanshan Du, aka Shannon Du, 51, of Troy, Michigan with conspiracy to possess trade secrets without authorization, unauthorized possession of trade secrets, and wire fraud. One of the individuals was also charged with obstruction of justice, said Barbara McQuade, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in a statement. GM estimates that the value of the stolen documents is over $40 million."

Comments

Must have been for export

[MichaelSmith]

Hybrids are a bit of a joke, efficiency wise so I have my doubts about a domestic market for them in China. But Chinese car makers could compete with the Japanese, etc in the export market. But you'd expect that they would get found out. Maybe the immediate objective was to sell a complete system within china and let the buyer take the rap for the stolen tech.

Re:Must have been for export

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you look at the European market, you'll see a dozen models that get as good or better mileage than any hybrid available in the US.

Re:Must have been for export

[Skuld-Chan]

Because it was a 30,000 dollar car, and I can but a ton of gas for 15,000 dollars.

Also - my 04 Civic Coupe gets 45+ miles per gallon the freeway.

Re:Must have been for export

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Bit of a joke? What exactly would that be? http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/environment/2008-05-11-hybrids-gas-prices_N.htm I've owned a 2006 Civic Hybrid for the past four years and calculate the savings based on my driving habits and the cost of gas every year. It recouped its cost over a year ago and has currently saved me well over $1000. It also pollutes less. So...why is this a joke?

Except if you're calculating the savings based on cost of gas and driving habits alone, you're missing a major part of the equation. Did you include the $23000 it cost you to buy a new car, as opposed to continuing to maintain/repair and feed gas into your old one? Or if this was your very first car, did you do the calculations for getting a cheap used car vs new car, and take the price difference into account?

If you absolutely had to get a new car, did you look a the 2006 Civic -- 10-12k cheaper than the Hybrid, with gas mileage that's not appreciably worse? Did you take into account that 10-12k price difference in your calculations?

When you look at the miles you drive without taking into account the base cost, you're only seeing part of the picture needed to determine if you recouped your cost. And unless you drive a 40-50k miles a year, your costs have not been recouped. (I did a breakdown of the math in a comment some time back, and showed that it would take gas in the range of $8-9/gallon to recoup costs over a five year period at 12k a year; or $5-6/gallon to recoup them if you assumed you had to buy a new car and calculated based on price difference.)

Re:Must have been for export

[Idbar]

He probably meant the GM hybrids, such as the Yukon, Escalade, Silverado and Tahoe. Now, that's what I think is a joke. :)

Re:Must have been for export

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Anyone who compares the cost of buying a new hybrid to keeping an older car is a moron.

Guess what? It's almost ALWAYS cheaper to keep an old car that's serviceable. Gas is too cheap and cars are too expensive. That applies to hybrids and non-hybrids alike.

People still buy new cars. There are a lot of reasons for that.

Moreover, the same idiots never consider the fact that there are used hybrids. My 2007 Prius with 45000 miles on it cost $13500, which was only about $2000 more than a 2007 Corolla.

Your figure of "10-12k cheaper than the Hybrid" for the Civic is totally pulled out of your ass too. The cheapest 4-door Civic in 2006 was $14760 (GX), the Hybrid was $22150 for a difference of $7390. Of course, the GX is missing a lot of things that the Hybrid has standard - like an automatic transmission, air conditioning, and power windows. If you compare the more similarly equipped EX, which was $18460, the difference was only $3690.

When you make up your numbers, compare cars that aren't comparable, ignore the used hybrid market, or compare a used vehicle to a new hybrid, it's very easy to make hybrids look much more expensive than they are. It's also misleading and dishonest.

Re:Must have been for export

[drinkypoo]

Ah yes - the Dust to Dust report by marketing agency CNW. Debunked in many places, one of them here: http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/hummer_vs_prius.pdf

The debunking needs a debunking, not because the "Dust to Dust" report isn't based on false assumptions, but because it makes unfounded statements. Nobody is really clear on what recycling of hybrids will really be like en masse because their recycling has only just begun. However it is simply true that it takes more energy to produce or recycle a hybrid than a vehicle without the electric motive system, and they get no better mileage than a TDI. They have nominally better emissions than a modern turbodiesel, but it takes more energy to produce gasoline than diesel in the first place, and energy spent at a refinery produces industrial waste, mostly atmospheric pollution. We don't count the amount of energy IN the fuel because we didn't have to store it there, but it takes something like 40% less energy to make diesel fuel than it does to make gasoline. A certain amount of both are produced in the cracking process but different processes can be used to produce different proportions of various grades of petroleum.

I *would* expect a diesel Hummer to last vastly more miles than a Prius. But since none of these companies will really give us the figures, we are all basically left making shit up.

Re:Oh noes

[sesshomaru]

Coincidentally, I saw this today, Who Killed the Federal Stimulus?:

Also, please note in the second and third paragraphs how they urge congress to kill the "Buy American" clause in the federal economic stimulus plan.

They were quite successful in effectively killing it, although the media, including the Bretton Woods Committee, reported that it was simply "watered down." (More on that later.) And who is the Bretton Woods Committee?

Officially, they are an economics group promoting widespread knowledge of the IMF and World Bank. In actuality, they are the American-based, international lobbyist group for the ultra-rich. (Please note the emphasis on "international.")

Still trying to wrap my head around it.

[Lando]

So, they are being charged with a total of 40 years jail time and $750K in fines for information worth 40 million?

The 40 years is definitely nasty, but looking at the 750K, I've gotta think.. that's like 3 dollars worth of mp3's if they had them online. Seems like GM would get a better deal by getting them charged with copyright infringement per page stolen.

Re:smog

[delinear]

On a serious note, green technologies are one of the few things the West are doing better than the East right now. We can't sell them manufactured goods, they've already cornered that market, and they're at least as close if not edging ahead on banking and perhaps even IT. Anything that relies on IP is a non-starter. Do you didn't think western governments were suddenly supporting green technologies because it's the right thing to do, or because it's one of the few things we have of value right now (not to mention it stifles their industrial growth if we can force them down the same path)?