Norwegian transport operator Ruter in November<\/a>.<\/p>\nYutong electric buses are used widely across Canberra, with the ACT government purchasing 90 vehicles in 2023 as part of its zero-emissions transition plan.<\/p>\n
The buses are also used in New South Wales and Queensland on a smaller scale.<\/p>\n
Transport Canberra said it investigated the issue last year and did not discover any security vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n
“At the moment, we don’t have a concern,” Transport Canberra executive group manager Jeremy Smith told the ABC.<\/p>\n
“Given the latest observations that have come out of Europe as early as this morning, we have re-engaged with Digital Canberra and will look at that matter again just to assure ourselves and the community that those concerns don’t exist.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2a4c45de623205aff9dde5e851661dd1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Jeremy Smith says last year’s investigation did not discover any security vulnerabilities in the buses. (ABC News: Adam Kennedy)<\/p>\n
Yutong’s Australian distributor, VDI Australia, advised Transport Canberra that buses operating here were different from the model used in Europe.<\/p>\n
Mr Smith said the Australian buses did not allow “over-the-air” updates from Yutong.<\/p>\n
“The way the updates are done in Australia, particularly in Canberra and the ACT, is that they’re enabled by a mechanic in the workshop,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Yes, we still do have some connectivity on the buses, but that’s around monitoring the performance of the bus itself.”‘Sleepwalking into a larger threat’, expert warns<\/p>\n
Cybersecurity expert Alastair MacGibbon, the chief strategy officer at CyberCX and a former cybersecurity advisor to then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, is a vocal critic of Chinese electric vehicle imports.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/e02f56eb650c0ae30e86182ee2d35465.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Alastair MacGibbon says steps taken by Transport Canberra do not ameliorate the threats identified in Yutong buses overseas. (ABC News: Fletcher Yeung)<\/p>\n
“There is risk \u2014 that risk gets greater every single time we add a vehicle on the road that is an electric vehicle manufactured in, and therefore controlled by, a state that doesn’t have our best interests at heart,” Mr MacGibbon said.<\/p>\n
“Theoretically, you could degrade the safety features on the bus.<\/p>\n
“Could you change the way it brakes? Could you turn off the lights at night? Or even perhaps scarier \u2026 imagine if the battery was allowed to overfill, get hot and explode.<\/p>\n
“All of these things are possible in any connected electric vehicle.”<\/p>\n
He said steps taken by Transport Canberra “in no way” ameliorated the threats identified in the Yutong buses overseas.<\/p>\n
“It does not matter if Transport Canberra are the ones who upload the software,” he said.<\/p>\n
“One thing I’ll guarantee you is they’re not reviewing every line of code, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know what that code did.<\/p>\n
“We’re sleepwalking into a larger threat to our national interest, and we shouldn’t do that blindly.”<\/p>\n
Yutong has long argued that it prioritises vehicle data security and customer privacy and complies with data protection laws.<\/p>\n
A company spokesperson said in November that Yutong vehicles in Australia “do not support remote control of acceleration, steering, or braking signal”.<\/p>\n
Transport Canberra’s Yutong bus fleet will remain in service while investigations continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Transport Canberra has launched a new investigation into its fleet of Chinese-made electric buses amid growing cybersecurity concerns.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2666,223340,64,63,78708,99,2667,4690,223339,284,223342,223341,140989,223343,156471],"class_list":["post-425174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-act","tag-alistair-macgibbon","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-buses","tag-business","tag-canberra","tag-chinese","tag-chinese-made","tag-cybersecurity","tag-digital-canberra","tag-electric-bus","tag-transport-canberra","tag-vdi-australia","tag-yutong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/c0a6f8cbac66e4b7fad1d2fc0bb15259.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n