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America may not have the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners, but it shares a troubling trait with the island continent: a deep reluctance to regulate the modern car market. As of May 15, 2025, U.S. safety regulators have yet to set clear rules on hidden electronic door handles, even as China moves to ban them. Meanwhile, connected-vehicle cybersecurity gaps and the quiet acceptance of ever-larger pickups are creating risks that regulators seem unwilling to confront.
Australia has long been a global pioneer in regulating social media, gun ownership, and tobacco packaging. Yet when it comes to cars, the country is oddly passive, and a recent Four Corners investigation exposed part of the problem. Journalists and cybersecurity researchers demonstrated how easily a connected vehicle’s systems could be hacked, unlocking remote functions and pulling personal data. The vehicle in question was a BYD Shark 6, a Chinese-built plug-in hybrid ute now sold in Australia. The investigation revealed that Australia’s regulatory framework for connected-car cybersecurity has significant gaps. But the lesson for the United States is just as stark: these gaps are not unique to Australia.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and NHTSA have long acknowledged that modern vehicles are rolling computers, but federal safety standards have not kept pace. With Chinese EV makers expanding globally and more connected cars hitting American roads, the same vulnerabilities will likely surface here. The response from policymakers too often is defensiveness, dismissal, or warm reassurance that existing programs, like the New Car Assessment Program, will handle it. They do not.
Consider the modern hidden door handle, a design in vogue across the EV world. These retractable handles, flush with the body when not in use, are a source of documented safety concerns. In an emergency, first responders and trapped occupants may struggle to get doors open when power is lost. China is now requiring mechanically operable handles that work without power, essentially banning the flush design. The United States is investigating similar concerns with electronically operated door handles, but no federal rule is on the books. Meanwhile, automakers can freely sell vehicles in America with door handles that would soon be illegal in China. Are American consumers comfortable with becoming a dumping ground for designs rejected elsewhere?
The BYD Shark 6 is a useful case study not just for cybersecurity but for vehicle size and safety. Many Americans see giant pickups as a homegrown trend, but the Shark is a reminder that foreign brands are now joining the size race. In Australia, the Shark is larger than the Ford Ranger, a vehicle already considered big in that market. With its massive front end and tall hood, it poses a serious risk to pedestrians and to occupants of smaller vehicles in a collision.
Australia’s ANCAP, the independent safety assessment body, gave the BYD Shark 6 a five-star safety rating. That headline number tells consumers the vehicle protects its own occupants well. But buried in ANCAP’s technical report is a critical note: because of the Shark’s size, weight, and front-end design, it poses a higher risk to occupants of oncoming vehicles, resulting in a full penalty in the vehicle-to-vehicle compatibility test. That information almost no one reads. And in the United States, even that level of transparency is missing. NHTSA’s five-star rating and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s top picks are primarily focused on how a vehicle protects its own passengers. The risk a vehicle imposes on others is not packaged into the score.
This points to a simple but powerful reform: split safety ratings. One rating for how well a vehicle protects its own occupants. Another for how safe it is for others, including pedestrians and the people in smaller cars. Consumers deserve to know both. A buyer who chooses a large pickup may rationally prioritize family protection, but society also pays the cost when those vehicles hit someone else. Bundling the two into a single score hides that trade-off.
There is a race underway, and not just in Australia. American manufacturers are pushing ever-bigger trucks and SUVs; Chinese brands are following with their own oversized entries. In this policy void, regulators on both sides of the Pacific are waving them through. The entire society will bear the long-term consequences as these vehicles accumulate on roads, making streets more dangerous for everyone outside the cabin.
It is not enough to say safety ratings will guide consumers. Ratings are advisory, not regulatory. ANCAP, NHTSA, and IIHS cannot ban a vehicle. Only regulators can set mandatory standards. Yet regulators seem to fear that if they raise the bar, brands will abandon a lucrative market. That is unlikely. Australia and the U.S. are both huge markets, and manufacturers have shown time and again they will meet standards when required. They meet European emissions limits and Chinese safety rules; there is no reason they cannot meet similar expectations in America.
The paradox is why countries quick to regulate tobacco, social platforms, and firearms become so passive around cars. Australia was nearly a decade late adopting Euro 6 emissions standards, and the U.S. has its own history of lagging Europe. For years, American consumers accepted vehicles that could not be sold in the stricter European market. The same pattern is repeating with cybersecurity, hidden door handles, and pedestrian safety.
We cannot blame individual consumers. A family buying a larger vehicle often makes a perfectly rational choice for their own protection. The collective consequences, however, are not rational. Regulation exists precisely to address those collective risks. Policymakers do not need to reinvent the wheel. They can look at what other countries have already done, including the home countries of these automakers, and adopt comparable standards. If China can demand fail-safe door handles and Europe sets aggressive emission targets, why should Americans accept less?
The message for U.S. regulators should be clear. The gap between what the car industry can do and what government will require is growing. There is no policy reason to sit back and wait for another investigation, another hack, or another pedestrian fatality. Adopt stronger standards before the next generation of vehicles locks a child inside a powered-off cabin or crashes a 7,000-pound pickup into a sedan. Australia’s passivity is a cautionary tale; America doesn’t have to follow it.
