Xpeng showcases its electric models in a shopping mall in Beijing earlier this year. (Photo: China Daily)

Automobile brand NIO issued an apology on Tuesday, saying part of its customer and sales information before August 2021 had been stolen, and that it received an email on Dec 11, in which the sender threatened to make the data public unless they coughed up $2.25 million in bitcoins.

The letter didn't mention how much information was leaked or how, but one can make an estimate from the fact that between January and July 2021, NIO had sold 49,887 cars to consumers and another 43,728 cars in 2020.

The stolen data might include sensitive information such as financial details. The smart car segment became big after August 2021 but the fact that such data was leaked means the enterprise has not established a data security mechanism matching its sales, which is why the loopholes were tapped by the illegal chains.

Previously, the automobile industry paid more attention to safety of cars than data security. The NIO data leak incident should be a reminder that the latter needs no less, if not equal, attention.

Especially, with the new smart automobile brands entering the market one after another, the percentage of cars that collect personal data of consumers is increasingly high.

Considering the fact that many people are frequently driving cars, smart cars can be seen as mobile, all-day data collectors, which might include the car owners' geographic locations, basic information, conversations in the car, videos, even their biological features.

If such information gets leaked, the danger to smart car consumers might be much higher than those buying traditional cars. Which is why the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology together with four ministries issued a guiding document in April, which stresses on new-energy vehicle enterprises' responsibility for data security.

Time for not only NIO, but also all smart vehicle manufacturers to learn a lesson from this.