According to two people familiar with the matter, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, flew to Beijing on Sunday, April 28th to start a surprise trip to Tesla’s second largest market.
One of the people familiar with the matter said that Musk was seeking to meet with senior officials of China in Beijing to discuss matters related to the launch of FSD autopilot software in China, and to obtain relevant data approval to train the algorithm of his autopilot technology.
Musk’s trip to China was not made public. As he was not authorized to be interviewed by the media, the insider asked for anonymity. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Image source: Screenshot of Reuters News page
Four years ago, Tesla launched FSD. Although customers urged Tesla to launch FSD in China, the company has not yet achieved this goal. However, in response to a question on social media platform X this month, Musk said that Tesla may offer FSD to customers in China "soon". Meanwhile, China automakers such as Xpeng Motors have been seeking to compete with Tesla by launching similar software.
In November 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Transport of China jointly issued the Notice on Launching the Pilot Work of Intelligent Networked Vehicles Access and Road Access (hereinafter referred to as the Notice), announcing that intelligent Networked vehicles with mass production conditions and self-driving function can be piloted in a limited area after obtaining the access permit. At the same time, the responsibility for the accident when the automatic driving is turned on is clarified, and the operator will be responsible.
Since then, more than 30 cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have issued driving test licenses. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, BAIC, SAIC and other automobile manufacturers have successively obtained autonomous driving test licenses in relevant places.