Elon Musk, visiting China at a time when Tesla is under pressure from Chinese rivals, sought China’s approval for Tesla to use advanced driver assistance systems during his trip to Beijing, which ended on Monday.
Tesla CEO Musk was expected in Beijing to discuss deploying fully autonomous driving (FSD) software and allowing the transfer of driving data overseas, Reuters quoted a person familiar with the matter as saying.
In talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Li praised Tesla’s development in China as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation, but state media did not say whether the two discussed FSD.
According to Reuters, the US carmaker has received significant support from China’s top car company Baidu, which said Tesla’s Model 3 and Y cars were among the models found to be compliant with China’s data security requirements.
Two separate sources told Reuters that Tesla had reached an agreement with Baidu to use the Chinese tech giant’s mapping licence to collect data on China’s public roads, describing it as an important step towards the introduction of FSD in the country.
Tesla shares were last up 7 per cent in pre-market trading.
Data security and compliance are among the reasons why the US electric carmaker, which launched the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software four years ago, has yet to fully roll out FSD in China, its second-largest market globally, despite customer demand.
Chinese regulators have required Tesla to store all data collected by its Chinese fleet in Shanghai from 2021, preventing the company from transferring data to the US.
Musk is seeking approval to transfer data collected in the country overseas to train algorithms for autonomous driving technology, the person told Reuters.
It remains unclear what other regulatory approvals, if any, Tesla will need to obtain before fully rolling out FSD in China, or what conditions the company may face.
Stock analysts at Wedbush described the surprise visit as “an important moment for Tesla”.
Rival Chinese carmakers and suppliers such as XPeng and Huawei Technologies are trying to gain an edge over Tesla by introducing similar software.
Hu Xijin, former editor of China’s Global Times newspaper, said on his Weibo account that Tesla is the only foreign carmaker to meet China’s data compliance requirements, which will pave the way for Tesla cars to enter government and state-owned enterprise buildings across China.
“This is not only a breakthrough in China, but also an important demonstration for the whole world in solving data security issues,” he said.
Musk’s visit comes a week after he cancelled a planned trip to India to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing “very heavy Tesla commitments”.
Musk was due to announce new investments of $2-3 billion, including a car factory, on his cancelled trip to India after India offered lower import duties on electric vehicles under a new policy.
