Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, made an unexpected trip to Beijing and received important support there, despite the US firm facing fierce competition from Chinese competitors like BYD.
According to a source with knowledge of the situation as per international media, Musk was scheduled to speak about the release of Full Self-Driving (FSD) software and authorization to send driving data abroad when he landed in the Chinese capital on Sunday.
One of his meetings was with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who hailed Tesla’s growth in China as an effective illustration of US-China trade and economic cooperation. However, official media did not disclose whether or not the two had addressed FSD.
However, a prominent Chinese auto organization gave the US carmaker a significant endorsement at the same time as he was traveling, stating that Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y vehicles were among those that were determined to be compatible with China’s data security regulations.
Additionally, two different individuals informed Reuters that Tesla and Baidu had come to an arrangement for the latter to utilize the former’s mapping license for data collecting on Chinese public roads. These sources saw this as a crucial step toward the introduction of FSD in China.
In premarket trading, Tesla shares were up 7% as of late.
The US electric car manufacturer, which launched the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software four years ago, has not yet made FSD fully available in China, its second-largest market internationally, despite consumer demand. Among the reasons for this are data security and compliance.
Since 2021, Chinese authorities have mandated that Tesla retain all data gathered by its Chinese fleet in Shanghai; the business is unable to export any of this data back to the United States.
According to the reports, Musk is trying to get permission to send data gathered domestically to another nation in order to train algorithms for its autonomous driving capabilities.
