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Tesla's Full Self-Driving tech has been tentatively approved to launch in China, the electric vehicle company's second-biggest market, The Wall Street Journal reports Monday.
Tesla is working with Chinese tech firm Baidu to offer a version of Full Self-Driving, or FSD, for the Chinese market. FSD offers more automated features than Tesla's Autopilot, but isn't fully autonomous and still requires a participating human driver. Bloomberg notes that as part of Tesla's FSD push in the country, Baidu—which already offers robotaxis in China—will provide navigational support and lane-level mapping services for Tesla.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took a trip to China over the weekend in his private jet to get approval for FSD's rollout there. CNBC reports that China has removed its restrictions on Tesla vehicles because they now adhere to China's data security rules around data collection. The rules require cars to conceal facial recognition data collected from people outside the car, automatically opt users out of collecting cockpit data, and notify drivers of data collection, to name a few. Tesla vehicles in China collect and store data on its Chinese cars in a Shanghai-based data center that underwent a third-party security audit, according to the report.
Back in January, Nikkei Asia noted that Tesla vehicles were restricted from entering the properties of Chinese government-affiliated venues like conference centers and military bases over data collection concerns. Now, however, Tesla's Model Y and Model 3 have passed China's data security clearance requirements along with a number of other cars from other vehicle manufacturers like Lotus, according to a statement reported by CNBC from China's Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
"The result of the review will give Tesla car owners and other fans of its cars a lot of confidence in driving them on the streets of China," Chen Jinzhu, CEO of consultant firm Shanghai Mingliang Auto Service, tells the South China Morning Post. “Since the CAAM is a government-backed auto industry association, the review certainly will have an influence on relevant authorities’ policymaking.”
Tesla's push toward an FSD rollout in China comes as the US-based EV firm faces financial challenges. Tesla's stock is down 32% this year, but is still up nearly 4% overall in the past year. Earlier this month, Tesla laid off more than 10% of its staff—roughly 14,000 employees—in a move Musk deemed necessary to the company's future success.
Tesla has also lowered the prices of some of its vehicles in an effort to spur more sales. It recently cut the cost of FSD in the US as Musk mandates Tesla dealerships give new buyers an FSD test-run to show off the tech and potentially inspire purchases of the add-on feature. In the past six months, Tesla has recalled nearly every vehicle it's sold in the US and faces a recent Cybertruck recall and ongoing concerns about Tesla's Autopilot safety fix.
“We’re super excited about our autonomy roadmap," Musk said during Tesla's earnings call last week. "We’re headed for an electric vehicle and autonomous future. In the future, gasoline cars that are not autonomous will be like driving a horse and using a flip phone, and that will become very obvious in hindsight.”