Not Only CEO Of GM Mary Barra Is In China, Elon Musk Visits China Auto Show Efforts To Allow Tesla FSD

Interior Tesla Model Y. (Doc. Tesla)

JAKARTA - Not only the CEO of GM Mary Barra who wara-wiri at the China Auto Show 2024 (Beijing Auto Show) exhibition is currently underway but Tesla CEO Elon Musk surprisingly arrived in China on Sunday, April 28.

Musk's arrival is strongly suspected for two purposes: visiting the Beijing Auto Show exhibition on Monday and lobbying Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) has received permission to operate in China's domestic market. In fact, Tesla itself is one of the car manufacturers who missed the exhibition.

Launching CarNewsChina, quoted April 29, the report states that Musk will meet with senior Chinese officials to discuss the launch of FSD software and data transfer permits abroad. In fact, despite being launched four years ago, Tesla has not provided FSD in China, which is their second-largest market. This delay sparked pressure from Chinese consumers, especially competition in the ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems) sector and self-driving software in China is heating up.

Earlier this month, Musk via social media platform X signaled that FSD might soon be available to Chinese consumers.

According to Chinese media, Elon Musk wants to discuss with government officials regarding approval to transfer data collected in China to overseas locations. The data will later be used to train Tesla's self-driving technology algorithm.

In accordance with Chinese regulations, all information collected by Tesla fleets must be stored locally in domestic data centers, and should not be sent to Tesla's headquarters in the United States.

If FSD Tesla is launched in China, they should be ready to face stiff competition from local electric car startups, namely Xpeng, which has just expanded the reach of XNGP (Xpeng Navigation Guided Pilot) to all streets in China. Xpeng even plans to market it globally by 2025, with testing on Europe's already started roads.

Selain Xpeng, Nio pada bulan Maret lalu juga telah menyediakan NOP+ (Navigate on Pilot Plus) di seluruh China, dan merektur 100 penguji pertama. Sebelumnya, NOP hanya bisa digunakan di jalan tol. Nio pun berencana membawa software selfeudi mereka ke luar negeri.

Furthermore, Geely and Baidu (as Google calls in China) last year launched a new brand called Jiyue that focuses on achieving self-driving level 4. Their models include the recently announced Jiyue 01 SUV and the recently announced Jiyue 07 sedan.

Huawei also does not want to be left behind with the Aito and Avatr brands which offer various levels of advanced driving system (ADS) advanced and self-driving systems called Huawei ADS.