On November 18th, in response to market rumors that the company had discussed two rounds of Full Self Driving (FSD) authorization with SAIC, Tesla China responded to the media that the news was not true and had no communication with domestic car companies.
Previously, there were rumors in the market that Tesla's FSD system may be authorized to SAIC Group for Robotaxi (autonomous driving) services after entering the Chinese market. According to media reports citing research from Tianfeng Securities, it is currently known that Tesla and SAIC have had two rounds of communication, and Geely has also had exchanges, but the final conclusion and details have not been clarified yet. In addition, some industry insiders have pointed out that as early as April this year, there were rumors related to SAIC, BYD, and Geely.
Tesla auto drive system is divided into three categories: basic automatic driving (AP), enhanced automatic driving (EAP), and fully automatic driving (FSD). FSD, full name of which is "Full Self Driving", is the most advanced technology in Tesla's current automatic driving scheme, and is a full link auto drive system covering sensing, regulation, implementation and other links.
There are generally two technological routes for achieving autonomous driving, one is FSD, and the other is called "vehicle road cloud integration". Among them, Tesla FSD achieves autonomous driving by installing eyes on the car and installing the brain inside the car, allowing AI to learn how to drive by looking at the road through the eyes.
In January 2024, Tesla FSD's full auto drive system was upgraded to V12. He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, said after the experience that FSD's performance was very smooth throughout the experience, and most of the road conditions were handled with ease, almost close to the driving level of human drivers.
At present, FSD's service scope is limited to the United States, Canada, Australia, and some European countries. During the Q2 earnings conference call this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that Tesla is expected to obtain FSD licenses in other markets, such as Europe and China, by the end of this year.
However, in September, Tesla's expected entry of FSD into China was postponed. At that time, Tesla's artificial intelligence team announced on social media that it expected to launch a fully autonomous driving FSD system in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025, but it still needed regulatory approval.
On October 18th, multiple informed sources revealed in media interviews that the Chinese government supports the pilot of some FSD functions while complying with existing laws and regulations. However, the entry of FSD into China has not yet been approved by regulatory authorities, and related evaluation work is still in progress. Musk once applied to relevant departments to obtain some video data for system training, and promised that these data could be submitted to relevant departments for strict review.
According to relevant experts, the core issue of whether FSD can be quickly implemented in China mainly lies in how to collect basic geographic information and other data, as well as how to ensure data security and compliance.