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[Text/Observer Network Xiong Chaoran]TeslaThe automaker has not been able to launch its most advanced driver-assistance features in China, leaving it lagging behind Chinese electric vehicle rivals.

According to the Wall Street Journal on August 20, local time, Tesla has been hoping to allow car owners in China, its largest market outside the United States, to use the enhanced Autopilot system, also known as Fully Self-Driving Software (FSD). With this software, Tesla cars can effectively drive from the starting point to the destination without human intervention, but owners will be told to stay alert at all times.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said last month that he expected Chinese regulators to approve FSD for use in China by the end of this year. In contrast, Chinese automakers have already received approval and are offering assisted driving features that are more advanced and often cheaper than what Tesla is allowed to offer in China.

last month,Xpeng MotorsHuawei has launched an assisted driving system nationwide, which is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and can cruise on city streets and respond to traffic signals.Ideal AutoOther Chinese companies, such as NVIDIA and NVIDIA, also offer similar assisted driving features, such as city street cruising, in hundreds of Chinese cities.

“Tesla has fallen behind in China”

The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that if Tesla's FSD is approved in China in the future, it may initially be limited to a few cities, and regulators will typically require "service pilots in limited areas."

Currently, Tesla's software costs about $4,500 in China, while its Chinese competitors' products are usually lower or even provided to car buyers for free. Analysts believe that the price difference reduces the attractiveness of Tesla's assisted driving system to Chinese car owners. Zhang Yu of consulting firm Automotive Foresight said when comparing the functions currently available to Chinese car owners, "Tesla has fallen behind in China."

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. Information on its official Chinese website said the company needs to accumulate billions of kilometers of mileage and obtain regulatory approval before it can offer Chinese consumers advanced features that are already available in the United States.

The development of self-driving cars is of vital importance to Musk and Tesla. Musk said in the latest earnings call: "Anyone who does not believe that Tesla will solve the problem of self-driving cars should not hold Tesla stock."

Some Chinese automakers have said that Tesla's most advanced FSD software, if approved, could surpass their own software. In July, Gu Junli, who once served as a technical executive at both Tesla and Xpeng Motors, said at an AI conference that Tesla is at most two years ahead of Chinese companies in assisted driving technology.

Tesla faces competition from Chinese automakers as sales in China decline

China accounted for 20% of Tesla's revenue in the first half of this year, and like other European and American automakers, Tesla's sales in China are also declining.

Tesla’s market share in China’s new energy vehicles (including all-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids) fell to 6.8% in the first half of this year, down from 9.5% in the same period last year, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Tesla said that the 12th version family (FSD V12) of its FSD driving software is frequently updated and iterated, and has used AI and learning tools modeled on the neural network of the human brain.

Since the beginning of this year, U.S. car owners have been able to use self-driving cars with FSD V12, which can basically drive themselves without a human at the steering wheel or on the accelerator, including on city streets. Tesla reminds owners that they must be ready to take over the vehicle at any time. In China, regulators do not allow car companies to offer this kind of "hands-off driving" autonomous driving system.

Tesla's AI-based assisted driving system replaces an older system that tried to pre-set rules for all situations a vehicle might encounter. Tesla said in March that its latest system was trained on millions of video clips and replaced hundreds of thousands of lines of computer code.

Meanwhile, Chinese automakers are working to train their own AI models. In the electric vehicle sector, similar competition has helped Chinese automakers move to the global forefront.

“The beauty of this market is that because the players are diverse and the competition is fierce, it leads to more trial and error, which stimulates faster progress,” said Paul Gong, an analyst at UBS.

The road conditions in China and the United States are different. Will Tesla be unable to adapt to the local environment?

In April this year, Tesla CEO Musk suddenly visited Beijing, China, starting a "surprise trip" to the company's second largest market. This visit also gave Tesla hope that its FSD would be approved in China, and the company's stock price was also boosted.

In May this year, the Lingang New Area Management Committee of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone issued the first national cross-border data scenario general data list and the supporting operation guide of the list. The document shows that in the one-year pilot project, companies registered in the Lingang area of ​​Shanghai Free Trade Zone, where Tesla's Shanghai Super Factory is located, can transfer the listed data overseas without further security assessment.

People familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that Tesla actually considered a "Plan B" - building a data center in China to train the driving system based on China's road conditions, but this is not simple. In addition, Tesla is also studying whether it can purchase the most advanced Nvidia chips to support this AI technology. However, for some time, the US government has implemented a series of AI chip export restrictions on China, which has prevented Nvidia from providing a number of advanced AI processors to the Chinese market.

Federal regulators have investigated hundreds of accidents, including fatalities, involving Tesla vehicles using less advanced driver-assistance systems. In December, Tesla recalled more than 2 million vehicles to add more alerts and controls to remind drivers to pay attention when using Autopilot.

In addition, Tesla's AI driving system has also been questioned whether it can properly handle China's road conditions without sufficient road training. China's driving conditions may be different from the US road conditions used to train Tesla's AI software. For example, there are more non-motor vehicles and pedestrians on Chinese roads.

In June, He Xiaopeng, founder of Xpeng Motors, tested Tesla's latest FSD version during a visit to California, USA. He said in a video that FSD impressed him, but he also said: "Chinese urban roads are more complicated than those in the United States, probably ten times more difficult than in the United States."

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