Traveling to China on Sunday, Elon Musk reportedly sealed the upcoming launch of Tesla’s hands-free autonomous driving technology in the country. While waiting for Europe and France, where regulatory progress is groping.
The trip was brief for Elon Musk, but it doesn’t appear to have been in vain. The billionaire, who met Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang on Sunday in the Middle Kingdom, would have managed to remove for Tesla all the regulatory obstacles which prevented it from deploying Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode, the 100% autonomous driving, in China. In exchange, the owner of the car manufacturer had to make concessions.
For true autonomous driving in China, Tesla will integrate “Chinese Google Maps” into its cars
We know that China is a capital market for Tesla, the second largest for the manufacturer, to be exact. So obviously, Elon Musk did not go to Beijing this Sunday, April 28, 2024 to “ string beads ”, you will forgive us the expression.
No, on site, Elon Musk discussed the deployment of the FSD mode of his Autopilot software, but also data transfer. To extend this last point, Tesla has apparently sealed an agreement with the “Chinese Google”, Baidu, so that the company can use its mapping license (Baidu Maps) to collect data on local public roads.
Obviously, this element constituted a key step that could validate the arrival of Full Self-Driving mode in the country. This allows “hands-free” driving, with a vehicle capable of going from point A to point B without human intervention. The Tesla Model 3 and Model Y were, moreover, tested and found to comply with Beijing’s data security requirements.
Tesla wants to transfer data to the United States, but Beijing is intransigent
For China, shaken technologically by the United States, which is now considering excluding the drone giant DJI, this question of data security and compliance was fundamental. Its leaders had to find a holding ground that could satisfy all parties, the demand for the FSD being very strong in the Middle Kingdom.
We will still remember that Beijing has demanded, for three years now, that Tesla store all of the data collected in the country in Shanghai. Unlike Europe, where the issue of data transfer is becoming more and more problematic, in China there is no debate. Tesla cannot transfer data to the United States.
However, Elon Musk would not have completely given up on this last point. The owner of SpaceX would like to obtain transfer authorization in order to train algorithms for its autonomous driving technologies. We don’t know if he got any guarantees on this. In the meantime, it could well be that China is ahead of Europe in the deployment of FSD technology, despite certain regulatory advances in recent weeks on the Old Continent.
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