ELECTRIC car (EV) maker Tesla’s driving assistance system, Full Self-Driving (FSD), is likely to be approved by Chinese regulators and enter the China market within 2024, multiple news outlets quoted Tesla CEO Elon Musk as saying. Tesla will be seeking regulatory approvals in China, Europe, and other markets after the upcoming versions of its FSD software (v12.5 or v12.6) are released “pretty soon,” Musk told investors during the company’s second-quarter earnings call Tuesday. “I think we are likely to receive that before the end of the year, which could be helpful to drive demand in those regions,” Musk added, without revealing further details. Following the approval by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Tesla’s employees can commence internal tests of FSD on public roads before opening the system to users in China, according to a previous Reuters report, citing people familiar with matter. In June, the Lingang New Area in Shanghai began trials of Tesla’s FSD, involving 10 Tesla vehicles, as per the China Securities Journal. Analysts said the test may accelerate the entry of FSD in China. Tesla now provides two less advanced driving assistance programs — Autopilot, which is free to use, and Enhanced Autopilot, which costs 32,000 yuan (US$4,397) — in China, the company’s official website showed. The FSD will now be optional for installation when car buyers choose a configuration for their Tesla vehicle, and it will cost 64,000 yuan. However, it can’t be used before the official introduction of FSD in China. Tesla’s FSD leads globally in driving assistance technologies, said Zhang Xiang, secretary general of the International Intelligent Vehicle Engineering Association, as per the Global Times. Ten automakers including Mercedes, BMW, BYD and GAC’s EV brand Aion have been granted Level 3 autonomous driving testing licenses, according to Chinese media outlet thepaper.cn. Level 3 autonomous driving technology allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel and their eyes off the road, according to national standards, but carmakers should be responsible for any accidents. On June 4, the MIIT and three other departments released a document allowing nine entities — vehicle production companies and actual user companies — to further refine nation’s testing procedure for autonomous driving programs. Aside from financial gains, the implementation of Tesla’s FSD in China will accelerate its technological upgrade, Wu Shuocheng, a veteran automobile industry analyst, was quoted by the Global Times as saying. “China’s super large market and abundant application scenarios will provide Tesla with substantial revenues as well as valuable data to upgrade its autonomous driving technologies,” Wu said. Despite Tesla’s efforts, one of its key challenges in China is that the national traffic authority has not yet weighed in on the new problems autonomous driving may bring to traffic order enforcement, according to yicai.com. Tesla also has a data storage problem that it could solve in two ways, an analyst was quoted by the website as saying: “Either the Chinese Government allows Tesla to transfer locally collected data offshore or the U.S. government allows Tesla to deploy large-scale artificial intelligence computing power in China, but both options are challenging.” With competition growing in the global electric vehicle market, Tesla reported a 45% drop in net profit to US$1.5 billion for the second quarter on a 2% increase in revenue to US$25.5 billion. The company delivered almost 443,960 cars, down 5%, as per its trading report.(SD-Agencies) | 