Report: Green light for Tesla's driver assistance system in China
The US car manufacturer Tesla is likely to receive provisional approval for its FSD driving assistant in China. This could halt the company's downward slide.
(Bild: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock.com)
After numerous bad news recently, finally some good news for Tesla: the US electric car manufacturer has received approval in principle from the Chinese government to use its FSD driver assistance system in China. This was reported by the US news agency Bloomberg on Monday.
Tesla was granted approval under certain conditions, according to the report , citing a person familiar with the matter who did not wish to be named because not all criteria are known in detail. According to the report, however, Tesla has managed to overcome two of the most important hurdles: an agreement with the Chinese tech group Baidu on mapping and navigation systems and the fulfillment of requirements for dealing with data security and data protection issues.
Elon Musk in China
The agreement became known after Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a surprise trip to China on Sunday to apply for approval for the driver assistance software FSD. However, its functions require constant monitoring and do not make the Teslas autonomous vehicles, writes Bloomberg. In the USA, Tesla has recently lowered its prices for driver assistance and now charges "only" 8,000 US dollars or 99 US dollars for a monthly subscription. Until September, this was still 15,000 US dollars.
While Tesla's market entry in China was initially made easier, Chinese electric car manufacturers such as BYD have recently caught up considerably and intensified competition for Tesla. China is the second most important sales market for the US car manufacturer after its home market, the USA, and Tesla also operates its largest factory ever in Shanghai. The electric car company has recently been suffering from sales difficulties, which are being driven by enormous price competition in China. According to Bloomberg calculations, Tesla's share of the Chinese car market shrank from 10.5 percent in the first quarter of last year to around 6.7 percent in the last quarter of 2023. Advanced driver assistance systems are being used more and more in China, and many local companies such as Xpeng and Xiaomi are using them as a selling point for their vehicles.
Possible turning point for Tesla
The approval of Tesla's FSD in China could be a major boost for the US company after it delivered 387,000 vehicles in the first quarter, its first and surprisingly fewer vehicles than a year earlier. In view of the weak sales worldwide, Tesla is apparently planning to lay off ten percent of its workforce. The aim is to avoid duplicate structures in the interests of competitiveness, as well as to reduce costs and increase productivity. There are also problems with Tesla's new Cybertruck. According to reports, there is a serious problem with the power pedal. The car manufacturer is responding with a delivery stop.
Tesla could use the Chinese company's navigation and mapping services as a result of the suspected collaboration with Baidu. According to Bloomberg, Baidu is one of only around 20 qualified providers that have the best mapping certificates in the country that can be used for driver assistance functions. Tesla has been using Baidu for in-car mapping and navigation since 2020.
(akn)
