Tingshu Wang / REUTERS
The Tesla boss’ surprise visit coincides with the Beijing Motor Show, from which the manufacturer has been absent since 2021, and which will end on Saturday May 4.
A private jet of Tesla CEO Elon Musk landed this Sunday in Beijing, Chinese state television has just made it official. “At the invitation of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing this afternoon”, CCTV said. The billionaire met with Ren Hongbin, the head of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, “in order to discuss next steps in terms of cooperation and other matters”.
Elon Musk therefore begins a surprise visit to China, the second most important market for the automaker. According to the Reuters news agency, he would seek to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the deployment of Full-Self Driving (FSD) software and obtain authorization to transfer data collected in the country abroad to train algorithms for its autonomous driving technologies.
Since 2021, Tesla has stored all data collected by its Chinese fleet in Shanghai, as required by Chinese regulators, and has not transferred any of it to the United States. Complicated traffic conditions in China, with more pedestrians and cyclists than in many other markets, offer more scenarios that are key to training self-driving algorithms at a faster pace, according to industry experts surveyed by Reuters.
The American electric vehicle maker launched FSD, the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software, four years ago, but has not yet made it available in China despite pressing requests from its customers. This month, Elon Musk said Tesla could make FSD available to customers in China ” very soon “in response to a question posted on social media platform X. Rival Chinese automakers, such as Xpeng, have sought to gain an advantage over Tesla by deploying similar software.
Elon Musk’s visit to China had not been publicly announced and Tesla has not yet responded to requests from Reuters. His last visit to China was in June 2023. This trip comes just over a week after he canceled a planned visit to India to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing concerns “Tesla’s very heavy obligations”. The company announced this month that it would lay off 10% of its global workforce as it faces declining sales and an escalating price war for electric vehicles, led by Chinese brands. Tesla has sold more than 1.7 million cars in China since entering the market a decade ago, and the Shanghai plant is its largest factory in the world.
Elon Musk’s visit coincides with the Beijing Auto Show, which opened last week and ends on May 4. Tesla does not have a booth at China’s largest auto show and last participated in 2021. Last Friday, Grace Tao, Tesla’s vice president for external relations in China, posted a comment on the account social media post from state media outlet People’s Daily, saying autonomous driving technologies would be the new growth engine for the electric vehicle industry. Grace Tao said in the article that Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving research and development with its technology. “end-to-end neural network” and data collected from millions of cars on the road.
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Last week, Elon Musk said Tesla would launch new, cheaper models using its current electric vehicle platforms and production lines and offer a new “robotaxis” equipped with autonomous driving technology. He said in a post on X this month that he would unveil the robotaxi on August 8. Tesla shares have lost nearly a third of their value since the start of the year as concerns grow over the electric vehicle maker’s growth trajectory. Last week, Tesla reported the first drop in quarterly revenue since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic slowed production and deliveries.
