{"id":9681,"date":"2025-02-25T12:45:26","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T07:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=9681"},"modified":"2025-02-25T12:45:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T07:45:28","slug":"tesla-updates-autopilot-software-in-china-owners-say-move-falls-short-of-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/business\/tesla-updates-autopilot-software-in-china-owners-say-move-falls-short-of-hopes\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla updates autopilot software in China, owners say move falls short of hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tesla on Monday made a long-awaited update<\/a> to its autopilot software in China to add a city navigation feature, but the move disappointed Chinese owners who said it fell short of Elon Musk\u2019s promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US electric vehicle maker, in a notification on its app, said capabilities will include automatic lane-changing depending on speed and route as well as detecting traffic lights at intersections and deciding whether to turn. An in-car camera will also monitor driver attention, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The features are similar to those available with Tesla\u2019s \u201cFull Self-Driving\u201d (FSD) but less advanced than what are available in the United States due to insufficient data training on Chinese roads and traffic rules, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FSD is a suite of driving-assistance technologies developed with generative artificial intelligence to cope with more complicated traffic conditions whereas Autopilot handles more routine conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk wants to bring full Autopilot and FSD systems to China<\/a> but has said that the effort was proving to be tricky due to technology restrictions imposed<\/a> by both the US and Chinese governments. The company has postponed an initial goal of end-2024 to this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several Chinese social media users said the update was a disappointment as it did not achieve the capabilities Tesla has advertised for years and said rival Chinese automakers were offering similar driver-assistance features at a lower price or for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lu Panpan, a Tesla car owner in China\u2019s eastern Zhejiang province, said he paid 56,000 yuan ($7,720) for FSD software when he bought his Long Range Model 3 in 2019 but has been frustrated by the lack of updates to its features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can tell Tesla has no choice but to deliver a knowingly restricted system \u2026 ,\u201d said Lu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is hard for Tesla to catch up with the smart-driving capabilities in Chinese cars, which even makes less sense given its high pricing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Falling behind<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The delays to rolling out a full FSD system in China have left Tesla on the back foot versus Chinese rivals such as Huawei, Xiaomi and BYD, which have launched dozens of EVs with advanced smart-driving software capable of navigating through China\u2019s complicated city traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tesla charges its customers an additional fee of nearly $9,000 to access a limited version of its FSD software in its EVs priced from $32,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By comparison, Xiaomi, whose SU7 electric sedan priced from $29,700 has outsold Tesla\u2019s Model 3 in China on monthly basis, offers an enhanced smart-driving system including city navigation for free. Earlier this month, BYD also started offering advanced autonomous-driving features on most of its models for free, including ones priced as low as $9,555.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tesla\u2019s autopilot update is on par with BYD\u2019s mid-tier version of its God\u2019s Eye system, which uses advanced computing and lidars to generate 3D images of a car\u2019s surroundings to assist navigation around obstacles. It is offered in its premium brand Denza and high-end models of its Dynasty and Ocean series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk has said that Tesla is seeking regulatory approval from Beijing to fully roll out FSD in the country, but China currently only requires automakers to register any level-two update with the industry ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under industry standards, both Autopilot and FSD are categorised as level-two autonomous driving technologies, so under Chinese law they require human supervision and intervention when necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Automakers only need to seek regulatory approval for more advanced level-three and above autonomous driving features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk, however, wanted to be able to transfer data Tesla vehicles glean in China abroad, which is heavily regulated under China\u2019s data laws, Reuters<\/em> reported previously. Such data, used to train self-driving systems, would boost Tesla\u2019s long-term efforts to produce fully autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of that effort, Tesla was also developing plans for a data centre in China to train the algorithm needed for more fully autonomous vehicles.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tesla on Monday made a long-awaited update to its autopilot software in China to add a city navigation feature, but the move disappointed Chinese owners who said it fell short of Elon Musk\u2019s promises. The US electric vehicle maker, in a notification on its app, said capabilities will include automatic lane-changing depending on speed and route as […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":9682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-sciencetech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}