Videos of local media and KOLs live streaming the smarter assisted driving capabilities of Teslas in China soon after the U.S. EV maker pushed out a long-awaited software update to eligible vehicles in the country on Tuesday\u2014many calling it the \u201cFSD\u201d rollout in China\u2014have made the rounds on social media both in China and the U.S.<\/p>\n
And the early verdict is in: it\u2019s pretty good, with lots of bugs, of course, but nevertheless pretty good\u2014even surprisingly good in certain driving scenarios\u2014especially given the fact that Tesla in China, unlike other competitors in the space, is in a bind because of restrictions of data\/training transfer on both sides of the Pacific.<\/p>\n
In fact, Elon Musk reiterated again in a post on X, responding to another post on Tuesday, that Tesla \u201cjust used publicly available video on the Internet of roads and signs in China and used that to train in sim<\/em>,\u201d as\u00a0<\/span>he said in the most recent earnings call about getting FSD approval in China.<\/p>\n FSD, or full self-driving, is Tesla\u2019s term for its advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), where the vehicle does the driving under most, if not all, driving scenarios but still requires the driver to always pay attention. In SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) jargon, that\u2019s still Level 2, but in the industry, it\u2019s known as Level 2+, or Level 2++, or Level 2+++, you get the point. In recent years, Tesla has added \u201c(Supervised)\u201d to the term to clarify that fact. On Tesla\u2019s website, the fine print says under\u00a0Full self-driving (Supervised):\u00a0your car can drive itself almost anywhere with minimal driver intervention. The key qualifier is\u00a0minimal driver intervention<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Whereas in the U.S., Tesla is all alone in this department of advanced levels of automated driving, it\u2019s much more cutthroat in China, where multiple brands already offer smart driving capabilities like, if not better than, FSD (Supervised). Huawei, Li Auto and Xpeng (maybe Xiaomi) right now are the front runners when it comes to offering the so-called all-scenario Navigate on Autopilot (NOA) features covering both highway and urban road conditions. The race right now among these pack leaders is to push out the so-called parking space to parking space automated driving features covering all road conditions, minimizing driver intervention, but still Level 2, like what the latest FSD Supervised can do in the U.S.<\/p>\n \u201cNOA available anywhere you drive, day or night\u201d right now is the game\u2019s name.<\/p>\n I have watched some of the live streams, which have been happening day and night for the last couple of days and stressing the system, e.g., going through tight Hutongs (a type of narrow street or alley commonly associated with northern Chinese cities) in Beijing or going through the so-called \u201ccity villages\u201d in some of the southern cities like Guangzhou\/Shenzhen.<\/p>\n Here are some of my takeaways:<\/strong><\/p>\n Most of the media\/KOLs that have done the tests have been impressed with the capabilities of this initial iteration, given Tesla\u2019s data collection\/transfer limitations in China. The system performs especially well in easier scenarios like highways and ring roads where traffic is less complex. Also, it is quite impressive in certain urban scenarios, but the system is quite conservative in yielding to pedestrians on a crosswalk or to parked\/incoming vehicles.<\/p>\n Where the system lacks is the understanding of local traffic rules (such as no use of shoulder\/bike lanes on turns, similar to the bus lane rules that Elon talked about in the most recent earnings call) and the sporadic use of wrong lanes (e.g. going straight in a left or right turn only lane) or navigation showing the vehicle in one lane when in fact it\u2019s in another or wrong perception of objects (red balloons as traffic lights). Many of the live streams counted the number of traffic violations from the vehicle and the number of points that would have been taken off or licenses suspended (12 points = suspension) as a result.<\/p>\n The consensus seems to be that this initial version of \u201cFSD\u201d does not catapult Tesla into the first camp of smart driving leaders. At this point, the \u201cFSD\u201d China capabilities are nowhere near the latest version in the U.S., but impressive nonetheless, given Tesla\u2019s data collection limitations in China.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the catch:\u00a0of the hundreds of thousands of Tesla owners in China, only a few thousand of those owners, to the best of my knowledge, have access to the initial version of the \u201cFSD.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0A reminder that to gain access,\u00a0an owner must have t<\/strong><\/span>heir vehicle running on HW4.0 and have purchased the \u201cFSD\u201d software package (V13.2.6),\u00a0which costs RMB64,000 or $8,800 in China.<\/strong>\u00a0And, the system must be running on the latest Baidu map software, which is included in the software update. Many Tesla owners in China bought FSD as far back as 2019 on HW3.0, which means they won\u2019t be able to use it, at least in its current format.<\/p>\n So going forward, the dilemma for Tesla is figuring out two things to democratize this feature (if this is its aim) for more customers in China (a more significant share of them has HW3.0):<\/p>\n 1. Subscription model (RMB64,000 upfront cost is too high given competition) or discounted variations;<\/p>\n 2. Make it available for HW3.0 (which I\u2019m hearing is being planned).<\/p>\n On a bigger scheme of things, this \u201cFSD\u201d update in China only qualifies Tesla to have a seat at the table among the leaders of the pack; it doesn\u2019t separate itself from the rest of the pack if we are talking about all-scenario L2++ automated driving (and democratizing it, which Tesla is still behind). This competitive track in 2025 will be white hot with more players joining (e.g. BYD God\u2019s Eye\/DiPilot, Mercedes L2++, Zhuoyu or DJI Auto, Momenta, DeepRoute, Horizon Robotics SuperDrive, etc.).<\/p>\n A small win for FSD but a bigger win for smart driving in China.<\/p>\n It will be interesting to see how fast \u201cFSD\u201d capabilities in China can be iterated from now on, given the limited number of vehicles that will actually have access to the initial and later iterations of the feature and what Tesla will do (and sacrifice) to democratize the feature in China, if at all.<\/p>\n After all, democratizing and standardizing higher levels of automated driving was the message from arch-rival BYD earlier this month when it rolled out the base versions of God\u2019s Eye assisted driving systems to 21 models across its Dynasty and Ocean network models, FREE OF CHARGE. The same message has come from He Xiaopeng and Li Xiang, among others, as they up the ante in their own smart driving game and openly invite the media to compare test Tesla\u2019s \u201cFSD\u201d with advanced NOA capabilities of their own vehicles, which they believe are much more superior.<\/p>\n Tesla is facing immense pressure to grow volume this year, given the recent political backlash from Elon Musk and the general slowdown in EV uptake in various markets worldwide. China became even more crucial as local deliveries of the new Model Y began yesterday, with the cheaper \u201cModel Q\u201d on the horizon for China and the rest of the world.<\/p>\n Getting FSD tactically right and making it available to more customers in China despite the challenges of data restrictions could go a long way toward helping Tesla maintain strong volumes in its largest and most crucial market.<\/p>\n Lei Xing is a former editor-in-chief of China Auto Review and co-host of the\u00a0China EVs & More<\/a>\u00a0podcast; you can follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a><\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0Medium<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cntransit.cn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Teslas-FSD-in-China-is-pretty-good-but-there-is.webp\")