- Tesla confirmed in a post on X that its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) driver assistance system is now available in China.
- It’s a major win for Tesla in the region, where local players have long offered strong hands-free ADAS.
- However, Tesla left out the most important part: when the system will actually roll out to drivers.
Tesla, which has shifted its attention from making electric cars to autonomy and robots, claims its hands-free Full Self-Driving (Supervised) driving assistance feature is now available in China.
Better known as FSD, the feature has long been available in the United States in one form or another throughout the years, and has now finally reached China, where regulatory red tape has delayed its introduction for several years.
The company said in a social media post on X that the driver assistance feature, which still requires the driver to be fully attentive, is available in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, China, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, the Netherlands, and Lithuania.
Recently, the Netherlands became the first European country to greenlight Tesla’s hands-free system, followed by Lithuania. The addition of China to that list, however, has raised a few eyebrows, including among Tesla drivers in China, with some commenters saying that the feature is not yet available in their cars.
It’s also worth noting that some features that are included in what everybody knows as FSD (Supervised) have been previously available in China under various names, including “Intelligent Assisted Driving.” Tesla has not released any details on the final rollout in China, and the company still asks for a one-time buyout of around $9,400 for its FSD package in the region. In other markets, including the U.S., the company has switched to a subscription-only model.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did not respond to requests for comment, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Tesla’s vision-only approach to autonomous driving clashes with the majority of Chinese carmakers, which typically use at least one Lidar sensor for redundancy. More companies are jumping on the vision-only approach, but they’re late to the party that Tesla started, giving the American automaker the upper hand.
Getting FSD (Supervised) approved in China is a good sign, and could help boost sales in the world’s largest and most competitive car market. All this being said, everyone is waiting for a concrete rollout date and not just a mention in a social media post.
In the past months, Tesla has ramped up real-world testing across several major cities in China, recruiting more technicians than usual, signaling that the company might finally release the feature to the public, as noted by CarNewsChina.