Elon Musk In China as Tesla Seeks Green Light on Self Driving Cars

Elon Musk is visiting Beijing, with media reports saying he has been discussing how to enable autonomous driving mode on Tesla cars in China.

Musk wants to enable Full Self Driving, FSD, in China and transfer data collected in the country abroad to train its algorithms.

FSD is available in countries including the US but not in China.

The news came after a US report tied Tesla’s autonomous driving modes to at least 13 crashes, involving one death.

During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to achieve more win-win results.

According to the reports, in response, Li told Musk the Chinese market would always be open to foreign-funded firms.

China is Tesla’s second-biggest market.

Other carmakers such as Xpeng – headquartered in Guangzhou – have been attempting to compete with Tesla by rolling out similar self-driving functions in their cars.

On Sunday, Musk described Chinese car manufacturers as the most competitive car companies in the world.