Elon Musk made a surprise trip to Beijing on Sunday, where he is expected to hold talks with government officials about the introduction of self-driving software for Tesla. According to Reuters, a source close to the matter stated that Musk will also request permission to transfer data outside of China during his visit.
During a meeting with Premier Li Qiang, Musk was praised for Tesla’s success in China and how it could serve as a model of economic and trade cooperation between the US and China. The launch of Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology in China would be a significant milestone for Tesla as they compete with local electric car manufacturers.
Tesla introduced an autonomous version of Autopilot technology four years ago; however, it has not yet been released in China. Despite this, Musk recently announced on social media that FSD may come to China in the near future. Data transfer outside of China is vital for training Tesla’s algorithms for self-driving capabilities; Tesla has kept data collected in China on servers in Beijing and not sent it to the US since 2021 to comply with Chinese regulations.
