Tesla has no forbidden areas from now on

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2024-04-29 15:28Posted in Beijing Science and Technology Creators

Tesla has no forbidden areas from now on

Musk is coming to China again.

At around 2 p.m. Beijing time on April 28, Musk arrived in Beijing and met with Ren Hongbin, President of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, and Li Qiang, Premier of the State Council.

This is Musk's second visit to China in a year, and it is speculated that the purpose of Musk's trip is to promote Tesla's full self-driving FSD into China.

The timing is very clever - on the day Musk landed in Beijing, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers issued the "Notice on the Testing of 4 Safety Requirements for Automotive Data Processing (First Batch)", a total of 76 models from 6 companies meet the 4 safety requirements for data processing, and Tesla is among them.

The four compliance requirements are anonymization of face information outside the vehicle, non-collection of cockpit data by default, in-vehicle processing of cockpit data, and significant notification of personal information processing.

Other companies that were among the first to pass included BYD, Li Energy, Lotus, Hezhong New Energy, and NIO, which were either purely domestic automakers or "new domestic production" (Lotus was acquired by Geely).

With Tesla's entry into the first batch of four safety requirements for automotive data processing, various localities have successively lifted the ban on driving and parking restrictions on smart cars such as Tesla (such as government agencies, airports, highways, etc.).

If Musk seeks Tesla's FSD into China, this is undoubtedly good news.

Elon Musk

Further, on April 29, the day after Musk's arrival in China, Bloomberg quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that Tesla will clear the key hurdle to the rollout of advanced driver assistance features in China through a partnership with Baidu on maps and navigation features.

Affected by this news, Hong Kong stocks Baidu rose by more than 5% in the afternoon.

In the first quarter, car deliveries and revenue fell year-on-year, and net profit halved year-on-year, and Tesla is entering a new crisis.

The global enthusiasm for electric vehicles is waning, and competitors are becoming more sophisticated. In China, its second-largest market, Tesla has been besieged by domestically produced new energy vehicles. The once proud Tesla has carried out round after round of price cuts, but the power of the price cuts is waning. Tesla has also promised to launch cheap models, but the effectiveness of this move has been put in question in the face of domestic car companies that have no shortage of cheap models.

Domestic new energy vehicle brands are not only happy to "roll" in the field of intelligent driving, but players represented by Huawei are also expanding their influence through horizontal cooperation, leaving little time for Tesla's FSD.

Tesla's number one problem used to be production capacity, but now the number one problem has become how to sell the car, or how to convince customers to buy their own car. FSD has become Tesla's hope to open up the situation in the Chinese market.

There is speculation that FSD is an important topic of Musk's trip.

Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, said that Musk seeks to launch fully self-driving FSD software in China and seek relevant approvals for data to train algorithms for his self-driving technology.

There is a good way to do this.

As early as May last year, the Shanghai Economic and Information Commission issued a friendly signal, saying that Shanghai would further deepen cooperation with Tesla and promote the layout of functional sectors such as autonomous driving and robotics in Shanghai. In November last year, the news that FSD was going to enter China was widely reported. At that time, some users found that in the owner's manual on Tesla's Chinese official website, the relevant content of "full self-driving capability (Beta)" was added. (Check again before the deadline, there is no relevant content on the Chinese official website.) ）

Just recently, a user asked on X (formerly Twitter): "I look forward to Tesla's FSD entering China as soon as possible, when will it be realized?When will the HW3.0 system be able to use 3D modeling images?When will the new reversing assistance function be pushed to Tesla HW3.0 owners in China?"

Musk replied: "This will happen soon." ”

Tesla has also been working hard for a long time to comply with regulations in China. As early as 2021, Tesla realized localized storage in its Shanghai data center, and introduced a third-party authority to audit the company's information security management system, which passed the security management system certification (ISO27001).

Four years ago, Tesla launched the Full-Self Driving system, or FSD for short, with the Chinese name "Full Self-Driving". In 2021, Tesla officially released the FSD Beta version, Beta is generally used as a suffix for the "beta" app, although Musk has said that FSD Beta does not mean "beta" with this suffix, but after all, it is distinguished from the official version.

Full-Self Driving

In June last year, Musk called autonomous driving the main driver of Tesla's brand value at the Viva Technology conference in Paris, France.

In March this year, Tesla has pushed the FSD V12 (Supervised) version to some users in the United States, quietly removing the "Beta" suffix and replacing it with "Supervised", which means "supervised".

Musk has spared no effort in promoting FSD. He demanded that Tesla's sales side must show customers how to use FSD before it is delivered, even if it affects the delivery process: "Almost no one really realizes how effective [supervised] FSD actually is. I know this will slow down the delivery process, but it's still a hard requirement. In addition, Musk also asked American car owners to conduct a one-month trial. Keep in mind that FSD is priced at $12,000 ($200 per month subscription) in the United States.

After V12, the accumulation of Tesla's intelligent driving data accelerated, and on April 2, Tesla AI announced that the mileage under FSD operation has exceeded 1 billion miles.

After the United States and Canada, Musk wants to "expand his territory" with FSD. Tesla invited senior consultants from the Norwegian Authority to experience FSD V12, which was the first appearance of Tesla's FSD in Europe.

Taking Tesla's latest financial report for the first quarter of 2024 as an example, the total quarterly revenue is $21.3 billion, of which the Chinese market revenue is $4.6 billion, accounting for 21.6%, second only to the U.S. market with revenue of $9.8 billion, accounting for 45.8%.

Advancing FSD as quickly as possible in the second largest market is a key to-do list for Tesla.

In the absence of Tesla's FSD, domestic manufacturers have been competing for layout in the field of intelligent driving.

If it was said that in the past, domestic new energy vehicles were popular to compete for energy consumption performance, then now they are competing for intelligent driving solutions.

Even the new entrant Xiaomi is no exception. Lei Jun simultaneously introduced its two sets of intelligent driving solutions at the launch of Xiaomi SU7, and announced that Xiaomi City NOA (Automatic Assisted Navigation Driving) will start user testing in April, open in 10 cities in May, and open nationwide in August.

The so-called NOA refers to an autonomous driving technology with a degree of intelligence slightly lower than L3 but significantly higher than L2, reaching the L2+ level. Since 2023, urban NOA has been "rolled" among domestic new energy manufacturers, and almost all first-line brands have announced their NOA visions, and new terms such as NGP (Xiaopeng) and NCA (Huawei) have also been developed.

Xpeng promised to "open 50 cities" in 2023, and announced the urban intelligent driving capability of the XNGP intelligent assisted driving system at the X9 launch conference on January 1 this year, adding 191 cities on the basis of the 52 cities released in full, with a total of 243 cities covered. Huawei's high-end intelligent driving system ADS has covered more than 40,000 cities and towns in China, covering the country's urban arterial roads, full branch roads and even some capillaries, and the third-party test results show that the road coverage rate has reached 99.56%.

At the end of last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Work of Intelligent Networked Vehicle Access and Road Access". It was officially announced that the pilot work of L3/L4 autonomous driving and on-road traffic has begun.

For Tesla, what needs to be more vigilant is the horizontal expansion of domestic first-line new energy brands.

Huawei is a leader. At the beginning of April this year, it was reported that Huawei's intelligent driving solution will be available on Toyota's global models, and it is not only for the Chinese market. Toyota and Huawei have not confirmed this news, but the two have already collaborated in the field of smart cockpits.

In November last year, when the news of the addition of FSD Beta related content to Tesla's official website in China's owner's manual spread, Huawei and Changan signed a "Memorandum of Investment Cooperation" to establish a new joint venture company, focusing on the research and development, design and production of intelligent driving systems and component solutions.

Recently, the invisible battle between Huawei and Tesla has become more and more intense. On April 23, Yu Chengdong said at the press conference of the new M5 that the Zhijie S7 team went to the United States to compare its intelligent driving system with Tesla's FSD: "After testing, we are confident that the intelligent driving system of Zhijie S7 is still the best in the world." ”

On April 24, Tesla released its quarterly earnings report, and Musk said that Tesla is likely to sign an FSD licensing agreement this year: "We are in dialogue with an automaker. However, Tesla's management also mentioned that even if a licensing agreement is reached this year, it may take three years for Tesla to adapt it and install it in the car.

Tesla needs a new stimulus in China.

Musk's visit to China coincided with the Beijing Auto Show, but Tesla did not appear at the auto show.

According to Fast Technology, when talking about whether Tesla will participate in the Beijing Auto Show, Musk said that Tesla did not go to the 2024 Beijing Auto Show, nor did it go to the American Auto Show.

In fact, the last time Tesla participated in a major A-class auto show was in the field of passenger cars, in addition to the Cybertruck pickup, three years ago at the Shanghai Auto Show. Unlike domestic manufacturers who continue to launch new models, Tesla currently has only four models on sale, of which the Model 3 has been on the market for 7 years, and the Model Y has been on the market for 4 years.

In the face of the global electric vehicle fever and friends catching up, Tesla has also frequently cut prices in the past two years. According to data from Guofu Bank, in the first half of 2023, Tesla's global car prices fell by an average of 12%, and deliveries increased by 19% compared to the previous six months, which was effectively boosted.

However, the power of price reductions is waning. In the second half of 2023, Tesla continued to cut prices and introduce incentives, but the increase in car deliveries was only 3%.

Musk has been talking about cheap models for a long time, but they have not yet landed. The last time the world thought that Tesla's cheap model was coming, Musk danced awkwardly with a humanoid robot. This year, the outside world thought that cheap models were finally coming, and Musk instead announced that the robotaxi project Robotaxi would land in August this year.

In April, Tesla disappointed the outside world twice. At the beginning of the month, Tesla announced its production and delivery report for the first quarter of 2024, delivering 386,000 vehicles during the reporting period, the first year-on-year decline since 2020.

One was at the end of the month, when Tesla released its quarterly earnings report. In the first quarter of 2024, Tesla's revenue was $21.3 billion, down 9% year-over-year. Net profit was US$1.1 billion, down 55% year-on-year.

However, Musk once again talked about cheap models at the earnings conference, which violently pulled Tesla's stock price up, rising by $60 billion a day.

The pie may have a temporary effect on the stock price, but even if the budget model is launched, it is still unclear how effective it will be, especially in the Chinese market. Now, the BYD Qin Plus has lowered its price to 79,800 yuan, and the starting price of the newly launched Xiaomi SU7 is only 215,900 yuan.

In contrast, FSD, which has already explored the North American market and has some experience, may be a more promising option.

However, China's urban roads are complex and diverse, and the traffic regulations are different from those in North America, so Tesla still faces many challenges in opening up a new situation with FSD.

Resources:

1. Technology Fox: "Tesla licenses FSD to other car companies, it's not that simple!"

2、DoNews：《车企“狂卷”智驾》

3. Electric Planet News: "FSD is about to enter China, come on Tesla! China's intelligent driving has long wanted to compete >

4. IT House: "Tesla Shows FSD in Europe, Only Needs to Intervene 1 Time in 45 Minutes"

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