Behind Musk's speedy visit to China, Tesla may play the role of "catfish" again

New Media Technology Review

2024-04-29 16:55Posted in Beijing, creators in the field of science and technology

Just a week ago, Musk announced the postponement of his visit to India, citing Tesla's busy business and the fact that he could not get out of it.

But within a few days, Musk's private business jet landed at Beijing Capital International Airport, and after intensive visits to high-level people in China, Musk quickly left by special plane, staying in China for less than 24 hours.

As one of the most important figures in the global technology community, Musk's visit to China was relatively short, but it also aroused strong attention from the outside world.

There is widespread speculation in the media that Musk's visit to China is to promote the implementation of FSD full self-driving in China, and at the same time seek permission to transfer the data collected in China abroad to train autonomous driving technology algorithms.

According to public information, FSD, as a revolutionary technology, aims to achieve fully autonomous driving of vehicles, and it is also the highest level of automatic driving system currently provided by Tesla. Its ultimate goal is to enable the vehicle to identify road conditions, plan routes, control speed and direction, and complete the journey from start to end without human intervention.

Musk had estimated that Tesla's FSD test mileage would need to reach 6 billion miles to meet the requirements of global regulators. However, according to data released by Tesla on April 6, the actual test mileage of FSD is only 1 billion miles.

As a major transportation country, China's complex traffic conditions can provide rich scenarios for training autonomous driving algorithms more quickly, which is the main reason why Musk is eager to promote the implementation of FSD in China.

However, as we all know, the data security issues involved in FSD are extremely sensitive, which may also be the biggest obstacle for Tesla's FSD to enter the Chinese market. In the past few years, Tesla has been following the requirements of Chinese regulators to store all vehicle data in the Chinese mainland market in China, and has not transferred any data back to the United States.

In May 2021, Tesla announced the establishment of a data center in China to localize data storage, and will gradually add more local data centers, and in October 2021, Tesla's China data center was officially inaugurated in Shanghai.

Last year, there were media reports that Tesla is setting up a local operation team of about 20 people in China to promote the implementation of FSD in the Chinese market, and is also preparing to build a data labeling team of more than 100 people in China to provide manual labeling samples for training FSD algorithms.

And in early April, in response to inquiries from users on the social media platform, Musk said that Tesla could soon offer FSD to customers in China.

Although Musk is very confident, after all, the map data is closely related to national security, and it is still unknown how Tesla will obtain the relevant qualifications, either to enter into a joint venture with a Chinese company, or to conduct a small-scale pilot in a certain region, but in any case, it is not easy to roll out on a large scale in a short period of time.

However, from the perspective of industry development, if FSD successfully enters China, it is bound to become a strong competitor for domestic car companies' autonomous driving solutions, and at the same time, it will greatly strengthen consumer awareness, promote the penetration of domestic high-end intelligent driving, and trigger a "catfish effect" in the field of intelligent driving in the mainland.

From this point of view, this is also conducive to the efficient and healthy development of the domestic autonomous driving industry.

Author: Chi Ao

Resources:

Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily: "Musk's Sudden Visit to China! Tesla's FSD Entry into China May Become a Key Issue"

Xiaoxiang Morning News: "Musk flew to Beijing to discuss the launch of fully self-driving software in China, saying he is happy to see the progress of electric vehicles in China"

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