Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Sunday he was “honored to meet with [China’s] Premier Li Qiang”. Musk made a surprise visit to China on Sunday.
On Sunday, Musk posted a picture with Qiang and said, “We have known each other now for many years, since early Shanghai days.”
Chinese state media reported that the Tesla CEO met Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla’s development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation, Reuters reported.
What happened during Musk, Li meeting?
During his tour, Musk was expected to discuss the rollout of Full Self-Driving software and permission to transfer data overseas. The US electric vehicle maker rolled out Full Self-Driving, or FSD, the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software, four years ago.
But Tesla is yet to make it available in China, its second-largest market globally, despite customers urging it to do so. The company had reached an accord with Chinese authorities for a plant in Shanghai, its first outside the US, in 2018.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, in its report about Musk’s meeting with Li, did not say whether the two had discussed FSD, or data.
Musk also met with Ren Hongbin, a government official who heads the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, the organiser of the Beijing auto show, state media reported.
“It is good to see electric vehicles making progress in China. All cars will be electric in the future,” Musk said in a video posted on social media by a user affiliated with state media.
Tesla’s FSD in China soon?
Earlier this month, Musk said Tesla may make FSD available to customers in China “very soon”, in response to a query on social media platform X.
Rival Chinese automakers such as Xpeng have been seeking to gain an advantage over Tesla by rolling out similar software.
Musk is looking to obtain approval to transfer data collected in the country abroad to train algorithms for its autonomous driving technologies, the person said.
Tesla has since 2021 stored all data collected by its Chinese fleet in Shanghai as required by Chinese regulators and has not transferred any back to the United States.
Musk skips India visit
Elon Musk’s trip came just over a week after he scrapped a planned visit to India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had then cited a “very heavy Tesla obligations.”
The company said this month it would lay off 10 percent of its global workforce as it grapples with falling sales and an intensifying price war for EVs led by Chinese brands.
US auto safety regulators said on Friday they had opened an investigation into whether Tesla’s recall of more than 2 million vehicles in the U.S. announced in December to install new Autopilot safeguards was adequate following a series of crashes.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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Published: 28 Apr 2024, 07:36 PM IST