Elon Musk visits Beijing for software and data transfer talks

Shanghai — Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing on Sunday for a surprise visit, during which he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of Full Self-Driving (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The US electric vehicle (EV) maker rolled out FSD, the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software, four years ago but has yet to make it available in China, its second-largest market globally, despite customers urging it to do so.

Musk said this month Tesla may make FSD available to customers in China “very soon”, in response to a query on social media platform X.

Rival Chinese carmakers such as Xpeng have been seeking to gain an advantage over Tesla by rolling out similar software.

Musk aims 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 US.

Musk’s visit to China was not flagged publicly and the person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media. Tesla did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Musk’s itinerary on Sunday afternoon included a meeting with Ren Hongbin, a government official who heads the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, the organiser of the Beijing car show now under way, 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.

Job cuts

Musk’s trip came just more than a week after scrapping a planned visit to India to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing “very heavy Tesla obligations”.

The company said this month it would lay off 10% of its global workforce as it grapples with falling sales and an intensifying price war for EVs led by Chinese brands.

US car safety regulators said on Friday they had opened an investigation into whether Tesla’s recall of more than 2-million vehicles in the US announced in December to install new Autopilot safeguards was adequate after a series of crashes.

A Gulfstream private jet with tail number N272BG, which is registered to Falcon Landing, a company connected to SpaceX and Tesla, landed at Beijing Capital Airport on Sunday at 6.03am GMT, according to Chinese flight tracking app Flight Manager.

The other jet registered under Falcon Landing is N628TS, Musk’s main jet that he used to travel to China on his previous trip nearly a year ago, when he met Chinese government officials in Beijing and visited Tesla’s Shanghai factory.

Tesla has sold more than 1.7-million cars in China since it entered the market a decade ago, and the Shanghai factory is its largest globally.

Musk’s visit coincides with the Beijing car show, which opened last week and ends on May 4. Tesla does not have a booth at China’s largest car show and last attended in 2021.

New engine

GM CEO Mary Barra made an unannounced visit to the show in the world’s biggest car market on Friday, according to two people with knowledge of her schedule. GM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Also on Friday, Grace Tao, Tesla’s vice-president in charge of external relations in China, published a commentary on the social media account of state media outlet People’s Daily, arguing that autonomous driving technologies would be the new growth engine for the EV industry.

Tao said in the article that Tesla was leading autonomous driving research & development with its “end-to-end neural network” technology and data collected from millions of cars on the road.

China’s complicated traffic conditions with more pedestrians and cyclists than in many other markets provide more scenarios that are key for training autonomous driving algorithms at a faster pace, according to industry experts.

Musk said last week Tesla would introduce new, cheaper models using its current EV platforms and production lines and would offer a new “robotaxi” with self-driving technology. He said in a post on X this month that he would unveil the robotaxi on August 8.

Tesla shares are down almost a third since the start of the year as concerns have grown about the EV maker’s growth trajectory. Last week, Tesla reported its first decline in quarterly revenue since 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic slowed production and deliveries.

Reuters