Tesla's self-driving rollout in China hits a regulatory speed bump

Tesla's push to introduce its Full Self-Driving system to Chinese drivers has hit a bit of a snag. The electric car company had to pause its free trial of the driver-assist feature due to new rules designed to give authorities more control over software updates in connected vehicles.

Tesla offered a trial version of its FSD package to Chinese owners with the latest Hardware 4.0 (HW4) vehicles. The HW4 comes with a more powerful computer and better cameras, allowing for more advanced features. The company's idea was to entice customers to purchase the FSD system through an over-the-air software update. Unfortunately, the trial has now been stopped.

Tesla's Vice-President for the Chinese market, Grace Tao, explained the situation on the social media platform Weibo. She said that the "application of Tesla's intelligent assisted driving function in China has received widespread attention." She also said that Tesla is working to comply with the new regulations, which are outlined in the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Access, Recall and Online Software Upgrade of Intelligent Connected Vehicle Products." This notice requires automakers to submit detailed technical information before deploying software updates.

The new regulations also strengthen recall procedures for software updates and ADAS features. All automakers must now report crashes involving these features. Tesla is currently working on the approval process for both its HW3 and HW4 systems. In China, the FSD features were initially only available on HW4 vehicles.

In North America, Tesla's FSD is also offered on HW3 vehicles, although with less advanced software. Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently acknowledged that HW3 vehicles won't be able to achieve the promised unsupervised self-driving capabilities and will need hardware upgrades.

The new rules in China highlight the increasing scrutiny surrounding advanced driver-assist technology. Tesla is apparently hard at work to provide the required technical information and to get both the HW3 and HW4 approved.

Via