Tesla has announced the widely anticipated roll-out of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in China, just one week after company founder and CEO Elon Musk travelled to Beijing as part of a state visit by US President Donald Trump.
The arrival of the system will raise the self-driving game in a market where level three (L3) automated driving has been legalised.
“FSD Supervised” was now available in China and nine other countries including the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the Netherlands, the electric vehicle giant said on social media on Thursday.
FSD’s entry into China had been rumoured for the past few years, while the company’s Chinese entity awaited the nod from regulators.
“Trump’s visit to China has likely pushed up the long-awaited approval,” said Gary Ng Cheuk-yan, a senior economist at Natixis Corporate and Investment Bank. “Tesla’s entry will drive greater competition and accelerate innovative development of [autonomous driving] in China.”
As part of its push to get FSD approval, Tesla began operating a local artificial intelligence data centre and deployed localised training capabilities in preparation for larger-scale implementation in the future.
This localisation approach could help accelerate the adoption of FSD, which would be especially important for Tesla after its market share in China declined to 6 per cent in 2025 from a peak of 16 per cent in 2020, Ng said.
The launch of FSD Supervised in China meant US and Chinese consumers would enjoy the same advanced driving assistance features, which are very close to L3, said Yale Zhang, managing director at consultancy Automotive Foresight in Shanghai.
The entry of FSD could also help the whole self-driving industry advance in the country, Zhang added.
“Some Chinese buyers still believe Tesla outperforms domestic brands,” he said. “If FSD works well, it would help ease the scepticism about self-driving.”
Concerns about autonomous driving technology spiked after a fatal crash involving Xiaomi’s SU7 model in March 2025. After the accident, which led to a recall, Chinese regulators restricted the use of the term “self-driving”, pushing carmakers to rebrand their features as “driving assistance” or “intelligent driving”.
Tesla’s system faces intense pressure in China from domestic rivals like Xpeng, Huawei Technologies and BYD. Local EV makers are outperforming Tesla in navigating complex Chinese streets and have a head start in commercialising autonomous features.
Huawei plans to invest as much as 80 billion yuan (US$11.7 billion) over the next five years to boost computing power essential for training and testing semi-autonomous driving systems.
China is aggressively pushing the development of the technology, with two state-owned carmakers receiving the first licences to build L3 vehicles in December.
According to standards set by SAE International, L3 is defined as conditionally automated driving, which means that cars can self-navigate, but drivers are required to be fully alert to ensure that they can intervene at any time.
Tesla’s published descriptions of FSD Supervised said it “enables a Tesla to navigate nearly anywhere, handling turns, intersections, lane changes and traffic under active driver oversight”. Drivers were required to remain fully attentive, as the system “does not make the car autonomous and requires immediate intervention if necessary”, it said.
