SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Tesla on Monday told customers in China it will update the “Autopilot” software in their cars to add driving-assistance features for navigating city streets.
The U.S. electric vehicle maker, in a notification on its app, said capabilities will include automatic lane-changing depending on speed and route as well as detecting traffic lights at intersections and deciding whether to turn. An in-car camera will also monitor driver attention, it said.
The features are similar to those available with Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) but less advanced than what are available in the United States due to insufficient data training on Chinese roads and traffic rules, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
FSD is a suite of driving-assistance technologies developed with generative artificial intelligence to cope with more complicated traffic conditions whereas Autopilot handles more routine conditions.
Technology restrictions imposed by both the U.S. and Chinese governments had put Tesla “in a bit of a bind” in deploying FSD, CEO Elon Musk said in an earnings briefing last month.
Tesla has been using videos of Chinese streets available on the internet to train its AI software as the U.S. prohibits on-site training in China, Musk said.
The automaker had aimed to bring full Autopilot and FSD systems to China by the end of 2024 but postponed to this year.
Domestic rivals have already deployed advanced autonomous driving features. This month, BYD started offering such features on most of its models including those priced as low as $9,555. Tesla’s lowest price in China is about $32,400.
Tesla will deploy the update in batches to customers who paid 64,000 yuan ($8,830) for the limited FSD currently available, Bloomberg reported.
Under industry standards, both Autopilot and FSD are categorised as level 2 autonomous driving so under Chinese law require human supervision and intervention when necessary.
($1 = 7.2476 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
