Elon Musk's strategic Beijing visit aims to unlock Tesla's FSD in China

Reuters reports that Elon Musk made an unexpected visit to China. On Sunday, the CEO of Tesla arrived in Beijing to discuss the possibility of autonomous driving in his vehicles.

Tesla introduced the Full Self-Driving (FSD) system four years ago, yet the feature remains inaccessible for car owners of this brand in China - the world's second-largest market.

As stated by a Reuters source, Musk is meeting with top state officials in the capital of China to discuss the system. Musk is also attempting to convince the Chinese authorities to permit the data collected by Tesla cars to be sent overseas. This action would facilitate the training of algorithms for autonomous driving technology.

According to 2021 agreements, Tesla can collect data from its cars but is prohibited from transferring it to the United States.

Reuters initially revealed Musk's journey to China without an official announcement. Reuters mentioned that Tesla had not yet made any comments on these reports at the time of publication.

Musk's travel occurred just over a week after he scrapped a planned visit to India for a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Tesla has declared that it will reduce 10 per cent of its global workforce in April as it faces declining sales and escalating price competition in the electric vehicle sector led by Chinese brands.

On the X service, Musk hinted that Tesla might soon make the FSD feature available to customers in China "very soon".