Tesla announced on Monday that it would halt its limited-time free trial of the Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature in China, pending the completion of regulatory approval. The pause follows complaints regarding the trial, which was initially scheduled to run from March 17 to April 16.
Tesla’s customer support addressed the issue on the social media platform Weibo, where they stated that all parties involved are working to advance the relevant approval processes. They assured customers that the feature would be released once regulatory conditions are met and urged patience.
FSD is a suite of driving-assistance technologies powered by generative artificial intelligence, designed to handle complex traffic conditions. Tesla is targeting a full rollout of FSD later this year and is collaborating with Chinese tech giant Baidu to enhance the system’s performance.
While Tesla has successfully offered such trials in the U.S. without requiring up-to-date navigation maps—relying instead on local AI training from its 2 million EVs—the company faces challenges in China due to strict data laws that prevent the system from being trained using local data. Additionally, China’s industry ministry implemented new rules in February mandating that autonomous driving-related over-the-air software updates be approved by regulators before they can be deployed.
