Tesla launches FSD (aka City Streets Autopilot) in China – techAU

Tesla has officially launched FSD into 5 markets, with the latest being China today, as customer vehicles receive a new OTA software update.

• United States
• Canada
• Mexico
• Puerto Rico
• China

While there’s been much debate about Tesla naming their autonomous software product ‘Full Self Driving’, it seems China is the first market where we’ve seen a name change.

The Release Notes for Tesla’s Software Update 2024.45.32.12 includes something called ‘Autopilot for City Roads’.

When we read through the details (translated), we learn that there are some differences between this and FSD in the other regions.

FSD’s major feature is its ability to drive the car (supervised) on city streets. This means the turning corners, navigating intersections, automatically indicating for turns and more.

Tesla’s been very keen to keep the feature set the same, understandably to minimise on fragmentation and maintenance.

On Tesla’s Q4 2024 earnings call, @ElonMusk said there were challenges in getting video training data out of the country, and US regulations prevented them from building an AI training cluster in China. It seems Tesla has come up with a way to deliver much of the FSD functionality, while the work on resolving that issue further and deliver a single FSD stack to China.

International Rollout

This international rollout is both great to see, but also bittersweet to watch on, as another region (5 now) have FSD when Australia waits for our turn to experience the technology.

Tesla’s generalized approach to autonomy, using computer vision has enabled their software to scale internationally, while the competition as a new city or 2 per year.

In theory, Tesla can deploy a software update and that car could navigate the world around it. On that front, we’ve seen FSD in China performing well from early videos, but when we see FSD driving in a RHD market like Australia, that’ll really demonstrate to the world, just how flexible this approach is.

Back in September 2024, Tesla AI posted a development timeline which included FSD in China in Q1 2025. Today, they coloured in the box next to that task.

The only remaining item on that timeline is Europe, also listed under the Q1 2025 heading, we are just 1 month away from that timeline arriving. It seems unlikely that we’d see FSD reach Europe that soon, but we don’t have long to find out.

Given Tesla sells the FSD software upgrade into multiple markets, like Australia that don’t yet have a timeline, so @Tesla_AI lets get an updated plan to work to.

FSD in China Videos

Below are some of the first videos shared on X of FSD in China. In the videos we see Tesla’s City Streets Autopilot / FSD navigating their city streets, avoiding obstacles as it drives.

If you come across other great video examples of Tesla’s FSD performance in China, please share them in the comments.