People familiar with the matter said today that Tesla CEO Elon Musk flew to Beijing on Sunday to begin another trip to China.
People familiar with the matter said that Musk is seeking discussions on the launch of fully automated driving (FSD) software in China.
Earlier this month, in response to user inquiries on social media platform X, Musk said Tesla may soon provide FSD to customers in China.
Tesla has yet to comment on Musk's current visit to China.
Just a week ago, Musk cancelled plans to meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the grounds that Tesla's affairs are very heavy.
Tesla said this month that it will lay off more than 10% of its employees globally to cope with falling car sales and the intensification of the electric vehicle price war.
According to data from the flight tracking app Flight Manager (Flight Manager), a Gulfstream (Gulfstream) private jet with the tail number N272BG is scheduled to land at Beijing Capital Airport at 5:44 GMT on Sunday (13:44 Beijing time).
The aircraft is registered under Falcon Landing (Falcon Landing), a company linked to SpaceX and Tesla. Another jet registered under the company's name is the N628TS, which is the special plane Musk flew during his visit to China last year.
Since entering the Chinese market ten years ago, Tesla has sold more than 1.7 million cars in China, and its Shanghai factory is Tesla's largest factory in the world.
Musk's current visit also coincided with the Beijing Auto Show. The Beijing Auto Show opens this Thursday and ends on May 4. This time, Tesla did not set up a booth, and the last time they participated was in 2021.
On Friday, Tesla's vice president for foreign relations Tao Lin published an article saying that she believes autonomous driving technology will become a new growth engine for the electric vehicle industry.
Tao Lin said in the article that Tesla is leading autonomous driving research and development with its end-to-end neural network technology and data collected from millions of cars.
Industry experts say China's complex traffic conditions, with more pedestrians and cyclists than many other markets, provide more scenarios that are critical to train autonomous driving algorithms faster.
Musk said earlier this week that Tesla will use its existing electric vehicle platform and production line to launch new, cheaper models and will provide a new “robot taxi” with autonomous driving technology. This month, he also posted on X that this robot taxi will be launched on August 8.
Since the beginning of this year, Tesla's stock price has fallen by nearly 1/3 because investors are increasingly concerned about its growth trajectory. Tesla reported this week that its quarterly revenue declined for the first time since the 2020 pandemic.