Tesla CEO Elon Musk has headed to China on Sunday on a surprise visit to the country, which is also the second biggest market of the electric vehicle giant, news agency Reuters reported citing two people with knowledge of the matter.
Musk’s visit to China comes a week after his visit to India was postponed due to ‘Tesla obligations.’ He was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and announce plans to enter the Indian market.
Meanwhile, as of now, Musk is seeking to meet senior Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss the rollout of Full-Self Driving (FSD) software in China and to obtain approval to transfer data collected in the country abroad to train algorithms for its autonomous driving technologies, Reuters said, citing one of the two people.
In response to a query on social media platform X, the Musk stated that Tesla may make FSD available to customers in China “very soon.” Notably, Musk’s visit to China was not made prominently visible in public eyes.
According to Reuters, Tesla, since 2021, has stored all data collected by its Chinese fleet in Shanghai as required by Chinese regulators and has not transferred any, back to the United States.
The US EV maker rolled out FSD, the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software, four years ago but has yet to make it available in China despite customers urging it to do so.
