Tesla was recently granted permission to test FSD on Chinese streets – specifically in Shanghai. Just recently, Elon Musk visited China and discussed the potential for FSD to come to China.
Gearing Up for FSD China
This is just the first step for Tesla to begin its customer deployments of FSD – Tesla conducts similar ADAS testing in North America, where special testing vehicles and testing employees run the latest FSD (Supervised) versions against a gamut of real-world, real-life tests.
Tesla has recently been working on translating FSD release notes into multiple languages, alongside building a data center in Shanghai and establishing an FSD Operations and Labelling team at the same center. These are the first, key steps to bringing FSD to a new market that has unique and different traffic rules when compared North America.
China doesn’t have the regulatory hurdles or challenges that Tesla faces in Europe to bring FSD and has been working with Chinese corporations as well as the government, which has now provided its official approval for FSD testing in-country.
We might even see FSD deployed to early testing customers in China by the end of 2025.
ADAS Competitors
There are quite a few competitors in the Chinese market already- with challengers like Xpeng and Xiaomi working on building their own homegrown systems, mostly driven by a mixture of cameras, radars, ultrasonic sensors, and LIDAR. However, many of these systems face similar challenges to other non-Chinese competitors and don’t have the mileage under their belts to tackle Tesla’s dominating lead in data and data processing.
European Union
Tesla is poising itself for an FSD rollout internationally, with increased testing also taking place in the UK, France, and Spain – some of the key locations with unique infrastructure in the European Union. However, some EU-specific regulations restrict how FSD can perform – each and every action must be manually approved by the driver. Until that regulation is changed to adapt to systems like FSD, it won’t be making its way there just yet.
Tesla’s latest iOS app update reveals several upcoming features that we’re sure everyone has been looking forward to. As usual, the Android update is likely a few days out.
As usual, Tesla App Updates (iOS) has kindly provided a breakdown of the decompiled app update, which reveals three key things: watch support, Banish, and a new way to onboard FSD users.
Tesla Watch App
People have been requesting a Tesla app on their watches for ages. Smart watches have become fairly ubiquitous today, and third parties have been providing Tesla functionality for both Android and Apple’s signature wearables for years.
However, using the Tesla API has some limitations, making a third-party solution less ideal. In addition, Tesla plans to charge developers for API calls in the near future, which means some wearable apps have moved to subscription-based services while others charge a large up-front fee.
However, the wait for an official watch app may soon be over. This latest version of the Tesla app, v4.38.0, reveals that you’ll need to select a vehicle to show on the watch, hinting that the UI will show a single vehicle at a time, which is to be expected.
We’re not sure whether you’ll be able to use the Apple Watch as a key for the vehicle, but Tesla app update 4.38 adds the ability to perform offline commands as long as the vehicle is within Bluetooth range. So even if Tesla doesn’t add key support, you should be able to unlock or start the vehicle even if you don’t have your phone or an internet connection.
We’d guess that Apple Watch support will be included in Tesla’s big Christmas update later this year (a look back at previous holiday updates).
Given Tesla’s propensity to launch features on iOS before Android, expect support for the Apple Watch before Android’s Wearables, but hopefully, Tesla is working on both.
Apple Watch concept created by a fan
@niccruzpatane
Banish (Reverse Smart Summon)
As part of Tesla’s FSD Roadmap, they mentioned that Park Seek and Banish (Reverse Smart Summon) will arrive in October. Banish will allow users to get out of their car in a parking lot, and the car autonomously find a parking spot (Park Seek) and park itself using Autopark.
Overall, it's a necessary system for Robotaxi and Cybercab, and it's been one of the most anticipated features for FSD for a long time. The sheer convenience of being able to get out of your car at the mall entrance while the vehicle locates its own parking spot and then comes back to pick you up using Actually Smart Summon - that’s just next level.
In the recent app update, Tesla revealed a few phrases related to Banish - namely some information about “Parking Map,” “Parking Occupancy,” and “Parking Details.” It seems that Banish will map the parking lot while it drives around, looking for a parking spot. Once it finds one, it’ll park and then relay that information back to the user, so that you know where the vehicle parked.
It seems that you may also be able to direct Banish to a specific parking area. Once it arrives, it’ll let you know if there’s a spot, and if not, it'll keep searching.
New User FSD On-Boarding
The final new feature tease is an interesting one. Tesla has recently put out another free trial for FSD, but many people trying it out for the first time (or the first time in a while), may not know what to expect. While Full Self Driving is a fantastic piece of software - it's still something that users have to supervise today.
We’ve recently been hoping that Tesla would address the user knowledge gap for new-to-FSD owners, and it seems like they’ll be adding some tutorial information for how to use FSD in an upcoming app update. Personally, the author has found people tend to panic when they see the steering wheel turn, jiggle, or the car accelerate hard—all things that happen on a day-to-day drive with FSD. While most FSD users are well-conditioned to the quirks, new users could be scared away.
We’re excited to see what kind of tutorials Tesla adds for users. We hope they’re in-depth and explain what certain FSD visualizations, like black or blue cars, signify.
It’s that time of year once again when Tesla hosts a Q&A for its shareholders at its quarterly earnings event.
If you’re interested in seeing what people have asked or would like to submit your own question, you can do so at the link here. Submissions and voting ends on this Wednesday, October 23, at 4 PM EDT.
Earnings Q3
Third-quarter earnings are coming up on October 23, 2024. As usual, it will take place at around 5:30 PM. Tesla Investor Relations will stream the event live, and we’ll have links available for you a little closer to the event.
Voting and Submissions
Voting and submissions are done through Say, a third-party company that validates share ownership. Once your ownership is validated, you’ll be able to use your shares to vote - your vote weight is equivalent to the number of shares you have.
If you submit a question, your question will have an initial number of votes equivalent to your number of shares.
Top Questions
The current top questions are pretty interesting - and we’re excited to see the answers. Let’s take a look at what people have asked so far.
Here are the top ten questions currently:
Is Tesla still on track to deliver the more affordable model next year, as mentioned by Elon earlier, and how does it align with your AI and product roadmap?
When can we expect Tesla to give us the ~$25K, non-robotaxi, regular car model?
What is Tesla doing to alleviate long waiting times on service centers?
🚨Please provide an update on the Semi. What will the next stage of growth look like and when will FSD be ready?
What’s the plan for 2025?
Will Hardware 3 be capable of level 5 FSD?
Can we get more details surrounding the Robotaxi including how will Tesla deploy the fleet, will it start with Robotaxi than move onto a subscription model if you own your own Tesla
When will Optimus begin shipping?
If you find these questions interesting, tune in! If not, we’ll recap all the key points as usual.
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