Elon Musk has been spotted on a flight to China. According to Reuters news agency, citing insiders, the Tesla CEO is trying to meet senior officials in the country to discuss the Chinese introduction of Tesla’s autonomous driving software
The American electric car manufacturer introduced its autopilot software FSD four years ago. But this has yet to become available in China, despite this being one of the company’s most important markets these days.
Tesla has recently been struggling with disappointing sales, partly due to fierce competition in China. Rival Chinese car manufacturers such as Xpeng are trying to gain an advantage over Tesla by coming up with software for self-driving cars.
Musk would also want approval from Chinese authorities to send data collected in the Asian country abroad. This will then allow Tesla to train algorithms for its autonomous driving technology.
The countries to which Musk travels are closely monitored in the financial world. He recently postponed a visit to India due to “obligations” at Tesla. Not much later it emerged that Tesla lowered the prices of Tesla cars in China and the US to boost sales.
The car manufacturer also recently announced that it would cut more than 10 percent of jobs worldwide.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl