City autopilot: Tesla FSD enters China with owners showcasing it on city streets

Tesla has taken a monumental step forward with its autonomous driving technology with the rollout of its full-self-driving (FSD) system in  the world’s biggest vehicle market, China, allowing hundreds of thousands of cars to access the system around city streets.

This development was first reported by Tesla and China EV industry expert Chris Zheng, who shared that the system is officially rolled out as “City Autopilot” in the country and as of launch has similar capabilities to that seen in the US.

The news of this was soon followed by multiple videos of owners using the system across the country.

One livestream with over 6,000 viewers showcased how the system is performing around the city streets with navigating various different intersections and lane merges.

Another owner showed how the system can enter and navigate through underground carparks avoiding barriers and other pedestrians.

In the video, as the Tesla enters the complex, the car waits for the boom gate to open before driving down multiple levels in low light conditions.

Earlier today, Tesla themselves confirmed the entry in to the Chinese market by posting on X: “你好，中国” which translates to “Hello, China”.

In this post, Tesla also shared a feedback from some owners who have used the system in China and compared it to existing local systems from other car makers: “more human like, smooth and confident compared to other similar Chinese systems. Also capable of self correcting if missing turns or planned route where other systems may be hesitant.”

The launch of the system in China comes only weeks after the system was launched in Mexico where users were surprised at the timing of its arrival.

The significance of this milestone into China is huge given the size of the market and that many experts said the system would not work outside of the US given the complexity of navigating around other road users and objects.

Tesla also appears to be doing all of this with a vision only system in its cars as it does not have LiDAR systems, which was another reason it was criticised that its vehicles would not be able to operate anything close to FSD in markets outside of the US.

Now that Tesla has entered the Chinese market with City Autopilot, it would be collecting data on how the system performs and improving it iteratively.

This will improve the overall ownership experience and in time help reduce incidents across many parts of the world as it continues its global expansion.