Tesla CEO Elon Musk made an unannounced trip to China on Sunday and met Premier Li Qiang, a week after he scrapped a planned visit to India to meet with PM Modi, citing “very heavy Tesla obligations”. He arrived amid speculation he may unveil Tesla’s autonomous driving technology in the burgeoning EV market in China.
The visit comes during a volatile time for Tesla, with slowing EV sales prompting a cost-cutting drive and reduction of over 10% of its global workforce. Last week, he was scheduled to be in India, where elections are underway, for a much-anticipated visit, during which he was likely to announce investments worth billions of dollars around a greenfield electric car project, apart from satcom venture Starlink. He, however, called it off and said, “...but I do very much look forward to visiting later this year”.
China’s No. 2 official met Musk in Beijing just hours after he touched down in the city. Li said the nation is always open to foreign companies, adding that Tesla is a successful example of China-US trade cooperation, according to China Central Television.
CCTV said Musk told Li that Tesla is willing to deepen cooperation with China. The CEO earlier met the head of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Ren Hong bin, according to CCTV. He’s expected to meet officials to discuss the roll out of Tesla’s driver-assistance system, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Tesla is working on getting the system it calls Full Self-Driving, or FSD, approved for new markets. Its vehicles have been banned from China’s military compounds and some other govt venues in the past over cameras used for its driver-assistance systems, which aren’t capable of autonomous driving.
Advanced driver-assistance systems, or ADAS, are becoming increasingly common in China’s EV market, where Tesla is losing share. Many local players including Xpeng, Xiaomi and Huawei use sophisticated technology as a selling point for their vehicles, while industry-wide price cuts by rivals add pressure for the US company to do the same.
