Tesla CEO Elon Musk visits China to attend FSD after Nixing trip to India

Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk made a surprise visit to China on Sunday, where he met with government officials in an apparent attempt to introduce the country's full self-driving program. The move comes a week after Musk suddenly postponed a trip to India for high-level investment talks there.

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The official Chinese Broadcasting Corporation reported on Sunday that Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang said in a meeting with Musk that Tesla’s growth in China is “a successful example of Sino-American economic and trade cooperation.”

Tesla aims to gain regulatory approval for FSD, which is not capable of self-driving, in key markets such as China.

On Tesla's April 23 earnings call, Musk said the electric car giant aims to launch FSD “as a supervised autonomy system in any market — where we can get regulatory approval for it, which we believe includes China.”

One major issue is that Tesla wants to transfer FSD data from China to the US

However, Tesla has successfully passed data security tests in Beijing, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers announced shortly after the Musk-Li meeting.

China blocks Tesla from entering some government facilities over data privacy concerns. There is a dispute between the United States and China over domestic data sent abroad. President Biden last week signed a law authorizing social media site TikTok to separate from or shut down its Chinese parent company, Bytedance, in part over data sent to China.

Musk's visit comes during the Beijing Auto Show, where Tesla's competitors are showcasing a large number of new models, and driver assistance programs are becoming increasingly popular. Tesla, with no new models, will not participate. The electric car giant's sales are struggling in the face of intense competition and aggressive pricing. Tesla itself announced new price cuts earlier this month.

Traffic delay to India

On April 20, Musk abruptly canceled a scheduled visit to New Delhi from April 21-22, citing Tesla's “very heavy liabilities.” He was scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and was expected to announce a major investment in India, including a Tesla factory.

Setting up a factory in India would allow Tesla to enter a huge potential market, bypassing heavy import duties. But Tesla's low-cost electric car would be of great interest to tap into India, which also has limited electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Tesla shares

Tesla stock rose 14.4% last week to 168.29, pulling back from a 15-month low. The electric car giant's first-quarter earnings missed low expectations, but investors welcomed Tesla's plans for “affordable” electric vehicles while Elon Musk touted robotics and predicted higher delivery rates in 2024.

Shares fell 1.1% on Friday, once again hitting resistance around the 10-week moving average.

Late Thursday, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration said it was opening a new investigation into Tesla's self-driving systems amid concerns that a 2023 move to improve driver monitoring and attention was not enough. The NHTSA also appears to implicitly place some of the blame for Autopilot and FSD crashes on Tesla, not just the driver.

Please follow Ed Carson on topics at @edcarson1971 And X/Twitter at @IBD_ECarson For stock market updates and more.

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