Elon Musk visited China for Tesla’s self-driving tech

Automobility Founder & CEO Bill Russo talked to CGTN Europe on Elon Musk’s visit in China and Tesla’s self-drive deal with China’s Baidu.

Transcript

00:00Often more on this aspect of Bill Russell, who's the founder and CEO of the consulting and investment platform

00:06Automobility Limited. I asked for his assessment of Elon Musk's visits to China

00:12Yeah, well, first of all, you know, it is the largest by far

00:16footprint more than half of the vehicles that Tesla made in

00:212023 were made in China 52% of their global production was in China and it's about one-third of their global sales

00:28So it's a very important market

00:30They are notably absent from the Beijing Auto Show

00:34So the plan that trip at the time of the Beijing Auto Show is a way of I think taking a little bit of attention

00:42Away from the fact that they did not go to the show

00:45They didn't go to the show

00:47Actually because they don't really have any new products to talk about and he's really here to pave the way

00:52To make sure that he can bring the technology that he wants to deploy globally the full self-driving software

01:00into the Chinese market

01:02And can you explain to us a little bit more about this FSD the full self-driving technology?

01:06And why this tie-up with Baidu that's been announced is just so key to that for Tesla and Elon Musk

01:13Yeah, it's it's very important, especially in this technology domain

01:18To be able to access the license the deal with Baidu grants Tesla

01:25access to the mapping license for data collection on Chinese public roads and in in China all

01:32intelligent data systems are required to

01:36Obtain this mapping qualification before they can deploy onto the public roads

01:41so foreign companies need to find a partner a

01:45partnership like with Baidu that have access to the high-definition mapping a license and

01:51And capability and that Baidu is one of just about a dozen or so companies that have secured that license

01:58So that clears a major hurdle for them the other

02:03policy

02:04Regulation that they're going to have to navigate is how the data is

02:08Collected and stored which is also by required to be stored in in China

02:14Mr. Musk has talked about his factory there in Shanghai. It's really integral to his to his whole operation

02:20It's quite a complicated relationship though that Elon Musk has with the Chinese government, isn't it?

02:26Yeah, I think you know Tesla played a very instrumental role China by far the world's largest

02:32You know more than half the world's EVs are on Chinese roads

02:37You know China is by far the largest EV market in the world and as I said Tesla makes more than half their vehicles here

02:43But we wouldn't really be having the conversation about EVs

02:46Anywhere in the world had it not been for Tesla breaking through it through as the EV pioneer

02:51And then up until Tesla launched the gigafactory in Shanghai in 2020

02:58The person he's meeting with is Li Chang the former, you know, the party secretary now the premier of China

03:04So there's a strong relationship here and a symbiotic one between China and Tesla Tesla helped open

03:10The EV market globally and also opened the retail consumer interest in

03:162020 when they launched that gigafactory that really opened the floodgates of consumer interest in China in EVs

03:22So China needed Tesla to do that

03:26Tesla now needs China to open up the possibility of them using their full self-driving technology in order to scale that solution globally