Tesla has temporarily paused its Full Self-Driving (FSD) trial in China. The trial, initially set to run from March 17 to April 16, hit a regulatory roadblock, with Tesla confirming that it must first receive government approval before continuing the rollout.
“According to the requirements of the latest ‘Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Access, Recall and Online Software Upgrade of Intelligent Connected Vehicle Products,’ the team is completing the approval of the intelligent assisted driving software corresponding to 3.0 and 4.0 hardware respectively,” Tesla wrote on social media in China. “All parties are actively promoting the relevant process, and once it is ready, it will be pushed to everyone as soon as possible.”
The new regulations cited by Tesla were issued by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in late February, requiring software updates related to intelligent driving systems to undergo pre-authorization before deployment.
Along with the pause, Tesla also announced it is preparing to expand FSD capabilities to more vehicles in China. In the same post on social media, the company confirmed vehicles equipped with Hardware 3 (HW3) will also start receiving FSD, once they receive approval to resume the trial. Since FSD was launched in China last month, it has been limited to vehicles with HW4.
