Tesla has begun rolling out its FSD capabilities to vehicles in China equipped with both HW 3.0 and HW 4.0 chips, marking a significant expansion of Tesla FSD beyond North America. According to forum posts from a claimed Tesla China employee, the initial performance shows both progress and room for improvement.
The user, who owns multiple Tesla vehicles, reported receiving the V12.6.4 update on their Model 3 Performance with HW 3.0. After logging approximately 350km with the update, they shared insights into what appears to be the second iteration of Tesla’s FSD software designed specifically for the Chinese market.
“I drive 120 km daily—80% on highways, 20% in city traffic—and only had to disengage FSD fewer than three times, with minor interventions around 5 to 8 times,” the user noted, highlighting substantial improvements compared to the previous version. Latest update reportedly avoids running red lights and major traffic violations that plagued earlier releases.
The forum post compared the current state of Tesla’s FSD in China to “a seasoned American driver attempting to navigate Chinese roads without first obtaining a local driver’s license”—functional but not yet fully adapted to local driving norms and conditions.
Tesla’s approach to developing FSD for China differs significantly from earlier speculation. While previous reports suggested a potential partnership with Baidu for FSD development, Tesla has clarified that their collaboration with the Chinese tech giant is limited to navigation mapping services only.
According to Elon, the China-released FSD v13.2.6 was trained using a novel approach: Tesla engineers utilized publicly available online videos of Chinese roads and traffic signs, feeding this data into the company’s simulation system to train the neural network.
The forum poster expressed optimism about future improvements, particularly for vehicles equipped with the newer HW 4.0 chips. Vehicles have greater processing power, suggesting enhanced performance in future updates as the system continues to learn and adapt to Chinese driving conditions.
Tesla’s FSD rollout in China represents part of a broader international expansion. FSD is now available in four countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China. To support this growth, Tesla is actively recruiting Vehicle Operators across multiple countries, including Germany, Australia, the UK, Malaysia, and Israel.
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