Source: Che Dongxi

Che Dongxi reported on May 18 that, recently, $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ Tesla China’s official website released multiple job postings related to autonomous driving testing. The positions include Autonomous Driving Test (On-Vehicle Testing) Technician, Autonomous Driving Test Engineer, Autonomous Driving Site Test Specialist, and more. The work locations span nine cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Tianjin, and Chongqing.

According to the job postings, these positions may require employees to travel flexibly to various domestic and international locations to conduct on-site tests of vehicles on public roads, test tracks, and validation sites.

Notably, the section detailing employee responsibilities mentions “tracking changes in Chinese certification and regulatory laws,” which is considered by industry insiders as a signal that Tesla is accelerating the localization adaptation of its autonomous driving solutions.

Elon Musk’s active visit to China: Full-version FSD entry into China is expected to be approved in the third quarter

The progress of Tesla’s FSD implementation in China has been closely watched by the industry for a long time.

In February 2025, Tesla officially launched FSD in the Chinese market. Notably, the version of FSD experienced by domestic users is one that has undergone extensive adaptations and functional restrictions to comply with Chinese regulations, referred to in the industry as the ‘crippled version’ of FSD.

It offers basic urban road-assisted driving capabilities but falls significantly short of the overseas version in terms of functional completeness, breadth of scenario coverage, and the maturity of localized algorithms.

According to real-world testing by Chedongxi, while this version performs well in certain scenarios, it exposes significant incompatibility issues in many others, highlighting an urgent need to address its localization shortcomings.

Compared to the ‘crippled version’ of FSD, the ‘full-featured version’ of FSD achieves full-scenario coverage, including urban road driving, highway navigation, automatic parking, and remote summoning, enabling end-to-end assisted driving from parking space to parking space.

During the Q1 earnings call this year, Musk told analysts that he hopes FSD will receive approval from relevant Chinese authorities by the third quarter of this year.

At the beginning of this month, industry sources reported that Tesla may have started pushing the ‘full-featured version’ of FSD V14 software (possibly version V14.3.2) to internal employee vehicles equipped with HW4.0 hardware. Employees signed confidentiality agreements before testing, though Tesla has not officially confirmed the news.

Meanwhile, Musk himself has recently been sending positive signals toward China.

On the evening of May 13, he accompanied Trump on his visit to China as a representative of the American business community.

On the morning of May 14, according to domestic media reports, Musk appeared at the Great Hall of the People with his young son, who wore a modernized traditional Chinese vest and carried a tiger-head bag.

Later that day, he also posted in Chinese on the X platform, writing, ‘My son is learning Mandarin.’ These actions were interpreted by outsiders as a gesture of goodwill toward China.

Tesla FSD receives its first approval in Europe, accelerating global deployment

Currently, Tesla is actively promoting FSD globally.

The North American market is the first region where Tesla’s FSD was implemented and remains the most mature market. Tesla FSD has officially entered commercial use in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

According to foreign media reports, Tesla recently rolled out the FSD V14.3.3 update in the North American market, with the most significant improvement being in the speed of Smart Summon. After the upgrade, the vehicle summoning speed via the Tesla app increased by 33%, rising from the original 6 mph (approximately 9.66 km/h) to 8 mph (approximately 12.9 km/h).

In the Asian market, Tesla not only launched FSD in China but also introduced FSD (Supervised) in South Korea in November 2025. Public reports further indicate that in the Oceania market, Tesla FSD officially went into commercial use simultaneously in Australia and New Zealand in October 2025.

Regarding the European market, on April 10, 2026, the Dutch Vehicle Authority (RDW) officially granted Tesla’s Supervised version of FSD (FSD Supervised) Whole Vehicle Type Approval in Europe, marking the first official compliance approval for Tesla FSD within the EU.

Tesla’s European official channels simultaneously announced that FSD would soon be rolled out officially in the Netherlands, followed by certification efforts in key EU countries such as Germany, France, and Italy.

Conclusion: The introduction of the full-featured FSD into China may accelerate

From the current series of actions, Tesla’s FSD global deployment is clearly accelerating: it has obtained its first certification in Europe, achieved commercial use in multiple countries including South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and is aggressively recruiting for autonomous driving testing positions in China.

For Chinese users who have already purchased FSD, this is undoubtedly good news – more comprehensive localization adaptation means that the fully functional version they have been waiting for is drawing closer. However, everything still hinges on regulatory approval.

Editor/Rocky