Musk makes an unexpected trip to Beijing as data security regulations are passed for Tesla’s China-made vehicles.

Expectations were stoked by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s visit that China will soon have access to the automaker’s Full Self Driving driver-assist software.

TFD – Discover why Tesla opted out of the 2022 Shanghai auto show following an incident involving a protester in 2021. Dive into the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic for auto exhibitions.

Beijing: Following the passing of the nation’s data security criteria by Tesla’s China-made vehicles, local Chinese authorities have lifted restrictions on the company’s automobiles, the automaker announced on Sunday.

The breakthrough occurred during Beijing’s first significant auto show in four years, just as Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrived for an unscheduled meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

Despite being among the most well-liked automobiles in China, Tesla’s electric cars are allegedly not allowed on some government-affiliated facilities because of worries about the data the American automaker may obtain.

It was not stated in Tesla’s press statement which municipal governments had lifted the ban on the vehicles. Earlier in the year, the Biden administration declared that it would look into the possibility of Chinese cars gathering information on the United States and sending it back to China, which might be a threat to national security.

Not just Tesla’s cars satisfied the data security requirements.

Apart from Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y, a number of new energy cars from BYD, Lotus, Nezha, Li Auto, and Nio have cleared China’s data security regulations, according to a statement released on Sunday by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China and the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

According to the center, the new data security regulations for “connected vehicles” were unveiled in November and apply to cars that were released in 2022 and 2023 and that automakers voluntarily submit for inspection.

The regulations check if the cars anonymize face recognition data when they are not in use, process that data within the car, and clearly warn users when their personal information is being processed. Among the first group of automakers to satisfy the data compliance standards was Tesla.

In a press statement, Tesla stated that it has successfully achieved the ISO 27001 international standard for information security following an assessment by independent auditors and that it will localize data storage at its Shanghai data center in 2021.

Expectations were further boosted by Musk’s Sunday visit to China over the imminent release of Full Self Driving, Tesla’s driver-assist software in that nation.

Junheng Li, CEO of JL Warren Capital and Head of Research, stated on X that it is “very unlikely” that China will implement a “supervised” form of FSD.

She outlined the difficulties Tesla faces in supporting the software’s local operation in China as a foreign company. Beijing has “no strategic value,” according to Li, to back FSD’s domestic rollout when there are other excellent local options available, such Xpeng’s driver-assist software.

Premier Li urged for innovation and demand to drive production during his Sunday visit to Xpeng and other companies at the Beijing auto exhibition, according to official media.

Due to a protester who stood on one of Tesla’s cars during the Shanghai auto show in 2021, the company has decided not to exhibit this year. Every year, the exposition moves between Beijing and Shanghai; the Covid-19 pandemic prevented it from taking place in 2022.