Tesla confirmed in its first-quarter 2026 financial report that it is actively working to launch Full Self-Driving in China "as soon as possible," a statement notable for appearing at all given how little the company has said publicly on the subject in recent months. No timeline was provided.
Musk forecast Chinese FSD approval by February. China Daily corrected that prediction the same week. It is now April, and the earnings call is where the subject resurfaced.
The Gap Between Ambition and Approval
Tesla's current autonomous driving offering in China is materially limited compared to what North American customers can access. On February 25, 2025, the company began rolling out an ADAS package in China with capabilities closer to the US FSD feature set, but progress has stalled since then. The Chinese version remains below FSD Supervised in functionality.
Elon Musk stated at the World Economic Forum in January 2026 that he expected Chinese regulatory approval by February. China's state-owned China Daily published a denial within days of that statement, citing a government source. February passed without approval. Q1 earnings is the next time the topic appeared in an official Tesla communication.
What the Software Roadmap Says
In North America, Tesla is distributing FSD V14.3, which reshapes the reinforcement learning phase to better handle long-tail edge scenarios. Musk has said FSD V15, a complete architecture overhaul, arrives between late 2026 and early 2027. Unsupervised FSD is projected to begin a phased customer rollout in Q4 2026 in North America.
The Netherlands approval for FSD Supervised in April 2026 is the closest international signal. EU and Chinese regulatory processes are independent, and approval in one does not accelerate the other. Tesla's cumulative FSD mileage has exceeded 9.38 billion miles (15.1 billion km) globally, with 3.37 billion miles in urban scenarios. China's contribution to that figure is not disclosed separately.
Chinese regulatory approval for FSD would require data-sharing agreements and compliance with local autonomous driving standards that differ significantly from the US framework. Neither Tesla nor Chinese regulators have indicated those negotiations are close to completion.