Elon Musk officially announced that Tesla's FSD will enter China by the end of the year!?

Tesla just released a flat second-quarter financial report.

From the total revenue perspective, Tesla still maintains a slight growth trend, with a year-on-year increase of 2%, setting a revenue record of $25.5 billion (185.5 billion RMB) and still possessing an industry-leading single-quarter gross profit of $4.578 billion (33.3 billion RMB).

However, Tesla also experienced a quarter with a delivery volume decrease of as much as 14% year-on-year. This comes after a 2% decrease in total delivery volume in the first quarter, with delivery volume dropping year-on-year once again.

As of our press time, Tesla's stock price has fallen by 6%, with a relatively negative market response.

Elon Musk himself is well aware of the intensifying competition, but he also firmly believes at today's earnings conference that Tesla is already on a different track.

Two hours ago, he presented a series of clear timelines, indicating that Tesla will launch numerous artificial intelligence-related core products and technologies in the next year:

FSD V12.5 (or 12.6) will officially land in China by the end of the year!

Robotaxi will hold an official launch event on October 10th;

The first-generation dry electrode 4680 battery will debut in the Cybertruck;

It is expected that by the end of next year, thousands of Optimus robots will be in service at the factory.

Today's autonomous driving information is intensive, let's get started.

FSD Enters China!

In summary: Musk stated that the Tesla FSD system will enter "China, Europe, and other countries" in version V12.5 or 12.6.

He further added that after the early rollout of these versions, they will be submitted for regulatory review in the aforementioned countries.

"If regulatory authorities find that in actual driving of billions of miles, regulated autonomous driving performs much safer than human drivers, why oppose it?" Musk asked.

The most exciting statement is when he mentioned, "We may see this progress by the end of the year."

"FSD Enters China" is a seasonal topic that heats up every once in a while. Finally, at the end of July 2024, in the 6th year of FSD open subscription, we witnessed the historic moment when Musk officially announced the entry into China.

In theory, FSD V12.5 can be compatible with the old Model 3 with HW3.0+MCU2.0 - not just in theory, there are several FSD test bloggers in the United States currently driving this version of the car.

This means that 144T computing power + 8 cameras + Intel central control hardware will become the hardware threshold for Tesla's urban intelligent driving execution + interaction. The current ceiling is HW4.0+AMD central control + upgraded high-pixel cameras Compared to the 200,000 laser radars rolled out by domestic counterparts, FSD slightly lags behind in perception hardware parameters, but leads in terms of computing power.

What can be confirmed is that by the end of the year at the latest, we will witness the most intense "cyber cricket fight" in the history of the new energy vehicle circle—XPeng XNGP, Huawei ADS, Nio NOP, Li Auto NOA... and so on, will all face a brutal all-round comparison.

Additionally, to add a point: the token parameters of 12.5 are 4 times that of 12.4, Musk stated, "This is a huge progress."

Regarding the core issue of data privacy, Ashok, the director of Tesla's autonomous driving technology, stated that technically, end-to-end "will not provide any location feedback," only using data from the United States, and theoretically "will perform equally well in different countries."

However, let's still manage our expectations: by the end of the year at the earliest, with no upper limit.

Is the Robotaxi Era Finally Here?

Musk first mentioned this word at the 2019 Model Y launch event, marking the second time in five years that we heard the release date of this epoch-making mass-produced product.

The first time was when Musk posted about it on April 5, stating that it would be officially released on August 8.

Then, in the preheating video of the shareholder meeting, some netizens pointed out suspected spoilers of the Robotaxi's interior design details, such as the two-seat layout without a steering wheel, and even the new software UI.

By June, spy photos of the Robotaxi testing began to surface, based on the modified Model 3, removing the rearview mirrors, and seemingly adding an additional set of cameras to enhance the vehicle's perception capabilities.

However, following closely behind, Musk issued another delay announcement in July.

Also on X, he stated that "the main reason for the delay until October is to make important design changes to the front of the car"; while Bloomberg reported that Musk requested the Robotaxi design team to "redesign" certain elements of the vehicle.

And today, Musk gave us a precise date again.

In addition to the vehicle design, Robotaxi, and the actual implementation of Tesla's FSD capabilities, it also relies on powerful backend computing power, such as NVIDIA H100, such as DOJO.

Musk released two clear photos of the DOJO POD today, and stated that the first-generation DOJO training center will have a total computing power equivalent to about 8,000 H100s by the end of the year - approximately 32E of INT8 computing power, which is quite astonishing.

However, DOJO is already a 7-nanometer chip released in 2021, and by the end of the year, Tesla will receive an equivalent of 85,000 H100 training clusters, leading global automakers.

This means that Tesla's fully vertically integrated plan has been disrupted by Jensen Huang.

"You can't ignore NVIDIA's efforts, they have been committed to making GPUs cheaper and easier to deploy," Musk praised his old friend, and also said, "GPU competition is very fierce, it's hard to get enough GPUs."

Then he helplessly concluded: "We will make DOJO play its due role, and we must do so."

However, despite providing a timeline, Musk did not directly answer when "Robotaxi can be used".

He said that this question is equivalent to asking him "when can fully unsupervised autonomous driving be achieved", but at the same time he stated, "If we can't achieve this goal within the next year, I will be very surprised."

Finally, Musk also took a dig at General Motors, who recently announced the cancellation of their unmanned Robotaxi project:

"Waymo is doing quite well, autonomous driving is not far from us at all, it's just that General Motors can't get it to work."

Tesla's New Car Dilemma

Tesla has many new cars that consumers outside the United States have not yet experienced.

For example, the second-generation Roadster, a performance beast released in parallel with the SEMI truck in 2017, and the Cybertruck released on the same day as the 2019 Guangzhou Auto Show, and so on.

Tesla officially stated that the Cybertruck became the best-selling electric pickup truck in the United States in the second quarter.

Musk also mentioned that 1,400 Cybertrucks with 4680 batteries leave the factory every week, and the first-generation 4680 battery using dry electrode technology will also debut on the Cybertruck in the fourth quarter

At the battery launch event in September 2020, Musk showcased a series of 4680 "ultimate version" battery data, which has not been fully realized even close to 4 years later.

It can even be said that currently, Tesla's progress with the 4680 battery is still mainly focused on improving vehicle safety and structural optimization, with not very significant improvements in core indicators such as cost and yield.

The 4680 battery, to some extent, defines the next era, determining whether Tesla's cost efficiency can continue to lead the industry.

For example, the $25,000 entry-level model that is about to enter the competitive arena.

Musk has just provided a new timeline: it will be officially launched in the first half of 2025, but he did not reveal any more details. He only mentioned that "we will show more things at the Robotaxi launch event".

Prior to this, Tesla will not have a new mass-produced model in 2024, and even in its home country, the United States, it will not be until next year that there is a "possibility" of seeing the launch of the new generation Roadster.

Tesla's Long-termism

Musk rarely mentioned price wars.

He said he knows that many car manufacturers are offering attractive price discounts, "competition is more intense now", but in the long run, he believes that price wars are "not a problem" for Tesla.

The reason for this judgment is that the race tracks are different.

It is expected that by the end of the year, the Optimus robot final version will be in trial production, and by the end of next year, there will be thousands of Optimus units at Tesla factories taking on specific mass production tasks.

On the other hand, Tesla's energy division just set a record of 9.4GWh of installed capacity in the second quarter, "Giga 2 and Giga Shanghai's energy storage capacity can double," Musk summarized.

Under short-term pressure, long-term benefits, this is the state of Tesla in Musk's words.

Looking at Tesla's financial numbers, there is nothing to worry about. Its profitability, revenue, profit margin, and cash reserves are all at industry-leading levels.

However, with global automakers collectively transforming and China's new energy vehicles catching up and even surpassing in some aspects, can Musk turn the tables with FSD and Robotaxi?

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Author: Yu Fei, Source: Electric Planet, Original Title: "Musk Officially Announces Tesla FSD to Enter China by the End of the Year!?"