Musk tried pumping his stocks with fake FSD timelines at Davos. Chinese state media and Tesla China both harshly contradicted the renowned liar, and within hours.
No hedging. No diplomatic softening. No “we cannot confirm yet”.
Just: Elon Musk lied.
First, let’s all admit FSD is far, far behind other technology. It’s been the worst contender for a decade now, called out by experts repeatedly and lately losing in court. Intel and NVidia both clearly left Tesla in the dust, long before China would, and yet somehow Elon Musk didn’t go to jail yet. They arrested Bernie Madoff for less.
Testing by China showed even the latest FSD still has high-frequency deadly problems like crossing solid lines (34 times per test), running red lights incorrectly, and failing at asymmetric intersections. Subscription rates remain under 10%, with low user trust, because Elon Musk is an obvious liar and no real engineers last long with such fraud.
Second, the Chinese have no reason to allow Tesla corruption into the market. None. Huawei/XPeng and others have already covered 99% of China’s urban roads with their NOA systems, and BYD has pushed intelligent driving into even their 70,000 yuan vehicles. What does Tesla bring to any market really, other than public disaster response burden for burning wreckage and support costs for grieving survivors?
It would be like when Ford announced to investors that Latin America would be gladly approving Bronco imports, which soon after meant dealing with rollover death lawsuits.
Third, there’s a structural barrier to FSD. It’s called FSD. It’s always been a lie. Unlike the swiss cheese of American safety regulations, the Chinese don’t want pathological liars selling infrastructure. The Ministry of Public Security hasn’t changed liability attribution rules, meaning FSD legally cannot operate under “autonomous driving” claims regardless of approval status. That’s not a “soon” thing.
To put it another way, if approval were anywhere close, even later this year, we should see some alternative timeline discussion to maintain market interest. A complete and total absence of any counter-timeline suggests the entire Elon Musk premise is stock-pumping bullshit, not just the date.
Fourth, Xiaopeng publicly bet that if XPeng’s system doesn’t beat FSD V14.2’s claimed performance in Silicon Valley by August this year, his autonomous driving chief will “裸跑金门大桥” (run naked across the Golden Gate Bridge). Of course, that could just be an excuse to run naked in the fog, but something tells me they don’t expect to be getting wet.
Already we see Tesla 23% error rates on commuter lanes and bus-only lanes compared with a 7% for XPeng’s XNGP. That’s a massive difference in safety. Above 90% accuracy is defensible, an A grade, whereas Tesla clearly is still unworthy. Nobody should want (or allow) 77% on a shared road! And XPeng is pushing monthly updates, widening that quality gap, as Tesla struggles to stay inside six month cycles.
So what did China say exactly about Elon Musk spinning his usual stock pumps again?
China Daily immediately ran a direct contradiction. No need to wait: “需驾驶员监督的特斯拉FSD系统预计下个月在中国获批？知情人士：该消息不实” (Tesla’s driver-supervised FSD system expected to be approved in China next month? Informed source: This is not true).
Perhaps that last line in particular now should be the permanent footnote on anything Elon Musk says: “该消息不实”
Tesla China’s own spokesperson apparently wanted to set it straight too: “目前FSD在中国市场的推进工作，暂时没有新的进展可以公布” (there is currently no new progress to announce regarding FSD entering the Chinese market).