Hong Kong Stock Concept Tracking | Will Tesla FSD enter China in the first quarter of next year? Or will it trigger a domestic smart driving "catfish effect" (with concept stocks attached)

According to the Zhitong Finance APP, on September 5th, Tesla (TSLA.US) AI team released a product roadmap, which includes plans to launch Full Self-Driving (FSD) in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory approval. Ping An Securities stated that the introduction of FSD to China may become a "big fish" in the domestic autonomous driving field, accelerating the landing process of advanced intelligent driving in China. Leading companies or suppliers in the field of advanced intelligent driving will benefit more. Related targets: Baidu Group-SW (09888), NIO Limited (01316), Zhejiang Shibao (01057), Aito Automotive Technology (01274).

It is understood that Tesla's autonomous driving system is divided into two parts, including Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Autopilot. The former provides fully autonomous driving capabilities, such as high-speed navigation and city road navigation, while the latter provides assisted driving functions aimed at improving driving safety and reducing stress. Tesla officially stated that these two autonomous driving systems currently cannot drive on their own and require the driver to take control at any time.

Since 2016, Musk has been exploring Tesla's FSD autonomous driving solution. In 2024, Tesla's FSD V12 was launched and widely deployed in North America. Currently, FSD iterations are steadily progressing, with the latest 12.5.2 version parameters increased by 5 times compared to 12.4, combining highway and city technology stacks, further improving driving smoothness. Specific improvements include more natural and earlier lane change decisions, driver monitoring using only the visual system, end-to-end driving on highways, and FSD functions on the Cybertruck.

Musk previously estimated that Tesla's FSD testing mileage needs to reach 6 billion miles to meet global regulatory requirements. According to Tesla's latest financial report, as of the end of Q2, the cumulative mileage of FSD has exceeded 1.6 billion miles. The company also stated that by the end of the year, the intervention-free driving mileage of FSD will exceed that of human drivers, and it is confident that it will achieve unsupervised Level 5 intelligent driving next year.

In July of this year, Musk stated during Tesla's earnings call that FSD is expected to enter China by the end of the year. After the release of version 12.6, FSD will land in China, Europe, and other countries, with the unsupervised version expected to achieve commercial deployment synchronously with Robotaxi.

According to data released by the China Passenger Car Association, in August, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory delivered a total of nearly 86,700 vehicles, an increase of 17% compared to the previous month. Its domestic sales in China exceeded 63,000 vehicles, a 37% increase. In terms of specific models, domestic sales of Model Y exceeded 45,000 units, while Model 3 reached 18,000 units.

Currently, Tesla's models on sale include Model 3, Model Y, Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck. In China, the main sales are Model Y and Model 3, with the Model Y supporting Tesla's main sales in the Chinese market. Although Tesla's FSD has not been rolled out in the Chinese market yet, it was already sold with the Model 3 at the time of launch, and a subscription model may be introduced in the future Dongfeng SoftRide President and CEO Du Qiang once said that Tesla's FSD entry into the Chinese market has triggered a catfish effect, posing challenges and incentives for domestic autonomous driving. In the long run, this is a very good opportunity to enhance domestic autonomous driving capabilities.

Guosen Securities previously pointed out in a research report that in the long term, Tesla is expected to build a series of artificial intelligence terminal carriers (smart driving cars, robots, etc.), empowering new profit models through "hardware cost reduction + software enhancement + Robotaxi shared travel". On the software side, increasing added value through FSD software, software store, and subscription services, and opening up intelligent driving application scenarios through shared travel.

Ping An Securities further stated that FSD's entry into China may become a "catfish" in the domestic autonomous driving field, accelerating the landing process of advanced intelligent driving in China. Leading companies or suppliers in the field of advanced intelligent driving will benefit more.

Related concept stocks:

Baidu Group-SW (09888): On May 15th, Xu Baoqiang, General Manager of Baidu's Autonomous Driving Technology Department, stated that for Tesla's upcoming Robotaxi (shared taxi), Baidu will consider possible cooperation opportunities based on Tesla's specific application models and the pace of entering the Chinese market.

ZhiXing Auto Technology (01274): ZhiXing Auto Technology is a Chinese provider of autonomous driving solutions, focusing on autonomous driving domain controllers. The company has a commercialized L2 to L2+ level autonomous driving solution (L2+ level is not an official classification under SAE standards), and is developing L2 to L4 level autonomous driving solutions for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Public information shows that the company has received designated letters from 16 well-known OEM customers, such as Geely, Great Wall, Chery, and Dongfeng, who have already purchased or are expected to purchase autonomous driving domain controllers and iFC products from the company.

NexTech (01316): The company, together with its subsidiaries (referred to as the group), is mainly engaged in designing and manufacturing steering and power transmission systems, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous driving (AD), and component businesses for automobile manufacturers and other automotive-related companies.

Zhejiang Shibao (01057): Zhejiang Shibao's products include steering columns, DP-EPS, R-EPS, intelligent steering systems, wire-controlled steering systems, and other products