By LIU Jiaxin
Last week, a Tesla owner complained on social media that he was not allowed to enter the parking lot of an airport in Hunan Province. The airport responded on Tuesday that Tesla vehicles are free to enter public areas but not allowed in office areas. And it is not an isolated case. Teslas are not allowed to enter government office areas anywhere in the country.
The reason given is that Tesla's controversial sentry mode is able to record audio and video of its surroundings which poses a security threat.
Tesla said on Monday that sentry mode is an everyday safety feature in mainstream EVs and not unique to Tesla. When Tesla vehicles leave the factory, this function is set to off by default and needs to be manually activated by the owner to be used. The data from Tesla vehicles is stored offline on an in-car USB device, and neither the owner nor Tesla can remotely access it online.
What worth noting is that in Tesla’s response, the EV maker said it has established a data center in China and that all data generated from vehicles in China will be stored within the territory of China.
Meanwhile, Tesla is planning to launch its FSD (Full Self-Driving) mode in China. CITIC Securities, however, pointed out that FSD faces two major hurdles: qualification and data.
The qualification threshold refers to the fact Tesla's system detects the surrounding environment while driving and observes the driver's behavior. This may be considered map surveying and requires explicit government permission.
In terms of data, Tesla needs data centers in China to store and process the data collected by FSD, without sending it back to the United States. According to Tesla’s statement, the data storage problem will soon be resolved.
