TMTPOST --  Tesla Inc. sticks to its plan to roll out Full Self-driving (FSD) advanced driver assistant in China despite challenges challenges including artificial intelligence (AI) train in the the world's largest electric vehicle (EV) market.

Credit:Tesla

Tesla missed the top and bottom line in the quarter ended December 31, ending 2024 with its first yearly decline in sales since 2011. But the EV giant guided a return to growth this year and CEO Elon Musk expressed optimism about the autonomy efforts, especially the expansion of FSD software in the major markets.

Tesla's revenue for the fourth quarter rose 2% year-over-year (YoY) to $25.71 billion, less than analysts' estimates of  $27.21 billion. Earnings per share (EPS) popped 3% YoY to $0.73 whereas analysts estimated $0.75. Automotive revenues that quarter dropped 8% YoY to $19.8 billion, mainly dragged by reduced vehicle average selling price (ASP) amid the price war.

Tesla reported deliveries of 495,445 for the December quarter with a 7% YoY decrease, and 1,789,226 units for the full year, 1% down from 2023. However, Tesla achieved record deliveries in China in the quarter and Model Y became the best-selling vehicle for the year in the market, according to its Q4 Quarterly Update letter.Tesla said 2024 saw Model Y gained the top spot by sales of any type vehicles in many European countries including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands, and it expected the model to have been the second best-selling vehicle of any type in the continent.

"With the advancements in vehicle autonomy and the introduction of new products, we expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025," Tesla said in the Q4 letter, adding that the growth rate will depend on a variety factors such as the pace of its autonomy efforts.

In the fourth quarter, Tesla continued to leverage AI to drive the expansion of self-driving technology. The company completed the deployment of Cortex, a training cluster containing 500,000 Nvidia H100 graphics processing units (GPUs) at Gigafactory Texas. Cortex helped enable V13 of FSD (Supervised), which boasts major improvements in safety and comfort thanks to 4.2x increase in data, higher resolution video inputs, 2x reduction in photon-to-control latency and redesigned controller. FSD (Supervised) can now start from park and perform unpark, reverse and park capabilities.

Musk said at an earnings call Tesla is going to launch "unsupervised full self-driving as a paid service"  in Austin, Texa, in June. That means Tesla plans to start its paid robotaxi service powered by FSD (Supervised) software  in Texas in mid-2025. Musk didn't update the FSD rollout timetable in China, though listed challenges Tesla is facing including data collection for AI to train the FSD software.

Musk described Tesla's situation as a quandary for the Chinese government doesn't allow Tesla to transfer training video outside of China, and the US government won't let it do training in China. Tesla's way to overcome it is to create a simulation. Musk told analysts the company searched videos of streets in China that are available on the internet to understand, then fed that into its video training and put it into a very accurate simulator. It also had to made the simulator replicate complex traffic rules like what time of the day bus lanes are available for automotive transportation as well as very complicated road conditions of the lanes.

Musk also talked about what made FSD difficult to hit the European countries. "Europe is a layer cake of regulations of bureaucracy, that really needs to be addressed," the chief executive said.

Nevertheless, Musk said Tesla will get these challenges addressed and expected the company will have unsupervised FSD in almost every market this year, with limited supply due to regulatory issues. For unsupervised FSD, Musk said Tesla will have that software across U.S. next year,  hopes that the company can provide it in most countries by the end of next year.

Tesla AI team in last September posted on social media platform X that Tesla will release FSD in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025, pending for regulatory approval. The timetable is true and the application for FSD rollout is waiting for Chinese regulators' greenlight, a person from Tesla China later that month told Chinese national financial newspaper the Securities Times.