China’s Government Car Procurement Includes Tesla for the First Time

China has included a Tesla model for the first time in its list of cars the government and party can use as a service car, according to Chinese media.

Tesla’s Model Y can now be purchased by government, party, and public organizations in the new batches of new energy vehicle (NEV) procurement, official Chinese media outlet the paper reports.

The provincial government of the Jiangsu province in eastern China has already published 56 batches of NEV procurements for use as service cars. Apart from Tesla’s Model Y manufactured in the Shanghai factory, the provincial government would be procuring vehicles from Volvo, majority owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, and from 54 other batches, all of which were for Chinese electric vehicles and hybrids.   

Until recently, Tesla’s vehicles were banned from Chinese government and military compounds over concerns about data collection and security.

Back in 2021, China banned personnel from parking Teslas at military compounds, as well as the use of Tesla by people working at state agencies and sensitive industries, due to concerns that sensors and built-in cameras in Teslas could collect sensitive data about China.

These restrictions have been dropped after Tesla won in April an endorsement from a major Chinese carmakers’ association, which said that Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y cars were compliant with data-security regulations.

China has been a very important market for Tesla, which built in Shanghai its first Gigafactory outside the United States, to level the playing field on the competitive Chinese EV market with electric cars made in China.

Elon Musk visited China on an unannounced trip in late April and made progress on Tesla’s efforts to rollout the Full Self-Driving (FSD) software and discuss the data-transfer permissions.

Tesla has also reportedly reached an agreement with China’s Baidu to use the Chinese tech giant’s mapping license for data collection on China’s public roads, sources with knowledge of the plans told Reuters. The deal could be a step forward for Tesla rolling out FSD in China.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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