Tesla and CEO Elon Musk held a special event for Roadster and Model S owners in Hong Kong today. Musk revealed that he hopes to obtain approval to soon enable the ‘Autosteer’ feature of the company’s Autopilot system, which has been disabled in Hong Kong since November, just a few weeks after its release.
The local Transport Department wasn’t comfortable with the ‘Autosteer’ and ‘Auto Lane Change’ features of the Autopilot and asked Tesla to temporarily disable the feature. The company complied, but remained in discussion with the regulators to try to obtain approval as soon as possible.
Update: As pointed out by one of our readers, we seem to have misquoted Musk. It’s only a “meeting” on Tuesday and not the “release”. Sorry about any confusion.
As per Musk’s comment during the special event, it sounds like Tesla and the Transport Department are close to an agreement. While addressing the crowd, Musk said:
“We’ll be meeting with the government tomorrow – hopefully. We are going to have some conversations and hopefully they will consider allowing us to release Autopilot in Hong Kong. I’m cautiously optimistic it’s going to be a good meeting tomorrow (Tuesday Jan 26).”
The CEO also disclosed Tesla’s plans for expansion in the city, which include a new service center, more superchargers and the Model X to start shipping during the second half of the year in Hong Kong.
Here’s the presentation in full:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12FVtZh5SLs&feature=youtu.be&t=127
Here’s the video Musk presents during the event:
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I like how Tesla is progressing, wish it all the luck in the world and see it progress far into the future!