Tesla's fully autonomous driving system FSD has once again caused a stir among stock market investors.

On Thursday, September 5, Eastern Time, $Tesla (TSLA.US)$closing up nearly 5%, with a cumulative increase of over 9% in two days.

Before the significant surge on Thursday, Tesla's official account on social media platform X, Tesla AI, posted a roadmap for the release of new products by Tesla's AI team. The roadmap stated that the FSD system is expected to be launched in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025, pending approval from regulatory agencies in both regions. Tesla representatives in China confirmed the news to Securities Times, stating that it is true and that they are currently waiting for regulatory approval.

The roadmap announced on Thursday means that the most advanced autonomous driving technology of FSD may land in the Chinese market as early as four months from now. This is a slight delay compared to Musk's previous expectations. During the Q2 earnings call in July this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that Tesla plans to apply for regulatory approval and implement supervised FSD in China and Europe, expecting approval to be granted before the end of this year. The FSD system will be introduced to "China, Europe, and other countries" when it iterates to version V12.5 or V12.6.

In the latest post on social media platform X, Tesla's AI team also introduced recent iterative improvements to FSD, including the release of version V12.5.2 in September, with a 3-fold increase in takeover rate. This version is compatible with the HW3.0 platform and achieves unified models with the 4.0 platform. It also introduces the True Autosteer function, Cybertruck automatic parking, support for wearing sunglasses in attention detection, a unified technical stack for highways and cities, all based on an end-to-end approach. In October, FSD will introduce reverse driving and parking from spot to spot, and version V13 is expected to average a 6-fold increase in takeover rate.

In recent months, there have been frequent rumors of FSD landing in China. Wall Street News has mentioned that after Musk's visit to China in April, the FDS entry into China seems to have been fast-tracked. Tesla entered the China Automotive Association's data compliance list during his visit, and afterwards, Baidu granted Tesla mapping qualification and provided lane-level navigation system. In June, Tesla China launched Baidu Map V20. At the beginning of June, a Tesla employee accidentally leaked during a live broadcast that the internal test version of FSD V12 was possibly being tested in China. At the end of June, Zhu Xiaotong, Tesla's vice president, was asked when FSD would land during his store visit in Shanghai and his response was "soon".

Tesla's FSD landing roadmap has further fueled investors' expectations for revenue creation from autonomous driving technology. Susannah Streeter, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, believes that given Tesla's collaboration with Baidu, Tesla's approval in China may be easier than in Europe. Ping An Securities predicts that FSD entry into China may become a "big fish" in the domestic autonomous driving field, accelerating the landing process of advanced autonomous driving in China, benefiting leading car companies or suppliers in the field of advanced autonomous driving.

Some comments believe that besides the disclosure of the timing for FSD entering china and europe, Tesla's stock price surged this Thursday was also driven by a well-known Tesla bull, Morgan Stanley's auto industry analyst Adam Jonas reiterated that Tesla is the "top choice" among the U.S. auto stocks he covers. In a recent report, Jonas gave Tesla a buy rating and a target price of $310. This target price implies that he expects Tesla's stock price to rise by over 34% from the closing price this Thursday.

Editor/Somer