Mercedes L4 vehicle autonomy in Beijing tests as Tesla still waits on FSD China approval

After becoming the first car company to receive conditional authorization for sales of vehicles with Level 3 autonomy in the U.S., Mercedes-Benz is now the first foreign automaker to get approval for L4 self-driving tests in China.

"Mercedes-Benz becomes first international car maker to obtain approval for Level 4 automated driving testing on urban roads and highways in Beijing for privately owned vehicles," bragged the storied German automaker.

It has now sent custom Mercedes S-class vehicles equipped with LiDAR, mmWave radar, and a redundant array of sensors for extra safety, to test its Level 4 vehicle autonomy solution on Chinese roads.

Tesla, on the other hand, is still waiting on the Chinese authorities to approve its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system.

At the last quarterly earnings call, Elon Musk was optimistic that FSD China and Europe editions will come this year, before its Robotaxi autonomous vehicle does its first ride some time in 2025.

Tesla is now careful enough to slot its FSD option in the Level 2 autonomous driving category for obvious regulatory and insurance reasons, though, despite the fact that Elon Musk first said "FSD will be capable of Level 5 autonomy by the end of 2021" in, well, January 2021.

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