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In an aberrant move that likely takes into account Chinese sensitivities vis-à-vis Western tech, Tesla is now equipping its EVs in China with AI models from DeepSeek, eschewing xAI's Grok Large Language Model (LLM).
To wit, the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) registrations of Tesla EVs in China now clearly mention DeepSeek under the AI subcategory. This sharply contrasts with Tesla's approach in almost every other market, where xAI's Grok LLM handles AI-related tasks.
This development comes as China's politburo has become increasingly sensitive to perceptions of becoming "addicted to [the] American technology stack," an ancillary aim of the Trump administration as recently espoused by the US Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick.
As an illustration of this emerging paradigm shift, consider the fact that China is now actively discouraging its tech companies from purchasing NVIDIA's H20 GPUs amid fears of backdoor spyware, threatening to impose sweeping bans on the use of the chip.
Of course, with China's homegrown AI chips continuing to offer subpar performance, with DeepSeek reportedly forced to delay the launch of its R2 model recently due to the inferior training capability of AI chips from Huawei, it remains to be seen how successful Beijing would be in imposing its will on China's otherwise vibrant tech sector.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk announced earlier today that Tesla FSD version 14 will launch in September. The next month will also see xAI start training the next version of the Grok LLM, which has a "shot at being true AGI," as per a hyperbole-laden X post from Musk.
Finally, do note that the NHTSA has now opened a preliminary investigation into Tesla's crash reporting delays, where the agency was sometimes notified months after an event when rules mandate prompt notification.
Given the increasing number of headwinds around Tesla these days, it is hardly a surprise that puts on the stock remain high in demand and pricey.
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