The change was quiet, on a page most drivers never visit. Tesla’s China website now sells its top driver-assistance package under a new name: “Tesla Assisted Driving.” The previous label — “Full Self-Driving Capability” — is gone, and the price is unchanged at 64,000 yuan, about $9,400. No announcement accompanied the edit.
The rename is the latest in a series of adjustments Tesla has made to the product’s Chinese branding as it prepares to roll out its supervised FSD system in the world’s largest auto market. Readhub noted this week that the feature has now been renamed multiple times in China, each shift tracking the same constraint: Chinese regulations sharply limit how automakers can describe Level 2 driver-assistance systems, and terms like “autonomous driving” or “full self-driving” are effectively off the table.
A name that keeps changing
The history shows the pattern. Last year Tesla dropped “FSD” from the Chinese title, moving from “FSD Intelligent Assisted Driving” to “Intelligent Assisted Driving.” Now the full name has been scrubbed further, and the website’s product tiers have been rebuilt around plainer labels — “Basic Assisted Driving,” “Enhanced Assisted Driving” and the top-tier “Tesla Assisted Driving,” which bundles the others and is described as coming in full later.
The constraint is regulatory, not marketing. China’s industry ministry standards for driver-assistance systems require Level 2 products to use “assisted driving” terminology and prohibit wording that could mislead buyers into thinking the system is fully autonomous. Tesla’s product page now reflects that language precisely, describing the package as capable of handling most driving tasks with minimal driver intervention in the future — a formulation that stays inside the rules.
The rollout context
The rename arrives as Tesla signals the feature is close to launch in China. The company announced last week that FSD Supervised is now available in a list of markets including China, and Tesla’s chief financial officer said in an earnings call that the company is targeting regulatory approval by the third quarter. The name change is widely read as the compliance work required before a wider rollout.
The competitive backdrop adds pressure. Xiaomi and Huawei have both pushed their own driver-assistance packages aggressively in China, and Tesla’s local sales have slipped — deliveries of the Model Y, its best-seller, fell 15% year over year in the first four months of 2026, according to industry data. FSD in China is a rare lever that could move those numbers, but only once the branding, data-security approvals and road testing all line up.
What the name signals
For Tesla, the naming saga illustrates a recurring tension: the company markets its system as capable of self-driving in the U.S., while in China it must describe the same software as an assist. The gap between capability and permissible vocabulary has forced repeated edits to the website, and each edit is a small concession to regulators who treat the words as the product.
Analysts who follow the Chinese market say the rename is a sign of maturity rather than retreat. Tesla is doing what local rivals have done — matching language to regulation — because it wants to sell the feature at scale. The name may be plainer, but the ambition is unchanged.
The regulatory standard behind the change is explicit. China’s “Safety Requirements for Combined Driver Assistance Systems of Intelligent Connected Vehicles” mandates that Level 2 systems use assisted-driving terminology and prohibits wording that could mislead consumers into believing a system is fully autonomous. The standard is enforced through type approval and market supervision, and automakers that ignore it risk their products being blocked from sale. Tesla’s repeated renames are, in effect, a negotiation with that rulebook, with each iteration moving further from the U.S. marketing language.
The pricing structure adds context. The renamed top tier costs 64,000 yuan and bundles everything in the lower tiers, which are priced at 32,000 yuan for the enhanced package. Tesla sells the software as a one-time payment in China, unlike the U.S. subscription model, and the package description promises the full capability will arrive later — language that manages expectations while keeping the product inside regulatory bounds.
Competitors are watching closely. Xpeng’s vice president said publicly this week that his company might be the only Chinese automaker welcoming FSD’s arrival, a remark widely read as a bet that Tesla’s entry will grow the market for premium driver-assistance features rather than merely shift share. Xiaomi and Huawei, both of which bundle advanced assistance into their vehicles, will face a direct comparison if Tesla’s renamed package reaches customers this year. For Tesla, the prize is a market where assisted-driving features have become a decisive purchasing factor — and where the label on the software now matches the rules that govern it.
Tesla’s top driving package in China has a new name and the same 64,000-yuan price. The change is compliance-driven, a product of Chinese rules that police the boundary between “assisted” and “autonomous.” For Tesla, it is the price of entry into a market where the words on the website can determine whether the software ships at all — and where the renamed feature is now one approval away from its biggest market test yet.
