Tesla joins race to lead voice assistant tech in Chinese EV market

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has filed its voice assistant, which runs on generative AI, with the cyberspace regulator in Shanghai. The feature is now among 158 AI-powered tools that have gone through China’s official registration process.

The Shanghai Cyberspace Administration made the announcement on its official WeChat account.

Musk’s Tesla has been trying hard to push up the leaderboards in China. However, the EV maker’s Full Self Driving feature is still awaiting regulatory approval for launch.

The filing is not as big a China win for Tesla. It was a regulatory requirement. China’s Cyberspace Administration has been strict about AI tools. It requires companies to register generative AI features before they can legally run in the country. Hundreds of AI services had already passed through this process by the end of 2024.

In fact, the announcement sent Tesla’s shares down. While the registration itself is a routine compliance step, investors got a red flag of a tightening regulatory environment that global automakers now face when deploying AI features in China.

Still, the timing matters. Tesla is under growing pressure from Chinese rivals like BYD and Geely, which have been building out AI-driven in-car features at a fast pace.

To stay competitive, Tesla is reportedly planning to fold in AI models from Chinese technology companies, DeepSeek for conversation and ByteDance’s Doubao for voice tasks like navigation and controlling the climate system. That marks a notable shift: rather than running a single global AI system, Tesla is now building a separate setup for China, one that works within local rules and connects to local platforms.

Volkswagen and Rivian push deeper into AI

Just a day before Tesla’s filing, Volkswagen also announced AI voice tech in China. The German automaker will be rolling out the feature across all of its cars in China by the second half of 2026.

The system won’t be cloud-dependent as it runs directly on the car using a large language model stored on board. The technology is drawn from Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu.

Thomas Ulbrich, Volkswagen’s China chief technology officer, said the assistant is designed to read what drivers want before they ask, with a built-in sense of personality.

Volkswagen also unveiled four vehicles at a Beijing media event, including a new model developed with Chinese EV maker Xpeng, a partnership built in just two years. The company also showed its first fully electric car in the FAW-Volkswagen ID. AURA line. Plans call for more than 20 new electric models to launch in China in 2026 alone. A more advanced agentic AI system, one that handles both driving assistance and cockpit controls together, is planned for next year.

As part of the joint venture worth up to $5.8 billion, Rivian and VW have brought in Manasi Vartak as Vice President of AI and Data. She will be focusing on the Rivian Unified Intelligence platform and the Rivian Voice Assistant.

Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid had promised delivery of the voice feature in early 2026. However, it was left out of the most recent over-the-air update.

When voice commands go wrong

While EV makers are pushing the voice features, a recent crash in China raises doubts about the complete safety of these systems.

According to reports, a driver told the car, Lynk & Co Z20, to turn off the interior reading lights at night. But the voice feature glitched and turned the headlights off. The driver was also unable to get them back on before hitting a barrier on the road.

On Weibo, the general manager of the car company Mu Jun made an apology and said the software was urgently being fixed. Now, the headlights can only be controlled manually while the car is moving.

Similar problems have been occurring with other brands like Zeekar and Deepal.

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