The CEO of NIO, China's high-profile electric vehicle maker, has publicly praised Tesla's Full Self-Driving software and expressed a desire to get hands-on access to its next iteration, according to BASENOR.
The endorsement is striking because NIO and Tesla are direct competitors in the premium EV space, particularly in China — one of the world's most fiercely contested automotive markets. For a rival CEO to openly admire a competitor's core technology rather than dismiss or downplay it signals just how seriously the industry views Tesla's autonomous driving ambitions.
Tesla's Full Self-Driving system, known as FSD, has been a long-running and often controversial software project. It uses cameras and neural network processing to handle highway driving, lane changes, and navigating city streets — though it still requires driver attention and is not considered fully autonomous by regulators.
NIO has its own driver-assistance technology and has invested heavily in smart vehicle features, making this public show of interest in Tesla's rival system all the more notable. Whether the NIO CEO's request to test the next version of FSD reflects a genuine benchmarking effort or a broader strategic curiosity remains unclear from available reporting.
What it makes plain is that in the global race toward self-driving cars, even fierce competitors are watching each other closely — and that Tesla's FSD continues to set the benchmark others measure themselves against.