Tesla's Chinese division plans to introduce in-car voice assistance using DeepSeek and Bytedance's Doubao model for hands-free control of navigation and climate features. Doubao will process user voice commands while DeepSeek handles AI interaction. Grok, xAI's chatbot, has seen limited Tesla rollout in the US and has faced privacy, misinformation, and white supremacist-related controversies. DeepSeek's V3.1 model claims near-Grok-4 intelligence performance at roughly one twelfth the cost, and DeepSeek has gained prominence in China. Legal, consumer-preference, and perception factors may explain Grok's absence from Tesla China.
So far, 2025 hasn't exactly been a year of resounding success for centibillionaire Elon Musk's AI efforts. The richest man on earth has struggled to get xAI's Grok off the ground, with setbacks taking the form of privacy scandals, misinformation controversies, not to mention a highly-public white supremacy episode. And now, more than a month after Musk promised to roll Grok out to Teslas "next week," it turns out a Chinese AI model will be taking the chatbot's place.
According to Bloomberg, Tesla's Chinese division is planning to introduce in-car voice assistance via DeepSeek and Bytedance's AI models at some point in the near future. Essentially, the voice-controlled software will let drivers utilize amenities like navigation apps and climate control hands-free. Bytedance's Doubao, the company's flagship large language model (LLM) chatbot, will process user voice commands, while DeepSeek will handle "AI interaction," Bloomberg reported.
Collection
[
|
...
]