Chinese automakers will likely maintain their leadership positions in the race of smart driving technologies even as Tesla’s full self-driving (FSD) features become available to customers,erotice Ouyang Minggao, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Science, told a media event on Tuesday. Ouyang, also vice chair of Chinese think tank EV100 and a standing committee member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), attributed his confidence to a growing trend among local carmakers to integrate DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence models into their in-vehicle systems. The comments were delivered immediately after Tesla earlier in the day started rolling out a software update for customers in China that enables advanced driver-assistance capabilities similar to those marketed as Full Self-Driving in the US. The US carmaker avoided using the term in its publicity of the software update in China, Bloomberg reported, as chief executive Elon Musk told investors last month that the company was facing challenges launching FSD in China. [Bloomberg, TechNode reporting, Jiemian, in Chinese]