A Li L9 Livis on display at the Beijing Auto Show in April 2026. Credit: CnEVPost
- There is no system other than Tesla’s FSD that can rank among the first tier, a Li Auto executive said.
- The company plans to bring its in-house “Mach VLA” in line with Tesla’s FSD V14 in the fourth quarter.
An executive at Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) gave high marks to Tesla’s autonomous driving technology, warning that domestic Chinese peers face a real gap.
At the Livis Day software and embodied intelligence event held in Beijing on June 15, Zhan Kun, head of foundation models at Li Auto, discussed the global competitive landscape for smart driving.
He said that no other system other than Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) has so far been able to enter the first tier.
Zhan revealed that several industry peers returning from Silicon Valley had previously given him and Li Auto CEO Li Xiang the same assessment.
To verify this, he flew to Silicon Valley in May 2026, spending two straight weeks closely testing the latest FSD V14.3 version that Tesla had pushed out in April.
Zhan acknowledged that Tesla’s technical depth is real, and that the pressure to catch up after confronting the gap is very tangible.
He said that truly feeling the pressure proves one is looking the strongest rival on this planet in the eye, rather than lulling oneself amid domestic infighting.
After returning home, Li Auto gathered its core algorithm team for a full review.
He said that fully mastering and catching up with Tesla’s technical capabilities will be the core premise for eventually pulling ahead.
The remarks come as competition in China’s smart driving sector heats up.
Tesla announced via the social platform X in May that its FSD Supervised is now available in several markets, including China.
This marked the first time the US electric vehicle (EV) maker has formally confirmed that its advanced driving features have entered the world’s largest auto market, though details still lack.
Against this backdrop, domestic players are stepping up their in-house development to narrow the distance with Tesla.
On the technology front, Li Auto unveiled its smart driving roadmap for the second half of 2026 at the event.
Zhan said that Li Auto’s in-house vision-language-action model “Mach VLA” will roll out a new version in the third quarter to all models equipped with AD Max hardware.
He added that by the fourth quarter, Mach VLA’s full-scenario driving capability will be fully aligned with Tesla’s FSD V14.
The Li L9 Livis is currently equipped with the Mach VLA 2.1 system. On the hardware side, the model uses Li Auto’s in-house Mach M100 chip, with a single-chip computing power of 1,280 TOPS and dual-chip collaboration reaching 2,560 TOPS.
Li Auto is not the only Chinese carmaker to publicly benchmark itself against Tesla.
Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV) chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng has previously said that the company’s VLA smart driving system will match the overall performance of Tesla’s FSD V14.2 in Silicon Valley by August 2026.
He has twice traveled to Silicon Valley to test FSD in person, saying the latest version has entered a reassuring near-L4 experience.
Xpeng CEO gave Tesla’s FSD V14.2 high praise, saying it has reached a near-Level 4 of reassuring experience.
