Published: 7:00am, 23 Aug 2025Updated: 7:23am, 23 Aug 2025
Tesla is rolling out an upgraded voice assistant system for its electric vehicles (EVs) in mainland China, adopting artificial intelligence from DeepSeek and ByteDance to better engage with customers in the world’s largest automotive market.
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DeepSeek’s namesake chatbot would be used for “AI interaction”, which enables a Tesla EV’s driver to have casual conversations with the system, while also getting the latest news and weather information, according to the updated terms of use posted this month on the US carmaker’s mainland website.
ByteDance’s Doubao large language model (LLM) would facilitate voice commands for navigation as well as in-vehicle media and amenities such as air conditioning, according to the updated terms.
A user activates the upgraded voice assistant system by saying “Hey, Tesla” or another designated phrase, providing a more intuitive approach than clicking a button on either the EV’s steering wheel or multimedia terminal.
Volcano Engine, the cloud computing services unit of ByteDance, is responsible for the AI systems integration using an encrypted application programming interface, a protocol that enables different software applications to communicate.
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Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
