(Yicai) Aug. 22 -- Tesla has partnered with ByteDance’s enterprise technology unit Volcano Engine to integrate two large language models into the new Model Y L sport utility vehicles in China.

The TikTok parent’s Doubao LLM and a separate model from Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek will be embedded into the long-wheelbase Model Y L via Volcano Engine, according to updated terms of use for Tesla’s voice assistant on Tesla China's website.

Doubao will handle voice command functions, including navigation, media playback, air conditioning settings, and responses to manual queries. The DeepSeek model will support AI-powered voice chat services.

The move could reflect Tesla’s efforts to address past consumer complaints over lagging smart functions in its in-car system. Tesla’s voice assistant has previously been criticized for failing to recognize Chinese dialects and for losing conversational context. The company also does not support CarPlay or Android Auto, limiting smartphone integration, and users must still enter destination addresses manually.

Tesla introduced the AI chatbot Grok in the United States earlier this year, but access is limited to certain models, and use is restricted to non-vehicle-related topics. It cannot control navigation, climate, or windows.

According to a Forbes report on Aug. 20, Grok recently experienced a significant data breach, exposing up to 370,000 AI chat records. These included user-uploaded photos, spreadsheets, and documents that were indexed by search engines and publicly accessible.

Editor: Emmi Laine