Tesla owners in China will be able to pay for parking straight from the car's screen. Tesla has signed a cooperation agreement with Alipay, the Ant Group payment app, to bring Alipay's in-car assistant to its vehicles in China, starting with a smart parking payment service, Chinese outlet Jiemian reported on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026. Reuters also reported the deal, citing state-backed media.
The parking feature will arrive through a future software update, so owners can pay fees on the infotainment screen instead of taking out a phone to scan a code or open a WeChat Mini Program, EV reports. "More convenience features for in-car lifestyle scenarios are under development," Tesla said.
What is not known yet
The reports did not say when the update will ship, which models it covers or how many parking lots will accept the payments.
Part of a wider China software push
Alipay joins a growing list of Chinese tech partners inside Tesla's cars there, EV notes. In February, Tencent said it worked with Tesla on "WeChat Connect" and "Destination Services" for more than 1 million Model 3 and Model Y cars in China. On July 31, Tesla began rolling out update 2026.14.13 in China with ByteDance's Doubao large language model, which needs a 9.99 yuan ($1.48) a month Premium Connectivity plan. In the U.S., Tesla cars use xAI's Grok instead.
The deal lands as Tesla's domestic China sales slide while Shanghai exports climb. Tesla sold 64,837 cars in China in September, down 9.4% from a year earlier, while Giga Shanghai's exports rose 58.3% to 30,529, according to China Passenger Car Association data cited by EV.
More: our Q3 earnings preview ahead of Wednesday's report.
