Today in Brussels, European automotive regulatory bodies, including the Dutch road authority RDW, will meet with the aim of supporting the approval request for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) supervised technology across the European Union. The meeting represents a significant step in the company’s race towards formal recognition of the feature in the EU market, but it offers no certainty neither on a possible positive outcome nor on the timing. The decision-making process is indeed marked by technical evaluations and procedural steps that can take months.
Tesla FSD: possible breakthrough in Europe
On the matter, it is worth clarifying that Tesla’s “supervised FSD” does not equate to an autonomous driving system in the common sense of the term. Rather, it is a driver assistance system. In practice, vehicles can steer, turn, and accelerate autonomously, but only with a human driver who must constantly supervise, keeping their eyes on the road and always ready to intervene. Tesla’s strategy, instead of following the normal approval procedure provided for vehicles in Europe, aims to obtain an exemption/approval for the FSD system as a technology that the traditional regulatory process would not adequately cover.
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First the Netherlands, then the rest of the EU
According to Reuters, this possibility is embedded in Article 39 of the European vehicle approval regulation, which allows a Member State to issue a provisional approval on its own territory, then subjecting it to a broader acceptance process at the EU level. So far, the RDW has issued a provisional approval starting from April 10, allowing the use of the system on Dutch roads and initiating the notification and advancement of the request towards other European bodies, through exchange channels provided by the process. Today, at the European level, no immediate vote is scheduled, and the calendar is uncertain, with a possibility that any decisions may not come before July.
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