European regulators are quietly green-lighting Tesla’s self-driving technology

On April 10, the Dutch road authority RDW quietly issued a type approval for Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) Level 2 software. Within weeks, regulatory authorities in Lithuania, Estonia and Denmark followed suit, adopting the Dutch approval in their own rules. Now the Belgians have joined up.

After decades of EU regulatory summits, complex cross-party meetings, and expert testimony sessions, it only took one signature in the Netherlands to open European roads to autonomous driving. The domino has fallen.

Though it’s taken some time, the approval of supervised self-driving technology and quick passporting to other European countries show us what smart regulation can deliver.

European crawl to sprint

Unlike the driverless robotaxis from Waymo and Tesla found on some American streets, Tesla’s driver assistance software, Full Self-Driving Supervised, only partially controls a vehicle when enabled. This is useful for lane switches on long drives or the stress of stop-and-go traffic. A sensor is required to confirm that a driver’s eyes remain fixed on the road and their hands are within reach of the steering wheel. Importantly, the driver retains all liability for accidents and incidents.

This technology has been approved in several states and localities in the United States and Canada since at least 2022.

Before this year, regulations have kept millions of European Tesla owners locked out of FSD capability despite it being installed natively in their vehicles. Following draft regulations from the United Nations on Automated Driving Systems and a fragmented patchwork of 27 different transportation ministries, regulators had soured on approving the technology until enough safety data and tests could be compiled.

Tesla then spent nearly two years and logged over 1.6 million kilometers on European roads to satisfy conditional Dutch approval, which has now been expanded to five countries in just two months since The Hague gave its blessing.

The mutual recognition mechanism built into EU type-approval rules is what allowed such a quick and quiet regulatory expansion of Tesla’s technology. Once one national authority certifies a technology under UN Regulation 171, other member states can recognize that certification without repeating the full testing process. That's why Lithuania activated FSD nine days after the Netherlands, and 12 more countries are pending.

An Immediate Upgrade to Road Safety

Why does approving self-driving cars and the tech that underpin them matter? Because while those tests were being conducted to satisfy regulators, human drivers were crashing.

The Dutch safety data found that FSD is three times safer than manual human driving. That’s not just slightly safer, that’s monumental, especially for the nearly 20,000 Europeans who die each year in car accidents.

Real-time safety data from the United States is even more persuasive. Tesla’s own data from over 16 billion FSD kilometers boasts 88% fewer major collisions when compared to human-driven cars. Waymo, the Google-backed fully autonomous robotaxis with no drivers behind the wheel, found that its fleet of cars, which have driven close to 275 million kilometers with no one behind the wheel, have had 92% fewer serious-injury crashes compared to human drivers.

These numbers are both self-reported, but they provide a real-world lens on how self-driving technology saves lives on roads.

The critics pour ice on the proposals

Though first-mover member states have approved the technology, others are reaching for the brake pedal. The European Transport Safety Council has asked the European Commission to suspend all approvals until there is a larger "societal debate". Sweden’s transportation authority has stonewalled any unlocking of the tech until there’s assurance Teslas won’t go above legal speed limits, and Finland and Norway are skeptical FSD can handle their icy roads.

These questions aren’t unreasonable, but they don’t negate the positive findings from the Dutch safety studies and the billions of miles run by Tesla vehicles elsewhere.

While member states adopt the Dutch approval at their own pace, full EU-wide harmonization is the logical next step. Extending FSD access to all 27 member states would require a Commission vote and approval, and it seems it’s a tall order.

European drivers who want access to technology that demonstrably reduces accidents will benefit from smart regulations in the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, and a handful of other countries. This is positive news.

There likely won’t be fleets of completely autonomous self-driving vehicles in Europe anytime soon, but if a few bold member states can lead the way, then consumers can benefit from safer and more technologically capable cars. What’s not to love?