Inside Tesla’s Battle to Get Full Self-Driving Authorized in Europe

For practically a 12 months, Tesla has been teasing a European rollout of Full Self-Driving, its driver-assist software program. It has posted movies of its vehicles navigating slender Roman streets, busy German boulevards, and Paris’s Arc de Triomphe — all whereas touting an formidable timeline for the product.

To get there, the automaker has needed to deal with what CEO Elon Musk has known as a “layer cake of forms.” As Tesla has pushed for approval of a system it says is 4 instances safer than human drivers, European regulators have moved slowly, requiring a degree of testing and oversight far past that of their US counterparts.

Inner Dutch regulatory information reviewed by Enterprise Insider present Tesla has taken a carrot-and-stick strategy in its efforts to broaden its Full Self-Driving system in Europe. Dutch officers, who maintain the keys to EU-wide authorization, have moved extra cautiously.

The mismatch underscores challenges that Tesla faces in its push to deploy self-driving expertise because it confronts slowing gross sales — in addition to a much less enthusiastic European public and stricter regulatory atmosphere.

Tesla didn’t reply to a request for remark. The Netherlands Automobile Authority, referred to as the RDW, mentioned that it could not reply questions by Enterprise Insider’s deadline as a result of staffers had been on trip.

The Dutch chokepoint

Tesla staff have expressed impatience with the intensive testing the RDW has required and the gradual tempo of its processes.

“Needless to say that is mission important for our management,” a Tesla worker wrote in an e mail to the RDW final November, urging the company to approve Tesla’s testing allow by the tip of the month.

Tesla’s dealings with the RDW are key to the corporate’s self-driving efforts throughout Europe. The corporate has requested the company to assist it get its Full Self Driving system accepted throughout the EU, the information present. (Regardless of its title, Full Self Driving requires a licensed operator behind the steering wheel, paying consideration and able to take the wheel, always.)

The RDW paperwork cowl a interval from September 2024 to January 2025, and present that Tesla met weekly with regulators starting in October. As of December, regulators had accepted 9 automobiles for testing within the nation.

Beginning final 12 months, Tesla additionally sought permission to check automobiles geared up with FSD software program in Denmark and Norway, in line with information shared with Enterprise Insider by Kees Roelandschap, a Tesla fan within the Netherlands who has carefully adopted its regulatory strikes in Europe.

The Norwegian Public Roads Administration declined to remark. A consultant for the Danish Highway Site visitors Authority confirmed Tesla acquired permission to check FSD this spring and “frequently informs us in regards to the course of.”

Whereas Tesla’s automobiles are allowed on European roads, their self-driving capabilities are rather more restricted than within the US. Maneuvers akin to freeway lane modifications require driver approval, and the automobiles usually can’t navigate intersections on their very own.

“It is very restrictive right here, and it is because of the laws,” mentioned Roelandschap. “Roundabouts, neglect it. It’s going to brake for visitors lights, however it can additionally brake for these lights in entrance of a railroad crossing.”

The strain between Tesla and the RDW comes at a vital juncture for the automobile firm. Musk mentioned in July that the carmaker hoped FSD would assist buoy gross sales.

The corporate’s inventory value is down about 18% year-to-date, and it has reduce costs in response to extra competitors and slumping demand in some markets. In Europe, Tesla gross sales by way of the primary 4 months of 2025 had been solely about half of what they had been within the first 4 months of 2024, with Chinese language rivals like BYD making beneficial properties, in line with Jato Dynamics.

Tesla’s marketing campaign for approval

The variety of automobiles Tesla delivered globally grew practically tenfold from 2017 to 2022, helped alongside by gross sales development in Europe, which accounted for a few fifth of its deliveries in 2023. The corporate has had a presence in Europe because it opened a hub within the Netherlands in 2013.

In its quest to have FSD accepted, Tesla has at instances pursued a attraction offensive, the paperwork present.

Tesla made plans for Musk to satisfy with RDW employees once they visited Tesla amenities in California, and the corporate shelled out round $30,000 to deliver a gaggle of RDW employees to its engineering headquarters in Palo Alto in November 2024.

It held an FSD “Expertise Day” within the car parking zone of the RDW’s headquarters in Zoetermeer, welcoming regulatory employees to get behind the wheel of its automated vehicles. Musk personally spoke with the RDW’s two managers in January; afterward, a Tesla worker wrote in an e mail that they made “good factors,” and Musk “will get it now higher.”

In emails, Tesla staff appeared pissed off with the permits the corporate has been requested to acquire, the exams it has been required to conduct, and scheduling and communications points with RDW staff.

They mentioned an accelerated testing timeline was essential to its success and requested the company to “be extra cheap of their requests,” claiming a testing snafu value “worthwhile time.” Additionally they argued that European drivers had been lacking out on new expertise.

“The system we’re making use of for on this letter has been made accessible to prospects in North America since 2018 and is consistently up to date to enhance its security and its capabilities ever since,” Tesla wrote in a November 2024 letter.

Tesla launched its FSD software program within the US to a restricted group of drivers in 2020 and to paying prospects throughout North America in 2022. The carmaker estimates that greater than a billion miles have been pushed utilizing FSD. Within the US, the software program can acknowledge cease lights, change lanes, and execute turns, although it has been faulted for generally ignoring visitors legal guidelines.

Nonetheless, the RDW has proceeded cautiously. In November 2024, when Tesla mentioned initiating FSD testing within the Netherlands that month was “mission important,” regulators mentioned that they had been engaged on a plan for the challenge.

Tesla didn’t obtain approval to start testing till greater than a month later.

Musk mentioned throughout Tesla’s earnings name in January that the corporate aimed for the RDW to current Tesla’s expertise to the EU in Could 2025.

The RDW seems to nonetheless be deliberating. In March, the Netherlands informed members of a European Fee technical advisory group that an unnamed producer would quickly submit an utility to the group for approval of a self-driving expertise. As of June, the group’s minutes indicated that the RDW “continues to be assessing the feasibility of the applying.”

John Creamer, an auto-industry advisor, mentioned in an e mail that European laws on driver-control help programs have not stored tempo with expertise utilized by the likes of Tesla. Such laws most likely will not be applied till late 2026 or 2027, he mentioned.

Not like the US, the place a number of corporations, together with Waymo and Zoox, have launched autonomous automobiles in choose cities, no AVs have been launched within the Netherlands up to now. A number of AV corporations are testing in Germany.

In an inside memo from October, company employees proposed carefully coordinating with its mother or father ministry, and, as soon as Tesla finishes gathering testing information, making a “joint Go/NoGo resolution” as as to whether to permit Tesla to roll out FSD throughout the nation. The mother or father ministry mentioned it could not be concerned in that call and that the RDW memo overstated its position.

Up to now, the RDW has been criticized for shifting too shortly in Tesla’s favor. Earlier this 12 months, an RDW whistleblower accused the company of permitting Tesla to abuse a regulatory loophole in 2015 to deploy its Autopilot software program, a sophisticated driver help system used on highways. The regulator informed Dutch broadcaster BNNVARA that it stood by its resolution.

A conflict of programs

Europe’s automotive {industry} has traditionally been rather more regulated than its US counterpart. Whereas American automakers can self-certify that they’ve complied with federal security requirements, a automobile can’t be offered in Europe except and till it has been “kind accepted” by regulators or their testing companions.

Approval for self-driving vehicles has hewed carefully to this precedent.

The US has develop into the “Wild West” for autonomous automobiles, Missy Cummings, a former security advisor for the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration, beforehand informed Enterprise Insider.

“There’s little or no regulation round coaching or informing the general public about testing,” she mentioned in October 2024.

Texas is within the strategy of launching new AV laws, however till lately, the state operated on an honor code. To launch a model of its Robotaxi service in Texas earlier this summer time, Tesla was solely required to offer proof of insurance coverage. In California, the place the corporate has been testing since 2014, it is required to submit details about incidents the place operators take over from the software program, and it should go a number of milestones earlier than it may start working on public roads.

Against this, Europe’s type-approval laws require testing by a authorities or unbiased technical service, and generally manufacturing unit inspections, earlier than a automobile or car element is allowed in the marketplace. Creamer, the automotive regulatory advisor, mentioned the RDW is extensively revered and is amongst a small group of European regulators which can be seen as extremely engaged on autonomous driving points.

Earlier than beginning testing this previous fall, Tesla needed to have its automobiles’ cybersecurity and software program replace administration practices audited. Tesla additionally needed to conduct an electromagnetic interference take a look at in California that an RDW inspector witnessed through videoconference.

Over-the-air software program updates additionally posed a problem for the handful of take a look at automobiles that the RDW has approved. In a December 2024 e mail, an RDW worker informed Tesla that its automobiles could not depart a car parking zone till the newest model of its software program was accepted. It is not clear from the emails how lengthy that took.

Within the US, against this, Tesla frequently releases new software program updates with out the piecemeal approval of regulators. It frequently exams out a number of totally different prototype variations of its AV software program in every week, Enterprise Insider beforehand reported.

In January, Tesla sought permission to conduct an over-the-air software program replace for a car that was concerned in an unspecified “incident,” in line with the paperwork. It is unclear what the incident entailed.

Within the meantime, Musk continues to vent his frustration on X.

“Tesla is ready for EU approval (sigh),” he wrote in Could.