Tesla’s FSD Supervised Gets First EU Type Approval
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- RDW granted Tesla a type approval for its “Full Self‑Driving” Supervised system in the Netherlands, the first European country to officially approve the driver‑assist technology.
- UN R‑171 regulation governs the approval, which follows more than 18 months of testing and is currently valid only in the Netherlands, with other EU states able to recognize it nationally but not automatically.
- Tesla announced the approval on X, saying “FSD Supervised has been approved in the Netherlands & will begin rolling out in the country shortly,” and claimed the system is trained on billions of kilometres of real‑world data and that no other vehicle can do this.
- RDW clarified the system is a Level 2 driver‑assistance system, not autonomous, requiring the driver to stay ready to take over; sensors monitor attentiveness and can disable the system if inattentive.
- Testing program covered over 1.6 million km on EU roads, more than 13 000 customer ride‑alongs, and over 4 500 track test scenarios, satisfying more than 400 compliance requirements under UN R‑171 and Article 39 exemptions.
- Approval timeline was delayed by about three weeks from an expected March 20 date, after earlier RDW statements indicated the review was not yet complete, highlighting a gap between Tesla’s marketing timeline and the regulator’s process.
- BMW (and Ford) already hold similar driver‑assist approvals in Europe, which the RDW noted, contradicting Tesla’s claim that “no other vehicle can do this.”
Why it matters: The Dutch approval gives Tesla a foothold for expanding its Level 2 driver‑assist system across Europe, but the regulator’s emphasis on driver responsibility and the existence of comparable approvals for BMW and Ford undercut Tesla’s marketing claim of uniqueness, potentially tempering consumer expectations and influencing national approval timelines.
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