FSD Supervised green light for Tesla in the Netherlands

Tesla has achieved a major milestone in Europe, having secured official approval for its supervised full self-driving system, popularly known as FSD (Supervised), for use on public roads in the Netherlands. This is the first authorisation this system has received on the continent, and obtaining it has been no easy task: it took more than a year and a half of waiting, a large number of exhaustive tests and countless bureaucratic procedures.

The Dutch authority RDW has finally granted approval after analysing thousands of pages of documentation in detail, running numerous test scenarios on closed tracks and public roads, and reviewing multiple safety studies. Tesla also demonstrated the system to regulators from nearly all European Union countries. Although Elon Musk had anticipated in January that approval would arrive “next month,” the process has dragged on longer than expected due to the rigorous European safety regulations.

Unlike the United States, where companies can self-certify their systems and regulators only step in if a problem arises, in Europe the process is much stricter and requires exhaustive prior validation. This explains why the rollout has been slower. Tesla states that over the last 18 months it has driven more than 1.6 million kilometres of internal testing with the FSD Supervised system developed for Europe and has offered driving experiences to more than 13,000 people in various European countries.

FSD Supervised saves lives

According to the company’s own data, vehicles equipped with FSD Supervised are up to seven times less likely to suffer a collision per kilometre driven compared with manual driving. It is important to remember, however, that FSD Supervised does not make the vehicle fully autonomous: the driver must remain attentive and is ultimately responsible for everything that may happen.

This approval in the Netherlands is an extremely important achievement for Tesla, as it opens the door to a possible extension of this supervised self-driving system to the rest of the European Union. The next step is for the RDW to pass its conclusions on to the European Commission, after which the Member States will decide whether to authorise its use across the entire bloc.