Tesla brings Full Self-Driving to Europe – with test drives

Tesla hopes to offer its "Full Self Driving" assistance system (FSD) with EU approval in Europe next year. However, interested parties can get a first impression as early as this year—during demo rides as passengers.

“While Tesla owners around the world have already driven more than ten billion kilometres with the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) feature, the function is now coming to Europe for the first time,” the carmaker announced. In Germany, Tesla offers test drives in real traffic, starting at its stores in Munich, Cologne, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Giessen, Hanover, Berlin and Stuttgart – but only as passengers, with Tesla staff behind the wheel.

New information on the approval process emerged this week. On X, Tesla announced that the Dutch authority RDW had agreed to grant approval for FSD functions for its own country in February 2026. In response, the authority confirmed that it had agreed with Tesla on the schedule through to February 2026. By then, Tesla must demonstrate that FSD Supervised meets the requirements. If it does not, the approval will not be granted. “RDW and Tesla know what efforts need to be made to make a decision on this in February. Whether the schedule can be met remains to be seen,” the authority stated.

The procedure in brief: if a company wants to introduce a new technology in Europe for which there is currently no legislation, it can apply for an exemption from market approval. For this, an EU member state must submit an application to the European Commission on behalf of the manufacturer. An EU committee then decides on the application. If there is a majority, the manufacturer receives the exemption for all member states – if not, the exemption remains valid only in the member state that filed it. However, before submitting the application, the manufacturer must prove that the system complies with the regulations. Even if Tesla can provide this proof, it does not automatically mean approval for the FSD Supervised system.

In its latest statement (available to electrive in German), Tesla reaffirms its vision-only approach without “expensive sensors or HD maps”.

“Similar to how humans use their eyes and brains to drive, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is based solely on pure visual perception together with powerful processing, which increases affordability for customers and supports future development. There is, however, an important difference: humans can become distracted. Cameras and neural networks cannot. Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is trained using real video data from billions of kilometres driven by the global Tesla fleet, which includes more than 6 million vehicles,” the company states.

Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is already available in Australia, Canada, China, Mexico, New Zealand and the USA. “Tesla expects that Full Self-Driving (Supervised) can be introduced in Europe at the beginning of 2026,” the statement continues. “Tesla has been working intensively on the introduction of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) in Europe for over twelve months. Demo rides have been presented to the authorities of almost all European countries. Detailed safety evidence for Full Self-Driving (Supervised) has been prepared and published; it is now publicly available in Tesla’s latest safety report.”

Source: Info via email (statement; in German), tesla.com (registration for test rides)

This article was first published by Sebastian Schaal for electrive’s German edition.