Tesla secures first European approval for ‘FSD (Supervised)’ driver assistance system

As anticipated by Tesla last month, the electric vehicle manufacturer has now officially received type approval from the Dutch authority RDW for its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system.

This is a driver assistance system in which the vehicle can take control, allowing the driver to remove their hands from the steering wheel (‘hands-off’). However, the driver must continuously monitor the road and remain prepared to take over at any time. In principle, FSD (Supervised) enables automated door-to-door navigation—but with the caveat that the driver may need to intervene.

Initially launched in the US as a beta version in 2020 and rolled out to more customers in 2022 under the name Full Self-Driving, Tesla was previously required by regulatory pressure in the US to add the ‘(Supervised)’ designation. This clarification emphasises that the system is not a fully autonomous driving system but rather an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) that requires driver supervision—even if the driver may only need to intervene every few hundred kilometres.

The approval in the Netherlands marks a significant milestone for the rollout of FSD (Supervised) across the EU. The Dutch type approval is expected to streamline Tesla’s efforts to secure approval in other EU member states, as it can serve as a blueprint. There are two possible approaches: Tesla may first attempt to secure pan-EU approval through a vote coordinated by the European Commission. If this is not successful, individual EU countries could still adopt the Dutch decision.

To obtain the Dutch type approval, Tesla completed 1.6 million kilometres of test drives with FSD (Supervised) active in Europe. This included demonstration drives with around 13,000 Tesla customers in the passenger seat, while a Tesla employee was behind the wheel. Additionally, Tesla conducted over 4,500 test scenarios on race tracks outside public traffic.

Tesla relies almost exclusively on the vehicle’s external cameras and artificial intelligence to navigate through traffic for its driver assistance and autonomous driving systems. Most competitors, however, use additional sensors, which increases costs. There has long been debate over whether Tesla’s technology can eventually enable fully autonomous driving—without driver intervention—as CEO Elon Musk has suggested. This claim, however, is doubted by many experts.

Update 10 June 2026

Tesla has now also received approval in Denmark to use its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) driver-assistance system. However, as the system still needs to be approved by the European Commission, the authorisation is provisional for the time being, as is the case in the three other countries mentioned above.

Source: via email, rdw.nl, x.com, fstyr.dk (update; in Danish)