Tesla is lobbying European regulators to allow its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system to be used across the EU. The company has been convincing officials that the technology improves road safety, but independent experts say Teslaʼs research does not support such conclusions.
This is stated in the Reuters material.
Reuters reviewed hundreds of pages of Tesla correspondence with regulators in the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Italy and Switzerland, as well as the companyʼs safety studies, and spoke with seven road safety researchers who have studied Teslaʼs methodology.
The Dutch regulator RDW approved the FSD in April. This is a significant step, as the EU process requires approval from one member state first, before the entire EU can also approve the decision. Regulators in other countries now rely heavily on Dutch research to resolve their own issues.
But as reporters have learned, Tesla has repeatedly tried to reduce the intensity of the regulator’s scrutiny and has insisted — with some success — on its own terms and methods for evaluating and testing.
Dutch officials have often responded with conciliatory tones, emphasizing their desire to work with Tesla on “shared” or “mutual” goals. Five experts on autonomous vehicle regulation who spoke to Reuters expressed concerns about the regulator’s impartiality.
There are also some complaints about Teslaʼs research. The company compared FSD cars driven by its professional engineers with regular Teslas driven by owners. Due to insufficient data, Tesla was unable to directly compare accident rates, so it used indirect indicators, such as hard braking, hard acceleration, use of turn signals, honking, and sharp turns.
All seven researchers interviewed by Reuters said the data did not prove Tesla’s main claim that FSD prevents fatal crashes. One researcher called the “lives saved” claims “nonsense”. The researchers also questioned Tesla’s use of professional driver engineers for comparison. Trained drivers are more familiar with how the autonomous driving system works and when and how they should intervene to prevent a crash.
Meanwhile, Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have been actively using social media to pressure European officials. Musk has urged the companyʼs supporters to demand faster approval of the system, and after criticism from the French transport minister, said that delaying the FSD permit "will cost lives".
Under pressure from Tesla, the position of some European countries has changed. In particular, France, which previously opposed the approval of FSD due to concerns about speeding and driver attention, has recently begun to talk about a “constructive exchange of views” with Tesla and the possibility of supporting the permit after the changes are made.
FSD has already been approved in the Netherlands, Lithuania, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Slovenia, Croatia and the Czech Republic. For a pan-European permit, Tesla needs the support of at least 15 of the 27 EU countries, which together represent at least 65% of the blocʼs population. The vote on FSD was previously postponed, with the next opportunity to make a decision not expected until December.
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