11:04 06-05-2026

Tesla's autopilot has cleared the Netherlands: now come the questions about ice, speed and safety

The Dutch RDW gave a provisional green light to Tesla FSD Supervised on 10 April 2026. EU-wide approval still requires a Technical Committee vote in July or October.

Tesla has taken an important step toward launching Full Self-Driving in Europe: the Dutch regulator RDW gave a provisional approval to FSD Supervised after 18 months of testing on tracks and public roads. The Netherlands will now try to convince the EU Technical Committee to allow the system more widely, but a quick vote isn’t expected.

It’s important not to confuse the name with full autonomy. FSD Supervised is a driver-assist system, not a self-driving car. The car can steer, accelerate and turn on its own, but the driver is required to watch the road and be ready to intervene. The very name Full Self-Driving is what irritates some European regulators: in Sweden they explicitly asked whether such a name doesn’t give customers the false impression that the car really drives itself.

Tesla didn’t go down the standard European certification route, but instead used Article 39 of the EU rules — as a technology that the current rules don’t fully describe. The Netherlands issued the provisional approval on 10 April 2026, valid in its territory, and is now seeking recognition across the EU. Other countries can follow RDW’s lead right now, but no one has done so yet.

Skepticism isn’t only formal. In correspondence between regulators in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway, questions came up about the system’s tendency to speed, its behaviour on icy roads, its reaction to animals such as moose, and the possibility of bypassing safeguards meant to stop the driver from using a phone. Finnish officials specifically asked whether Tesla really intended to allow hands-free driving on icy roads at 80 km/h.

The assessments aren’t only negative. The Danish regulator noted that the cars handled the complex rush-hour traffic of Copenhagen well, and a Dutch representative tested the system around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The RDW says that, used correctly, FSD can improve safety, but it doesn’t publish the test details, citing commercial confidentiality.

The stakes are high for Tesla. In Europe the company has been losing market share, and FSD is sold as a paid feature that could potentially support profitability. Elon Musk has already said he expects approval in many countries and that Tesla will then push for driverless robotaxis. But that is still far off: today’s FSD requires a human in the loop.

The closest real step is the exchange of restricted documentation between agencies after the committee meeting. The next possible vote is not expected before July, with a more realistic timeline being after the summer or around October. For approval, a qualified majority of EU states is needed: 15 of 27 countries (55%), representing 65% of the bloc’s population.

The main question isn’t whether FSD can drive nicely in a demo, but whether Europe is ready to accept it as a mainstream driver-assist feature. So far Tesla has a provisional «yes» from the Netherlands, but to reach EU-wide clearance it has to make it through the hardest part of the route — not on the road, but in regulation.