Tesla’s plan to offer a one-month free trial of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) capability in the US is hitting a speed bump when it comes to rolling it out in Canada. As Elon Musk announced that all US Teslas with the hardware will get a temporary FSD trial this week, many Canucks were left wondering – ‘what about us?’
Clearing up the confusion, Rohan Patel from Tesla’s Policy and Business Development team shed some light on the Canadian FSD delay. In a X post, he reassured Tesla owners that “Going forward Canada will be no different than the US, unless there is a regulatory or technical issue.” However, it seems those pesky regulatory hurdles have reared their ugly head once again.
“Language laws have screwed us for so many products in the past,” one user chimed in. Patel confirmed this suspicion, noting “Language laws are quite strict and have caused us delays in the past, and not just in Canada. Provincial law in Canada is generally quite independent of federal law, so on some issues this can make things a bit tricky.”
With the update needing to support both English and French in compliance with language laws, it appears that’s the bottleneck holding up the FSD trial rollout for our neighbors to the north. But Patel reiterated that Tesla is “closing in on a solution with Transport Canada” and assured owners that “We’ve heard you loud and clear.”
He concluded by highlighting Tesla’s willingness to critique irrational regulations, stating “They’ve been entirely reasonable on a wide variety of issues. And as you guys know, I have no problem calling out regulators who are irrational or not acting in the public interest.”
As Tesla owners eagerly await the autonomous driving capabilities, it’s refreshing to see open communication and progress updates directly from the policy team. Tesla FSD trial may be delayed in Canada, but it’s just a matter of time before the update arrives.