In a potential breakthrough for Tesla’s self-driving ambitions in Europe, the company recently gave a demonstration of its FSD capabilities to an official from the Swedish Transport Administration. The extended test drive took place on the streets of Munich, Germany with the latest version of FSD (Supervised) installed in a Tesla Model Y.
It marked the first known instance of Tesla FSD being used by an official on European roads.
Rikard Fredriksson, a Senior Advisor at the Swedish Transport Administration, rode in the passenger seat as Tesla’s Global Policy Lead Marc Van Impe and Lead Vehicle Operator Phillip Holz put Tesla FSD through its paces on a 28-mile journey.
Posting photos from the experience on LinkedIn, Fredriksson said he witnessed “impressive smooth and natural driving” from the advanced driver assistance system. Seems Tesla was aiming to impress with this demo.
Tesla FSD has been deployed to an expanding customer base in the US and Canada since its original beta launch in October 2020. But the road to Europe has been Rocky with strict regulations around autonomous driving proving to be a major roadblock.
Part of the reason Tesla FSD hasn’t launched in Europe yet is due to the region’s stricter rules on self-driving systems compared to North America. Even Tesla’s basic Autopilot is more limited, with automatic lane changes and tight turning restricted.
Rohan Patel, a former senior director director of public policy at Tesla, (Tesla Global FSD Rollout Stymied By Outdated Regulations, Ability to Deploy FSD V12 Features in Regions like Europe) said Tesla “would love to” bring its latest FSD 12 version with supervised autonomous driving to markets like Europe. But legacy UN regulations simply “don’t allow for these system initiated maneuvers which are the hallmark of the Supervised FSD v12 system.”
There was initial hope new UN regulations could pave the way by allowing Driver Control Assistance Systems, it was later revealed these wouldn’t actually allow key Tesla FSD maneuvers like lane changes without driver initiation.
So despite this promising demo, Tesla still faces an uphill battle getting Tesla FSD fully approved across Europe’s regulatory landscape. With FSD v12’s capabilities continually evolving, pressure could mount on officials to rethink their stance — or risk the continent being left behind on autonomous driving.
After all, there’s nothing quite like an impressive real-world demo to showcase what a system like FSD V12 can really do, is there? The ball is in Europe’s court now to decide if it wants to embrace the self-driving future or tap the brakes.