Netherlands approves Tesla FSD Supervised, marking Europe's first hands-off driving milestone

The Netherlands becomes the first European country to approve Tesla's FSD Supervised

In short: The Dutch vehicle authority RDW approved Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software on 10 April 2026, making the Netherlands the first European country to authorise the system under UN Regulation 171, the EU standard governing driver control assistance systems. The approval follows 18 months of testing, 1.6 million kilometres of European road data, and more than 400 individual compliance requirements, and opens a regulatory pathway that could extend to Germany, France, and Italy within weeks, with full EU-wide recognition targeted for summer 2026. RDW, the Dutch authority responsible for vehicle approvals, approved version 2026.3.6 of Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software on 10 April 2026 under UN Regulation 171, the EU standard that governs Driver Control Assistance Systems, a category of Level 2 vehicle automation. The approval allows drivers of compatible Tesla vehicles in the Netherlands to take their hands off the steering wheel during appropriate driving conditions, while remaining legally responsible for the vehicle at all times and required to maintain continuous awareness of the road. The system enforces that requirement: eye-tracking cameras monitor driver attention, and a sequence of visual, audio, and haptic alerts is triggered if the driver looks away or becomes inattentive. If the driver does not respond to those alerts, FSD Supervised disables itself and returns steering control to the driver; if no response follows, the system is designed to bring the vehicle to a controlled stop. Before any driver may activate FSD Supervised for the first time, completion of a mandatory tutorial and quiz is required. RDW stated: "A vehicle with FSD Supervised is not self-driving. It is a driver assistance system, and the driver remains responsible and must always maintain control." The approval followed a process RDW describes as among the most extensive it has conducted for a driver assistance system. Over 18 months, Tesla provided 1.6 million kilometres of test data from EU roads, completed 4,500 closed-track tests, and carried out 13,000 ride-along evaluations, satisfying more than 400 individual regulatory compliance requirements. The RDW approval carries provisional validity of at least 36 months. Elon Musk posted on X that "RDW was extremely rigorous in their review," and Tesla's official account announced: "FSD Supervised has been approved in the Netherlands and will begin rolling out in the country shortly. No other vehicle can do this. We're excited to bring FSD Supervised to more European countries soon." The Netherlands approval does not automatically extend FSD Supervised to other EU member states, but it creates an established compliance record under a shared EU regulation that other national vehicle authorities can draw on directly. Each member state's approval body can choose to recognise the RDW decision independently, without a European Commission vote; Tesla expects Germany, France, and Italy to issue national recognitions within four to eight weeks of the Netherlands approval on that basis. Full EU-wide coverage, applying the approval simultaneously across all member states, requires a formal Commission vote and is estimated to take two to four months. Tesla's public statements target EU-wide availability by summer 2026. The competitive significance of the European timeline extends beyond Tesla's own market position. Uber, Wayve, and Nissan launched a robotaxi pilot in Tokyo in March 2026, a deployment that illustrated how quickly commercial autonomous vehicle services are scaling in markets where regulatory frameworks exist to permit them. Europe has been slower to establish those frameworks, and the RDW process, as the first completed application of UN R-171 to a major consumer driver assistance system in the EU, sets a procedural precedent that other manufacturers and national regulators can follow. Pricing for FSD Supervised in the Netherlands is set at €99 per month for standard subscribers, with a reduced rate of €49 per month for owners who previously purchased Enhanced Autopilot, and an outright purchase option at €7,500. Tesla's European business entered 2026 under measurable pressure. Sales in Europe fell 27.8% in 2025, a decline attributed across the industry to increased competition in the mid-market electric vehicle segment, the political visibility of Elon Musk, and a model lineup that had not been substantially refreshed in key categories. BYD began outselling Tesla in several European markets in early 2026, accelerating a competitive dynamic already established in China. Tesla reclaimed the quarterly EV crown from BYD in Q1 2026, delivering 358,023 vehicles against BYD's 310,389, but the recovery arrived alongside reports of more than 50,000 vehicles in inventory, a figure that suggested the margin of the return was supported by pricing decisions and inventory management as much as by underlying demand growth. FSD Supervised is the software product that carries the most weight in Tesla's long-term commercial argument: that a Tesla vehicle gains capability over time through software updates, making it a depreciating asset in hardware terms but an appreciating one in capability. The Netherlands approval is the first concrete validation of that argument in a European regulatory context. Without a regulatory approval, FSD Supervised in Europe was a capability that existed on the vehicles but could not legally be used, which made it functionally invisible in the competitive market. With the Netherlands approval, and with Germany, France, and Italy expected to follow, Tesla has a differentiated software product it can advertise and charge for across its largest markets outside North America. The version of FSD Supervised approved by RDW, 2026.3.6, is not the most advanced version Tesla is preparing to release. On 9 April 2026, one day before the Netherlands approval was announced, Musk posted on X that the forthcoming version 15 would "far exceed human levels of safety, even in completely unsupervised and complex situations," and described it as built on a model with ten times the parameters of its predecessor. The claim is consistent with the language Musk used about previous FSD versions, including v12 and v14, each of which was characterised in comparable terms at the time of its release. The broader context is a European autonomous vehicle landscape moving at increasing speed across multiple companies and categories. Wayve raised $1.5 billion in a Series D backed by NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Uber in February 2026 to scale its autonomous driving AI, with commercial robotaxi trials in London planned for 2026. Volkswagen and Uber began testing autonomous ID.Buzz vehicles in Los Angeles in April 2026 under a commercial partnership between MOIA and Uber. Uber committed $1.25 billion to a robotaxi partnership with Rivian in March 2026, with autonomous R2 vehicles targeted for the Uber network. The Netherlands approval positions Tesla as the first car manufacturer to hold a commercially active, hands-free driver assistance approval on public European roads under the common EU regulatory framework. Whether v15 delivers the step change Musk describes, and whether the EU-wide rollout proceeds on the timeline Tesla has indicated, will determine whether that first-mover position translates into the durable market recovery Tesla's European business needs.

'The decision is deeply troubling': Tesla gets a green light for Full Self-Driving in Europe -- but not everyone is happy about it

* After years of regulatory red tape, FSD goes live in Europe * It is only legal in the Netherlands, but more regions could follow * Some safety campaigners say the decision is "deeply troubling" Over the past 18 months, Tesla has been working with the Dutch vehicle approval organization, RDW, to get approval for its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) semi-autonomous driving system. After a long consultation period, which included covering almost one million miles with FSD (Supervised) active and offering ride-along trials with 13,000 people in numerous European countries, the RDW deemed the technology safe to be given the green light. Tesla's controversial CEO, Elon Musk, has long-promised to introduce the partially autonomous cruise control system to other markets outside of the US, where it has been on sale for years. But the company has regularly butted up against regulatory red tape. According to a press statement put out by Tesla to promote its European debut, the company says that when FSD (Supervised) is engaged, collisions are up to "seven-times less likely per kilometer driven compared to manual driving alone". However, safety campaigners, such as Dan O'Dowd of The Dawn Project, reiterates that "59 people have been killed in over 3,000 crashes involving Tesla's self-driving software in the U.S. since 2021 alone". "The RDW's decision is deeply troubling given Tesla FSD's myriad of well-documented safety defects," O'Dowd adds. What's more, the company's Robotaxis, which use a similar hardware suite that relies on the vehicle's external cameras and artificial intelligence to navigate the world, as opposed to a plethora of radar and Lidar sensors like rivals, have made the headlines because data suggests they crash four times more often than the average human driver, according to Fortune. In a bid to bolster its safety credentials, Tesla has made a number of changes to its software for the version that will go on sale in the Netherlands. Not a Tesla App reported that those customers that had first-hand ride-along experience with Euro-spec FSD (Supervised) noticed that it differed to the technology found in the US. Dutch owners will have to pass a mandatory safety quiz before FSD activates, for example, while the 'Sloth' to 'Mad Max' speed profiles in the US version have been ditched in favor of more straightforward 'Max Speed' setting in the Netherlands. Analysis: Europe will be watching closely While it is easy to think that the recent ruling in the Netherlands will automatically open the door for FSD (Supervised) to be used in the rest of Europe, it is highly likely that many other markets will continue to exercise caution. Even RDW, the organization that gave the green-light to FSD (Supervised|) in the Netherlands, says that the system is not "self-driving," adding that the "driver remains responsible and must always remain in control." This confusion with messaging used to promote the technology's capabilities has caused plenty of problems in the US, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launching an investigation into the safety of the technology. Recently, it escalated its probe to "Engineering Analysis", which it says will evaluate the system's ability to operate in reduced roadway visibility. All the while, Elon Musk continues to promote the fact that every iteration of the FSD software will "far exceed human levels of safety" and that users will soon be able to text and drive, when realistically, it's simply a Level 2 semi-autonomous cruise control system that is also offered by the likes of Ford and BMW. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course, you can also follow TechRadar on YouTube and TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

Inside one of Amsterdam's first supervised self-driving Teslas

AMSTERDAM, April 20 (Reuters) - As Kees Roelandschap navigates down the narrow canal-side streets of Amsterdam, flanked by the city's many bicycle riders, it takes a second to realise what's different: he doesn't have his hands on the wheel of his dark grey Tesla. The U.S. electric carmaker gained surprise approval this month in the Netherlands for its supervised full self-driving (FSD) system, in a European first for city streets that could open the door for more near-autonomous vehicles in Europe. It has divided opinion. Enthusiasts like Roelandschap hail it as a breakthrough and even safer than regular driving, while some cyclists and politicians are caught between caution and optimism as the cars start to hit the country's roads. "I've driven multiple different versions in the U.S. But to be able to experience it firsthand here in the Netherlands -- that's unreal," Roelandschap told Reuters as he sat behind the wheel of the car going through the Dutch capital. "I think this should be approved everywhere in Europe because it will lead to increased safety," he added, saying that it appeared the European-approved version had more stringent safeguards than the U.S. equivalent. Tesla's FSD system can steer, brake and accelerate without hands on the wheel, though a driver must remain attentive and ready to intervene. The European Union is due in May to discuss approving the technology, under investigation for safety concerns in the U.S., throughout Europe. SELF-DRIVING CARS 'WILL KEEP THEIR DISTANCE' On Amsterdam's streets, where trams, trucks and cars share space with a dense flow of bikes, e-bikes, hefty "fatbikes" and a growing fleet of tiny e-cars, reactions were mixed. "Cyclists are flowing through traffic, swarming around, going left and right, crossing each other," said Esther van Garderen, head of the Dutch Cyclists' Union, adding that the Netherlands was a unique challenge for self-driving. "We're not fully assured that these self-driving cars will understand the (road) behaviour." Amsterdam transport alderwoman Melanie van der Horst said at a city council meeting after the approval that the city had not had a say in the regulatory process and would monitor the roll-out closely. She added though that the supervising driver means "we don't need to panic" and the tech could improve safety. "(However) I can definitely imagine that this raises quite a few concerns and reactions," she said. Road traffic deaths in the Netherlands increased 6% to 759 in 2025, with car-cyclist and car-pedestrian crashes responsible for the increase, according to government statistics agency CBS. " I think safety will be much better because the (self-driving) cars will keep their distance," said local resident Paul ten Cate. "I think it will actually be nicer for cyclists to have self-driving cars around," he added. 'I'M NOT CONVINCED YET' The roll-out comes as Tesla bets on driver-assistance to revive slowing European sales, dented by CEO Elon Musk's divisive political rhetoric that has alienated some consumers. Tesla is the most popular electric car in the Netherlands, with some 100,000 of its Model 3 and Model Y cars on the roads. In recent years Amsterdam has worked to discourage car traffic in favour of bikes and public transport by closing roads, raising fees, removing parking spaces and imposing a speed limit of 30 km per hour (19 mph) on most streets. Nina Smiljanic, out on her electric bicycle with her dog alongside her on a leash, said she could see the technology working well in one-way highway traffic, but less so in busy Amsterdam. "Here in the streets, with all the tourists doing unpredictable things, I think the AI still needs to adapt," she said. "Maybe in America or on the highway it's fine, but here I'm not convinced yet." Demonstrating his Tesla, Roelandschap showed how the car first issued a warning and then slowed to a stop with its hazard lights blinking after he gazed down at his lap, rather than the road, for too long - a precaution to avoid drivers losing focus. "I have yet to notice or encounter a difficult road situation here. We have a lot of cyclists trying to overtake us, cyclists coming towards us, cyclists coming from the left. What's dangerous here?" (Reporting by Marta Fiorin, Bart Biesemans and Toby Sterling; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Keith Weir)