EVwire brief: The Dutch vehicle authority RDW has notified the European Commission of its plan to pursue EU-wide approval for Tesla’s FSD (Supervised) system.
The update was shared by Bernd van Nieuwenhoven, general manager of type approvals at RDW, to Reuters.
Van Nieuwenhoven stated that FSD (Supervised) could be used in all road conditions. These include challenging areas such as narrow streets and pathways that are used by cyclists.
If it’s good enough for the Netherlands, it’s good enough for Europe.
He declined to provide a timeline for when the Netherlands will formally submit the request for EU-wide approval.
In the meantime, individual countries may choose to recognize the Dutch approval on their own and allow FSD (Supervised) within their borders.
The Netherlands’ approval of FSD (Supervised) could be a “dam breaker” for Europe
Context:
While FSD (Supervised) is currently authorized only in the Netherlands, notifying the European Commission is the first formal step required to scale the approval across the European Union.
This signals that regulators are now actively evaluating Tesla’s system at the EU level.
To secure EU-wide authorization, the application must pass through a structured review and voting process. The RDW shared the steps in a post on its official website:
To make it possible to use this driver assistance system throughout the European Union, a number of steps still need to be completed:
1. RDW submits the application for permission across the entire European Union to the European Commission
2. All member states vote on this application
3. Approval requires a majority of votes within the responsible committee.
If the vote is in favor, the driver assistance system will be valid in all member states, meaning it may be used in all member states of the European Union.
Advanced driver-assistance approvals are already established within the EU framework.
BMW has received approval for hands-free motorway driving with automated lane changes, while Ford has secured approval for its BlueCruise system.
Tesla’s system supports a wider range of driving tasks, but like others, it remains classified as Level 2 driver assistance requiring full driver supervision for now.
As stated by Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy on X, the “European regulation is followed by a lot more countries than just the ones in EU.”
Part of this is due to European vehicle standards not being listed to the EU.
More than 50 countries, including UK, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others, also follow the UNECE framework.
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