EU postpones EU-wide vote on Tesla Full Self-Driving, delaying rollout in Spain

On October 6 the EU’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles will briefly revisit the Dutch request to extend recognition of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system, but the agenda does not include a bloc-wide vote. The earliest possible EU decision is now the December session, pushing back the timeline for countries that have not yet followed the Netherlands’ provisional approval granted on April 10 by the RDW. So far, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia and the Czech Republic have accepted the Dutch ruling, while Spain, Germany, France and Italy remain hesitant.

An EU-wide endorsement requires a qualified majority of at least 15 member states representing 65 % of the population, a threshold far beyond one outlet 12 % coverage. Safety advocates, notably the European Transport Safety Council, have criticised two speed-related functions in the system for potentially breaching UN driver-assistance rules. Tesla counters with internal European safety data claiming the feature reduces collisions by a factor of 4.1, though the statistics have not been independently verified. Consequently, Spanish Tesla owners must wait longer to see if the technology will become available on their roads.