Tesla celebrated a coming FSD win in Europe — then a regulator said not so fast (www.businessinsider.com)

Tesla prematurely announced that the Dutch regulator RDW had “committed to granting” national approval for its supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) software in February 2026, only for RDW to clarify that it had merely agreed a schedule with Tesla to complete required steps by that date — not that approval is guaranteed. RDW said both parties know what needs to be done but whether Tesla will meet the timeline “remains to be seen.” The exchange highlights the regulatory friction around Tesla’s long-sought expansion of FSD beyond North America (available since 2022) and limited Chinese rollouts, with the Netherlands acting as the chokepoint for EU acceptance. The spat matters because regulatory sign-off is the main technical and legal hurdle to enabling supervised FSD across Europe: RDW’s extensive testing and compliance checks determine whether Tesla’s system meets national safety and operational requirements. Tesla’s public push for supporters to pressure the agency — and RDW’s request that people refrain from contacting it — underscores the tension between rapid product deployment and rigorous independent validation. A missed or delayed approval would prolong Tesla’s competitive disadvantage in Europe amid falling sales and rising rivals (e.g., BYD), while an approval would set a precedent for cross-border deployment of supervised automated driving in the EU.