Tesla is going on the offensive in its campaign to roll out its self-driving tech in Europe.
The EV maker is offering Full Self-Driving (FSD) ride-alongs in Germany, Italy, and France next month, as it inches closer to introducing the self-driving software in Europe.
According to Tesla’s website, the ride-alongs will allow Europeans to experience FSD — which the company says can handle almost all driving scenarios autonomously but requires human supervision — during a test drive from the passenger seat.
FSD has been available in the US since 2022, but Tesla has struggled to roll it out internationally.
The automaker said in a Saturday X post that after pushing hard to ship FSD in Europe for over a year, it expected to get approval from the Dutch regulator RDW in February 2026.
However, the regulator quickly fired back, saying that although the agency had drawn up a schedule to grant approval by February, it “remains to be seen” whether that timeline will be met.
The RDW also asked Tesla fans to stop contacting them after the company called on European owners to get in touch with the regulator and “express your excitement.”
Tesla has been testing Full Self-Driving for months on European roads, posting videos of cars driving through the streets of Rome and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Business Insider previously reported that Tesla employees working on FSD approval have expressed impatience with the extensive testing required by Dutch regulators, with one employee telling officials that FSD approval was “mission critical” to Tesla’s leadership.
CEO Elon Musk has regularly complained that European bureaucracy is holding up Tesla’s attempts to roll out its self-driving tech.
In a July earnings call, he said the company was navigating a “Kafkaesque” labyrinth of regulations, and predicted that Tesla’s sales in Europe would surge once the company got the regulatory green light.
Tesla could use the boost. The company’s sales in Europe have plummeted this year amid backlash over Musk’s support for the far-right German party AFD and fierce competition from the Chinese EV giant BYD.
In October, Tesla’s European sales were down nearly 50% from the previous year, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, while BYD’s sales surged by over 200%.
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