Tesla‘s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software is drawing early positive reviews from Dutch owners, just a few days after the Netherlands became the first European country to approve the driver-assistance system.
The Dutch vehicle authority RDW issued formal type approval last Friday, following more than 18 months of testing on its own track and on public roads.
Tesla began pushing software update 2026.3.6 to customer vehicles within 24 hours of the green light, with VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy confirming the rollout on Saturday.
The stakes for Tesla in the Netherlands are significant.
Dutch registrations jumped in March ahead of the expected approval, and Elluswamy and CEO Elon Musk have since hinted that the Dutch decision could unlock markets beyond the EU — particularly non-EU states following UN-ECE vehicle regulations.
The Netherlands is also a more difficult environment for a driver-assistance system to navigate.
Narrow streets, dense cycling infrastructure, and high pedestrian volumes make Dutch city centres a demanding proving ground.
Tesla first published footage of FSD being tested in Amsterdam on April 5, 2025 — almost exactly one year before approval was granted.
Amsterdam Stress Test
X user ‘KRoelandschap,’ a Dutch Tesla owner, was among the first customers to receive the update over the weekend.
Kees Roelandschap put the system through what he described as the “first ultimate FSD stress test in Amsterdam.”
In a two-hour uncut drive through the city, Roelandschap and X user ‘aikisteve,’ the pair tested the so-called Nine Streets district, active road works, and the notoriously complex crossing on the Haarlemmerstraat.
“The Driver Monitoring is exquisite, it’s just strict enough but also relaxed at the same time,” KRoelandschap wrote on X. “The comfort level is extremely high.”
He added that the system could still afford to be more assertive in some situations.
“It needs to be to assert dominance and reduce the awkward situations where people cannot anticipate what the car will do,” he wrote. “All in all, super impressive.”
In a separate clip published on YouTube by Steven Peeters, Roelandschap highlighted one particular manoeuvre on the Utrechtsestraat.
“Casually pulling out of the parking space, going onto the Utrechtsestraat and doing something INCREDIBLE around the 3 min mark,” he wrote.
Roelandschap said the system “passed an illegally parked truck with MINIMAL space, I wouldn’t have thought it would do this BALLER move.”
Other Positive Notes
X user ‘Sandersmit83’ has also published several videos over the weekend showing the system handling day-to-day situations like “rerouting after police instructions,” “disengaging to order McDonalds” or “parking at the gym without clear markings.”
In the Dutch tech forum Tweakers, users have gathered to review the software in its first hours of deployment.
Tesla owner ‘avdleun’ shared that “after the mandatory 5-min intro quiz we hit the road. Very impressive!”
The user “entered a few addresses” and the system “parked perfectly every time,” they wrote.
“On a busy narrow dike road packed with cars on both sides + oncoming traffic, it handled everything smoothly and dynamically (even got quite close to parked cars but stayed confident),” the user added, saying that the car then “pulled straight into the train station parking and auto-parked at a charger spot.”
The user shared their “provisional conclusion: It works (almost scarily) well.”
Areas to Improve
Other early Dutch users shared their impressions in the thread, describing the system as driving naturally and handling city traffic and narrow residential streets well.
However, others noted that FSD remained too cautious around pedestrians and cyclists — an unsurprising calibration given the density of vulnerable road users on Dutch streets.
“FSD in Amsterdam can’t squeeze between an oddly parked moving truck and a parked bicycle. Then tries to reverse in a one way street,” user ‘tvanschadewijk’ wrote on X.
Some also flagged hesitant behaviour during overtaking manoeuvres and when parking.
Feedback on Smart Summon, the feature that lets owners remotely move their vehicles short distances via the Tesla app, was more critical.
Early Dutch testers described the function as “still limited” and “buggy.”
In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed its 15-month investigation into Smart Summon earlier this month without finding a safety-related defect.
The probe covered approximately 2.59 million vehicles and reviewed 159 incidents — almost all involving minor property damage to parking gates, adjacent vehicles, or bollards, with no reported injuries.
Tesla addressed the issues through six over-the-air software updates deployed between January and November 2025.
The European version of Smart Summon is likely to be more constrained than the US equivalent, given the stricter regulatory framework under which FSD Supervised was approved.
Software Version
Over the weekend, Musk addressed the gap between the US and European builds directly on X.
Dutch Tesla owner ‘inmotionadvies’ posted on Sunday that her Model 3 was “downloading FSD Supervised version 3.6,” prompting a reply from the CEO acknowledging that the European release lags behind the current North American version.
“I guess we have different naming conventions in Europe, but this is basically v14.3,” he wrote.
FSD is rolling out to Dutch customers through the 2026.3.6 software update.
According to the Tesla owner, the update installed version 14.2.2.5 of the self-driving software in her car — a few patches below the v14.3, currently rolling out to owners in North America.
Responding to feedback on the European build, the CEO acknowledged the version shipping in the Netherlands is behind the current North American release and said Tesla is working to narrow the gap, with FSD 14.3 — and subsequent versions — expected to reach European vehicles after additional validation.
The RDW was explicit in its approval statement that the software versions and functionalities of American and European Teslas “are not directly comparable,” reflecting the stricter UN Regulation 171 framework under which the system was approved.
Musk has previously described it as “the last big piece of the puzzle” for the system’s reasoning capabilities and claimed that by v14.3, the car will “feel sentient.”
Only HW4 for Now
Tesla has confirmed that the Dutch rollout is limited to vehicles equipped with its Hardware 4 (HW4) computer.
Owners of older Hardware 3 cars in the Netherlands are not eligible to activate FSD Supervised, even if they have previously purchased or subscribed to the software.
The situation mirrors the United States, where HW3 vehicles have been left behind by the FSD v14 generation entirely.
Tesla executives said in a previous earnings call last year that a ‘Lite’ version of FSD 14 was being developed specifically for HW3 cars, with a release targeted for the second quarter of 2026.
Whether — and when — that Lite version will be approved for use in the Netherlands is unclear.
The RDW type approval covers the specific HW4 build submitted for evaluation, meaning any significantly different software stack for HW3 would likely require its own regulatory review.
Musk admitted in late 2024 that HW3 vehicles are not powerful enough to run the current FSD software and committed to free computer retrofits for owners who purchased the FSD package outright.
Tesla has yet to publish a detailed timeline or technical plan for those upgrades.
FSD Test Drives
Tesla‘s Dutch website now allows prospective customers to schedule FSD Supervised test drives across the country, giving non-owners a chance to experience the system firsthand.
The move builds on a programme Tesla launched in late November, when the company began offering FSD test rides in Germany, France, and Italy ahead of regulatory approval.
Those rides were conducted with Tesla employees behind the wheel as safety drivers, and formed part of the more than 13,000 customer ride-alongs later cited by the RDW in its approval documentation.
With the Dutch type approval now in place, test drives in the Netherlands no longer require a Tesla safety driver at the wheel.
RDW Plans EU-Wide Application
The early customer reviews came as the RDW confirmed it intends to push the approval beyond Dutch borders.
Bernd van Nieuwenhoven, the regulator’s general manager of type approvals, told Reuters on Monday that the RDW has notified the European Commission of its plan to seek EU-wide authorization for Tesla‘s FSD system.
Van Nieuwenhoven emphasised that despite its name, FSD is a driver-assistance system rather than a fully autonomous driving system.
He noted that the software can steer, brake, and accelerate under human supervision without the driver’s hands resting on the steering wheel.
Extending the type approval across all 27 EU member states requires a majority vote within the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles.
Tesla‘s European account has said the company anticipates “a possible EU-wide approval during the summer,” though the European Commission has not committed to a timeline.
FSD (Supervised) is currently available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and the Netherlands.
