Germany’s Transport Minister said he would push for Tesla‘s FSD Supervised driver-assistance software to be approved across the European Union soon, and raised the prospect of a national solution if that fails, according to German news agency dpa.
Steffen Bilger, a member of the Christian Democratic Union, told a conference hosted by Tagesspiegel Background in Berlin on Tuesday that he considered an agreement at EU level sensible.
If that did not work, “one would have to talk about what could be done in Germany”, dpa reported him as saying.
The remarks are the first public indication from the head of the ministry that Germany could act alone, after months in which its officials pointed to the EU procedure.
Bilger announced no decision, no timetable and no formal step, and the agency report does not say what kind of national measure he had in mind.
What the Minister Said
Bilger said he would work to ensure the system “can be used across Europe soon”, according to dpa. He acknowledged that “many technical things” remained to be clarified, “but also questions of liability”.
His priority, he said, was “to enable innovation”, and he described Germany as having a pioneering role in autonomous driving.
A Shift in Tone
The ministry’s position until now has been to wait for Brussels.
Christian Hirte, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Transport Ministry, wrote on July 17 that a decision on type approval “follows a vote” on EU-wide approval in the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles.
He said the Dutch approval documents were being assessed with the Federal Motor Transport Authority, known as the KBA, and that the authority was expected to receive a Tesla that month to test the system itself “in order to develop a well-founded German position”.
Hirte wrote again in September that the KBA was in contact with the Dutch regulator over the software’s ability to exceed speed limits.
He also warned that “the impression of autonomous driving can arise” when the system is in use, although responsibility remains entirely with the driver.
The ministry has not said whether the KBA’s own test has been completed.
A citizen’s question to Bilger on that point, submitted on September 26 through the parliamentary question platform abgeordnetenwatch.de, was still marked as unanswered on Tuesday.
The National Route
FSD Supervised is on European roads because of a single national decision.
The Dutch vehicle authority RDW granted the system a provisional approval on April 10 under Article 39 of the EU’s type-approval regulation, an exemption for new technologies.
That approval is valid at first only in the Netherlands, and other member states can choose to accept it on their own territory.
Seven have done so, in the order Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and, in a decision announced on September 29, Croatia.
A German decision to accept the Dutch approval would be the same step, and it would apply only in Germany.
Bilger did not say that this is the route he meant.
The Vote That Has Not Happened
EU-wide validity requires a qualified majority in the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles, meaning at least 15 of the 27 member states representing 65% of the bloc’s population.
The committee was due to meet on Tuesday with a draft agenda that listed a continuation of discussions on the Dutch request and no vote.
That would make it the third session to take up the file without a decision.
Germany’s weight in that arithmetic is considerable.
The country accounts for 18.6% of the EU’s population, more than the seven states that had accepted the Dutch approval before Croatia, which together represented about 12%.
Germany, France, Italy and Spain have not accepted it.
Speed is a central objection among the governments holding back, and Sweden has indicated it would vote against unless Tesla removes a function that lets drivers set the car to travel above the limit.
September Registrations Soared
Germany is Europe’s largest car market and the home of Tesla’s only European vehicle plant, at Grünheide near Berlin.
Tesla’s registrations there more than tripled in September to 12,552, its highest monthly total since December 2022.
The company had 200,976 cars registered in the country on January 1, according to KBA stock data.
Tesla said in April that it expected EU-wide approval in “the coming months”.
Despite its name, FSD Supervised is classed by the Dutch regulator as a driver-assistance system, and the driver remains responsible and must be able to intervene at all times.
