Tesla will cap how far its supervised driver-assistance software can exceed speed limits in Europe at 10%, down from 50%, after the Dutch vehicle authority RDW approved a set of changes the company requested, the regulator said on Tuesday.
The RDW said the system, sold elsewhere as Full Self-Driving (Supervised), will also be renamed Tesla Assisted Driving, or TAD, on the in-car display, in the owner’s manual and in all other information for the driver.
The changes address the main objection European regulators have raised ahead of a vote on whether to approve the software across the European Union, which Germany’s Transport Ministry has said is planned for December.
Speed Margin
Drivers can set a speed margin, a percentage by which the system may deviate from the applicable speed limit “if necessary for safety and traffic flow,” according to the RDW.
That margin was previously as high as +50% and will now be limited to a maximum of +10%, the regulator said. At the legal limit of 100 km/h (62 mph) that applies on Dutch highways during the day, a 50% margin allowed the system to drive at up to 150 km/h (93 mph). The new cap allows 110 km/h (68 mph).
The setting will also default to 0% whenever the car is started, and other speed-related functions will be switched off by default, the RDW said.
Germany’s Transport Ministry said on October 6 that it had reached an understanding with Tesla under which the system may exceed the speed limit “by a maximum of 10%,” with the driver remaining “100 percent responsible.”
The ministry said then that slight speeding “can, depending on the situation, contribute to a more even and smoother flow of traffic,” language close to the RDW’s description of the margin.
Germany had raised the system’s speeding with Tesla in September, and Sweden told the EU committee in April to vote against the software unless Tesla removed its speed-offset function.
New Name
The name change does not affect how the system works, the RDW said. It remains a driver assistance system that supports the driver in carrying out driving tasks, and the driver remains responsible for driving.
Germany’s Transport Ministry had called the FSD name “somewhat misleading,” and said Tesla had offered to rename the system Tesla Assisted Driving.
Tesla already uses the Tesla Assisted Driving name for the system in China, where it made the change in May.
“My goal is that Tesla drivers can use the advantages of Assisted Driving throughout the EU as quickly as possible,” Transport Minister Steffen Bilger said in the October 6 statement.
The update applies to Tesla models equipped with Tesla Assisted Driving and hardware version 4.0 (HW4) or later, according to the RDW. Tesla will deliver it over the air.
The RDW did not say when Tesla will begin the rollout. Tesla sells the system in Europe as a subscription at €99 ($111) a month.
Approval Stands
Tesla asked the RDW to assess “a number of minor changes” to the system, the regulator said. The RDW checked how the changes were implemented and how the system behaves as a result, and found no adverse or unintended effects on the system’s operation or the car’s driving behavior.
The changes have been incorporated into the earlier approval, which remains valid under the same conditions and for the same use, so it does not need to be amended or extended, the RDW said. Tesla will then implement the changes.
The RDW issued that type approval on April 10 under Article 39 of EU Regulation 2018/858, which allows exemptions for new technology not yet covered by harmonized rules.
The RDW said at the time that the system had been “extensively examined and tested for more than one and a half years on our test track and on public roads” and that “a vehicle with FSD Supervised is not self-driving.”
It is valid only in the Netherlands, where Tesla began rolling the software out to customers a day later.
Nine other EU countries have since recognized the Dutch approval for their own roads: Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The RDW said it had informed all nine of the changes.
Lithuania recognized the approval on May 20, Estonia on May 29, Denmark on June 9 and Belgium on June 10. Slovenia followed on September 7, Czechia on September 21, Croatia on September 29 and Slovakia on October 16.
Latvia, the most recent, became the tenth country on October 26. It recognized the approval after a six-month review. Its Road Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD) said at the time that it had assessed information from Tesla on a lower threshold for exceeding the speed limit, an automatic reset of any manual speed offset after each trip and stronger driver monitoring.
The RDW’s announcement does not mention any change to driver monitoring.
EU Vote
Approval across the EU is still under way in the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles (TCMV), the RDW said. The information shared and the discussions held there are confidential, and the RDW said it does not comment on their substance.
An EU-wide approval needs a qualified majority in the committee, with at least 15 of the 27 member states representing at least 65% of the bloc’s population. The ten countries that allow the system account for about 14% of that population.
The committee has discussed the Dutch request three times without a vote, most recently on October 6.
Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini said on October 28 that his country supports a swift EU approval of Tesla Assisted Driving, after a call with Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk.
Germany, France, Italy and Spain, which together account for about 58% of the EU’s population, have not recognized the Dutch approval nationally.
