Tesla‘s push for European Union approval of its supervised driver-assistance software won the backing of Italy’s government on Wednesday, after CEO Elon Musk spoke with Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini.
Italy “supports a swift EU approval of Tesla Assisted Driving,” Salvini wrote on X, calling the conversation “very positive and constructive.” Tesla Assisted Driving is the European name for the system Tesla sells elsewhere as Full Self-Driving (Supervised).
“Much appreciated. Thank you!” Musk replied.
The endorsement adds the support of the EU’s third most populous country as member states prepare for a December vote on whether to approve the system across the bloc.
Salvini said Italy was “looking with great interest at the opportunities offered by assisted driving technologies, with a focus on innovation and road safety.”
Speaking at a logistics event in Genoa on Wednesday, he said he had told his ministry’s technical staff to open the doors to innovation as far as current law allows, and that several companies were interested in investing in the sector in Italy, according to Smartworld.
He acknowledged problems around insurance and civil and criminal liability but said they should not stop the country from looking ahead, the outlet reported.
Where Approval Stands
The Dutch vehicle authority RDW approved the system on April 10 under Article 39 of EU Regulation 2018/858, which allows exemptions for new technology not yet covered by harmonized rules. That approval is valid only in the Netherlands.
Nine other EU countries have since recognized it for their own roads, starting with Lithuania on May 20 and ending with Latvia on October 26, which became the tenth. Together, the ten account for about 14% of the EU’s population.
Italy is not among them. When a Tesla owner asked in April, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport said Italy was not taking any decision until EU-level discussions concluded. Germany, France and Spain have not recognized the Dutch approval either.
An EU-wide approval needs a qualified majority in the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles, with at least 15 of the 27 member states representing at least 65% of the bloc’s population. The committee has discussed the Dutch request three times without a vote, most recently on October 6.
Germany’s Transport Ministry has said a vote is planned for December. It said on October 6 that it had reached an agreement with Tesla under which the system may exceed the speed limit by “a maximum of 10%,” with the driver remaining “100 percent responsible,” and that Tesla had offered to rename the system Tesla Assisted Driving after the ministry called the FSD name “somewhat misleading.”
Speed has been the main objection. Sweden has raised concerns that the system can exceed speed limits, Reuters reported. Latvia’s regulator said Tesla had lowered the threshold for exceeding the limit, reset any manual speed offset after each trip and strengthened driver monitoring.
The system is a Level 2 driver-assistance feature. Drivers need not keep their hands on the wheel, but must watch the road and remain responsible for following traffic rules.
A Question of Who Decides
Salvini’s call for an EU decision has drawn criticism at home. Luca Foresti, Chief Executive Officer of Niulinx, a Politecnico di Milano spin-off developing Level 4 automated driving, told Il Foglio that Salvini’s post wrongly pointed to the EU, arguing that type approval rests with national governments.
Ten countries have done exactly that by recognizing the Dutch approval nationally, a step Italy could take without waiting for Brussels.
Foresti also criticized the government’s new Highway Code. The draft, preliminarily approved by the Council of Ministers on October 13 and still awaiting parliamentary review, recognizes automated vehicles for the first time but requires a person on board ready to take the wheel outside approved tests, Open reported. The rules would apply from 2028.
“Good news, but… worded illogically,” Foresti said of the measure, according to Il Foglio, which reported that Niulinx raised €38 million ($42 million) in April.
Musk and Meloni
Salvini’s call extends ties between Musk and the government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of which Salvini’s League is part.
Musk presented Meloni with the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen Award in New York in September 2024, calling her “authentic, honest, truthful” and saying she had done “an incredible job” as prime minister.
Meloni defended Musk in January 2025 as European politicians criticized his comments on their countries. “I do not see this danger to democracy,” she told a press conference, according to Reuters. She said she had “never personally spoken with Elon Musk” about a possible secure communications contract with SpaceX’s Starlink, then under discussion.
Those talks, over a five-year deal reported by Reuters to be worth about €1.5 billion ($1.67 billion), later stalled. “It seems to me that everything has come to a standstill,” Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said in March 2025, according to Reuters.
Meloni called Musk a “friend” in 2025 when she posted a video of the two at the White House.
Salvini has courted Musk separately. Musk appeared by video link at the League’s congress in Florence in April 2025, where he said he hoped for “a situation of zero tariffs” in the future, according to LaPresse.
Germany’s Transport Minister Steffen Bilger has said he will push for EU-wide approval and has floated a national route if that fails.
With Germany and now Italy publicly supportive, Tesla still needs enough of the remaining large member states, including France and Spain, to reach the population threshold in December.
