Tesla sought to reduce scope of FSD review in the Netherlands — Electrek
Tesla spent several months asking the Dutch vehicle regulator RDW to reduce the scope of its review of the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system, including disputing a €365,000 bill. Electrek reports, citing a Reuters investigation based on hundreds of pages of correspondence between Tesla and regulators in seven European countries.
In November 2024, a Tesla employee told the RDW that starting vehicle testing by the end of the month was critically important for the company’s management. In April 2025, Tesla called the regulator’s bill for five months of work too high and said it would withhold payment until it received an hourly accounting of the work of every RDW employee involved in the project. The company also objected to the costs of a trip by five RDW employees to the Giga Berlin plant.
Conditions for conducting tests
A week after Tesla’s complaint about the bill, an RDW employee suggested that the company indicate how the regulator could adjust or reduce the required efforts going forward. The correspondence also shows that Tesla insisted on using its own test reports instead of having an RDW inspector present. The regulator proposed partially monitoring the testing remotely.
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Tesla also objected to a meeting on over-the-air software updates. In response, an RDW representative said that the regulator did not want to delve too deeply into technical details and did not question the quality or process of such updates. In addition, Tesla demanded advance notice of specific tests of its vehicles and the names of safety drivers. The RDW agreed to these conditions.
Approval and safety assessment
RDW later approved the system and is now asking the European Union to approve it at the bloc level. Eight EU countries have already authorized the use of FSD: the Netherlands, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium, Estonia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Croatia. A vote at the EU level is expected no earlier than December. Approval requires support from 15 of the 27 EU member states representing at least 65% of the Union’s population.
RDW told Reuters that interaction with manufacturers does not affect the independence and thoroughness of its assessment. At the same time, the regulator does not publish its own FSD test data, citing Tesla’s trade secrets. Seven road-safety researchers who analyzed Tesla’s European study methodology for Reuters pointed to the small sample size and the use of indirect indicators, including hard braking, sharp turns, honking, and the use of turn signals. In their assessment, these data do not prove that FSD prevents road accidents or deaths.
