Tesla under EU regulatory scrutiny over how it backs Full Self-Driving safety claims

Tesla is facing fresh regulatory scrutiny in Europe over the way it supports safety claims for its Full Self-Driving system, according to a market report citing material Tesla provided to regulators. The company, which sells Full Self-Driving as an advanced driver-assistance package available on its vehicles, is working toward broader approvals that would allow its system to operate under less restrictive conditions than today’s approvals in many markets.

The report says Tesla supplied safety information that it generated itself as part of its filings or discussions with regulators in multiple European countries. It frames the approach as an effort to substantiate that the technology can be assessed as safe enough for the intended use cases.

Independent road-safety experts, however, are described as raising concerns about the underlying evidence and whether the data supplied is comparable to what regulators typically expect for road-safety demonstrations. The criticism in the report centers less on whether Tesla has data at all, and more on the credibility and rigor of how the data is structured and interpreted when used to support regulatory decisions.

Because the report is a secondary account, it does not provide granular details on what specific safety metrics Tesla submitted, how those metrics were collected, or which studies, models, or statistical methods were used. It also does not specify which European regulators were involved, what stage of review those regulators have reached, or whether any regulators have issued preliminary findings or requests for additional information.

The Full Self-Driving (FSD) system is commonly used by Tesla to describe a suite of automated driving features that relies on vehicle cameras and onboard software, but it is not marketed as fully autonomous without driver supervision. In most jurisdictions where the system is offered, the driver remains responsible for monitoring and intervening, which adds sensitivity to how regulators evaluate safety for any expansion of the system’s operating permissions.

The episode highlights a broader tension in the autonomous vehicle and advanced driver-assistance sector: companies can generate vast amounts of operational data from their fleets, but regulators often seek assurance that safety conclusions are robust, repeatable, and methodologically sound. Where self-collected data is used, the challenge for companies is to show that results are not only internally consistent, but also transparent and verifiable against standards regulators can apply.

At the same time, it is unclear from the available reporting how regulators in Europe are weighing Tesla’s submissions versus independent expert feedback. The report does not indicate whether Tesla has responded publicly to the critiques, whether regulators have asked for additional independent validation, or whether any approvals or denials have already been issued based on the submissions.

What to watch next is whether regulators publish further details, such as requests for supplementary evidence, test results, or clarification of how “safety” is defined for FSD in each country’s regulatory pathway. Also important will be whether Tesla changes how it documents safety claims, for example by incorporating third-party analyses or more explicitly describing evaluation methodology in filings or public statements.