4 minEmails show Tesla pushed the Dutch regulator RDW to scale back its FSD review, Reuters reports
A Reuters investigation based on hundreds of pages of emails says Tesla pressed the RDW over deadlines, test procedures and a €365,000 bill before the Dutch approved FSD Supervised. The RDW says its assessment stayed independent.
Before the Netherlands became the first European country to approve Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) in April, Tesla spent months pressing the Dutch vehicle authority RDW to make its review lighter, cheaper and faster. That is the conclusion of a Reuters investigation published on October 7, based on hundreds of pages of correspondence between Tesla and regulators in seven European countries, obtained through public-records requests.
The RDW matters far beyond the Netherlands. Its approval is the basis on which other EU countries have allowed FSD, and the RDW is now asking the EU to approve the system for the whole bloc.
What the emails show
- November 2024: a Tesla employee told the RDW that starting vehicle tests by the end of the month was "mission critical" for Tesla's leadership, which would judge the regulator's goodwill by that date.
- April 2025: Tesla called the RDW's €365,000 invoice for five months of work an extremely high cost. It said it would hold back payment until it received an hour-by-hour breakdown for every RDW employee on the project, and objected to paying for five staff to visit Giga Berlin.
- About a week later: an RDW employee invited Tesla to suggest how the agency could reduce its effort.
- Tests: Tesla argued its own test reports should be enough instead of an RDW inspector travelling to watch. The RDW offered to follow part of the tests remotely.
- Software updates: when Tesla pushed back on a meeting about over-the-air updates, an RDW employee said the agency did not want to go too deep into technical details.
- Safety drivers: Tesla asked for advance notice of the exact tests and the names of the safety drivers. The RDW agreed.
The RDW's response
The RDW told Reuters that its contacts with manufacturers do not affect the independence or thoroughness of its assessments. However, the emails it released contain large redactions, and the agency does not publish its own FSD test data, citing Tesla's trade secrets. In 2025, the RDW had already publicly corrected Tesla after the company claimed the regulator had committed to approval in February 2026, stressing that road safety comes first.
Questions about Tesla's safety evidence
Reuters also looked at the European study Tesla shared with EU member states. Seven road safety researchers who reviewed it said the FSD sample, tens or hundreds of thousands of miles driven by Tesla's own professional test drivers, was too small to compare with hundreds of millions of miles of normal driving. The study measured proxies such as hard braking and honking rather than crashes, and Tesla's own fine print says the results cannot be read as cause and effect.
Reuters also described a public pressure campaign: Tesla owners sent dozens of emails to regulators in Sweden and Norway, and France's transport minister faced a wave of posts on X after saying in July that France could not back FSD.
Where the EU process stands
Eight EU countries now allow FSD (Supervised): the Netherlands, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium, Estonia, Slovenia, Czechia and Croatia. An EU-wide decision in the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles did not happen on October 6 and is now expected in December at the earliest. It needs at least 15 of the 27 member states, representing at least 65% of the EU population.
Germany said this week it would back approval if Tesla renames the system "Tesla Assisted Driving" and limits it to driving no more than 10% above the speed limit. Sweden wants the EU to reject FSD unless Tesla removes the option to drive above the speed limit. Italy and Spain have not approved it.
Why it matters
EU-wide approval would bring FSD to millions of European Tesla owners, and it is one of the few areas where Tesla can offer something that rivals like BYD and Volkswagen cannot yet match. The emails do not show the RDW broke any rules. But they give critics an argument at exactly the moment other countries are deciding whether to trust the Dutch assessment.
What to watch next
Watch whether any member states ask the RDW for more information before the December vote, whether Tesla agrees to Germany's naming demand, and whether the speed offset question is settled. Any of these could decide whether FSD gets the qualified majority it needs.
