Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Data Created Controversy…

Tesla’s autonomous driving technology, Full Self-Driving (FSD), has become the center of a new debate in Europe. According to official correspondence revealed by Reuters, Tesla tried to speed up the approval process by submitting its own data about the safety of the FSD system, which was evaluated as “exaggerated” by independent experts, to regulatory authorities in Europe.

The documents show that in presentations Tesla sent to authorities in the Netherlands and Sweden, it claimed that FSD technology significantly improved traffic safety. The company even claimed that the system could theoretically save the lives of 32 thousand people and prevent approximately 1.9 million injuries.

However, independent traffic safety experts state that these figures are based on unrealistic assumptions. According to the researchers, Tesla’s calculations are based on the assumption that all vehicles in the US – including trucks and motorcycles – will be replaced with FSD-equipped Tesla models. Experts state that this approach is not scientifically valid.

Is FSD Really As Safe As Claimed?

The statement that “FSD is 10 times safer than human drivers”, which Tesla has been advocating for a long time, has also come to the fore again. The focus of criticism is the comparison method used by the company.

While Tesla bases its analysis on serious accidents that occur when FSD is active and that cause airbag deployment, the US general accident statistics that it compares also include much milder accidents. Experts consider this method as “comparing apples to pears” and argue that the security advantage is shown to be much higher than it is.

Another point of contention is that Tesla compares its vehicles to the average 12-year-old fleet of vehicles in the United States. Considering that new generation vehicles have more advanced security systems, regardless of brand, it is stated that this comparison may lead to misleading results.

European Regulators Approach with Caution

Following the documents Tesla submitted to the Dutch Road Authority (RDW) in November 2024, the company received permission to use FSD in the country in April 2025. RDW, on the other hand, stated in a statement to Reuters that they did not make their decisions based on Tesla’s marketing materials or the statistics prepared by the company itself, but that they carried out independent tests and verification processes.

Regulatory authorities in Sweden and Norway similarly announced that they were cautious about Tesla’s data. Norwegian authorities in particular emphasized that it was difficult to directly correlate the statistics prepared by the company with official accident data.

New Question Marks in the European Approval Process

While Tesla’s efforts to obtain FSD approval throughout Europe continue, the resulting documents once again brought to the fore the importance of transparency and independent auditing in the evaluation of autonomous driving technologies.

According to experts, in order for driverless vehicle technologies to become widespread in the future, there will be a greater need for safety analyzes verified by independent institutions rather than data prepared by manufacturers themselves. In particular, the ongoing debates around Tesla’s FSD system may cause regulatory processes in Europe to become more stringent.