Very recently, Tesla obtained permission from the Netherlands Vehicle Authority, RDW, to deploy its Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature in the Netherlands—for supervised use. In practice, this means Tesla’s FSD is classified as a Level 2 driver-assistance system. It’s one of the first approvals of its kind in the EU and part of a broader wave of carefully controlled FSD pilots in Europe under strict regulatory frameworks.
Tesla offered me—as a frequent Model Y driver—a free one-month trial, which I accepted.
Activating FSD disables the standard cruise control, but you can’t just start using it right away. First, you need to complete a 20-minute in-car video course. The key message is straightforward: hands on the wheel, eyes on the road—at all times. Tesla actively monitors this via cabin cameras, as the system is explicitly designed to be supervised, not autonomous.
A few days after completing the course, I used FSD for a 20-minute trip through Amsterdam and onto the highway for a meeting. On a busy roundabout during morning rush hour, the system felt a bit hesitant—almost overly polite. In real traffic, you’d normally be slightly more assertive when merging. FSD, however, prefers to wait.
By default, it also sticks to the slower lane. After a while, I discovered that using the indicator allows the driver to “nudge” FSD into changing lanes—for example, to overtake a slower vehicle. That interaction actually feels quite natural once you get to know it.
During the trip, I noticed only one clear mistake. When taking an exit, FSD didn’t activate the indicator as it should. That made me wonder whether the rules had changed in the 40-odd years since I got my driver’s license. A quick check of the Dutch regulations confirmed: the indicator is still mandatory in that situation.
On the trip back home, I noticed a few more issues. Tesla FSD couldn’t find the way out from the parking garage. More troublesome, it couldn’t pre-sort for traffic lights going to the left as it didn’t manage to squeeze in. Even worse, after the lights in the wrong lane got green, it still tried to turn left although the respective lights were still red. I had to intervene and chose a different route home.
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