By Marie Mannes and Chris Kirkham
May 5 (Reuters) - Tesla CEO Elon Musk has projected confidence that the European Union will soon green-light the carmaker's "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) system, but emails from some European regulators show marked skepticism toward the technology and its stated safety benefits.
Tesla's "FSD (Supervised)" technology got the nod from Dutch road regulator RDW in April. RDW is now seeking EU approval for FSD, with a key committee hearing scheduled for Tuesday.
"We expect to
be approved in a lot of other countries," Musk told analysts on an April 22 conference call, adding that Tesla would then seek approval for driverless robotaxis in Europe.
Tesla has a lot riding on FSD approval in Europe, where it is trying to regain market share it has lost over the last two years. The EV maker charges a monthly subscription for FSD, which can drive itself under certain circumstances but requires the driver to be fully attentive at all times.
But in previously unreported email correspondence, regulators in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway - who could prove critical to Musk's approval push - have raised a number of concerns over the technology.
Those include the system's tendency to speed, whether it is safe to use on icy roads and drivers' ability to circumvent features designed to prevent cell-phone use, according to the emails, which were seen by Reuters through public records requests.
They also expressed frustration with Tesla's strategy of publicly encouraging vehicle owners to pressure regulators to approve FSD.
The EU committee will hear on Tuesday from Dutch officials about why they approved Tesla's FSD and why other EU member states should follow suit.
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.
For FSD to be approved, committee members representing 55% of EU member states and 65% of the bloc's population must vote "yes." There is no vote scheduled on FSD this week. The next committee meetings are expected in July and October.
REGULATORS AWAIT DOCUMENTATION
The emails reviewed by Reuters showed a Tesla policy manager lobbying Swedish authorities to approve FSD just four days after the Netherlands announced its decision on April 10, before regulators had reviewed any documentation on the technology.
Tesla also approached Estonia and Finland and asked the countries to recognize the Dutch approval, the countries said and the emails showed.
Regulators for Sweden, Finland and Estonia told Reuters they would review the material presented at Tuesday's committee meeting before making any decisions.
Some Wall Street analysts have projected a widespread rollout of FSD across Europe within months. Tesla has said FSD approval in Europe is crucial to increasing sales in the region, which fell 27% in 2025 amid protests over Musk’s political activities.
In a confidential presentation included in the correspondence with regulators, Tesla said it expected “EU-wide” approval in the second or third quarter of this year.
Michael Ashley Schulman, a partner at Cerity Partners, which manages investments in Tesla, said European approval of FSD could boost profit and help fend off competition from Chinese automakers.
SPEEDING, ICY ROADS A CONCERN
Hans Nordin, a Swedish Transport Agency investigator, wrote in an April 15 email that he was “quite surprised" to learn Tesla allowed FSD to speed, and said that should not be permitted.
Jukka Juhola, an official in Finland’s transportation agency, wrote to other regulators in January questioning Tesla’s demos of FSD in wintry conditions.
“Are they really introducing a system that allows hands-free driving also on icy 80 km/h roads?” Juhola asked. The Nordic regulators also questioned how the system would handle moose on the roads.
Regulators also discussed whether Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” branding could mislead drivers into thinking the car drives itself.
Nordin, the Swedish Transport Agency investigator, asked in a January email whether the name “risks giving consumers a misleading impression" of FSD's abilities.
Some regulators were also complimentary of the software. A Danish regulator, Frank Schack Rasmussen, said in an October email that the vehicles "did perform very well in the complex traffic" of rush hour in Copenhagen. A Dutch regulator recounted how well the system performed around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Anders Eriksson, a Swedish Transport Agency investigator, told Reuters that the country is "generally positive" on automated driving technology, as long as it follows regulations.
TESLA ENTHUSIASTS PUSH APPROVAL
Regulators also discussed being inundated with emails from Tesla enthusiasts pushing for approval.
Musk has long criticized European regulators for what he calls unnecessary delays.
During Tesla’s November annual shareholder meeting, Musk said, “we obviously need to get it approved in Europe," and encouraged customers to pressure regulators.
Tesla owners obliged. One Norwegian Tesla owner wrote that denying FSD approval could "lead to the loss of lives that would have been saved with this technology.”
Days after Musk’s speech, Stein-Helge Mundal of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration wrote that regulators “will need to use a lot of effort to answer misled consumers.”
Ivan Komusanac, Tesla’s EU Policy and Business Development manager, apologized to Mundal, noting that regulators elsewhere had also complained.
“Such emails are usually not helpful for the approval process,” Komusanac wrote.
Dutch regulators have not released any research or data that explained their approval of FSD.
“We say: Trust us on this, we tested it extensively,” RDW General Manager Bernd van Nieuwenhoven told Reuters last month.
(Reporting by Marie Mannes in Stockholm and Chris Kirkham in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Abhirup Roy in San Francisco; Editing by Nick Carey, Mike Colias and Matthew Lewis)
