Following the regulatory approval in the Netherlands, Tesla is officially allowed to expand its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to Belgian roads. However, as regulatory barriers across Europe are being lowered, the automaker is simultaneously overhauling the pricing model for its assisted-driving package.
The Netherlands has triggered the regulatory domino effect under EU law, and it is now starting to trickle down to the rest of Western Europe. The Flemish Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, and Federal Minister Jean-Luc Crucke have officially greenlit Tesla’s driver-assistance system on public roads in Flanders.
One car in test
However, the beginnings are humble. In the initial phase, the pilot is strictly constrained to a single vehicle, which has been granted a test license plate valid for up to 5,000 kilometers.
According to Minister De Ridder, local authorities will closely monitor the trial to evaluate how the vehicle’s networks and sensor harness interact with Belgian infrastructure and real-world traffic dynamics. Reportedly, as an adamant fan of self-driving technology, Crucke fast-tracked the license plate issuance.
If the test phase yields positive safety data, the Belgian administration intends to move swiftly toward a provisional type approval covering the entire Belgian territory. Tesla’s FSD is still supervised and classified as Level 2 on the SAE scale. The driver must remain alert to react in dangerous situations.
This poses risks. Overconfident drivers in the US have caused accidents by relying too strongly on the system’s features, which didn’t seem foolproof. Though Tesla has been convicted in its home country, the driver is legally responsible in Europe.
Regulatory Loophole
This rapid acceleration in Flanders is a direct consequence of the regulatory breakthrough achieved in the Netherlands. As we previously reported, the Dutch vehicle authority (RDW) recently granted provisional European homologation for FSD Supervised after an exhaustive evaluation period.
Tesla’s approach, and the approval route, operate outside the bounds of traditional European automotive regulations, which historically strictly limit automated steering torque and lane-change maneuvers.
The American car maker could not use standard homologation channels because it also limits the time steering can be hands-free to roughly 20 seconds.
Instead, Tesla leveraged a specific “deviation procedure” within EU regulations. This legal mechanism allows one member state (in this case, the Netherlands) to grant a provisional homologation. The word provisional is of great importance. But crucially, while awaiting a final, binding verdict from the European Commission, other EU member states can use this Dutch precedent to issue their own temporary testing permits, bypassing years of localized bureaucratic gridlock.
Some car makers, like Ford and Mercedes, offer similarly advanced levels of automated driving, but on geo-fenced stretches of Belgian highways or under limited conditions, such as traffic jams. They received exemptions because cameras track the driver’s behavior.
End of ‘free’ Autopilot
As Tesla navigates the European regulatory maze, it is also revising its sales strategy. In the Netherlands, it has removed its “Basi Autopilot” from the online configurator.
Historically, every new Tesla came equipped with it. Still, now, Dutch buyers of the Model 3 and Model Y will only receive standard cruise control and legally mandated active safety features, such as emergency lane-departure warnings.
Any active lane-centering functionality is now strictly locked behind the FSD Supervised paywall. This strategy follows the North American model and signals a broader shift toward software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenues. Within the coming months, Tesla will offer FSD for 99 euros per month.
Meanwhile, other countries are less enthusiastic about the Dutch gateway for FSD. Scandinavian countries like Finland and Sweden have already stated that the system can’t flawlessly handle speed limits and is not fit for icy roads.
They claim that the American patchwork of roads is much easier for automated driving than the European one, and they don’t agree with the Dutch testing period. Norway, where the FSD is in a testing phase, wants to ban the use of the term ‘Self-Driving.
