European Transport Safety Council Urges EU to Reject Tesla Speed Features

The EU has postponed a decision on whether to extend Tesla’s supervised Full Self-Driving approval across the bloc, with a vote now unlikely before December. Ahead of further discussions, the European Transport Safety Council urged regulators to block two speed-related features: a configurable speed offset that can raise the system’s limit by as much as 50%, which the group says conflicts with UN rules, and a contextual maximum-speed function that can use nearby traffic as a reference. The dispute comes as some European countries have approved the system while others have raised safety concerns, leaving EU-wide authorization unresolved.
ETSC said the speed-offset feature is explicitly prohibited by UN Regulation No. 171. It illustrated the effect with examples: a 50 km/h limit could become a 75 km/h maximum, while a 30 km/h limit could become 45 km/h.
ETSC argued Tesla did not identify the speed-offset feature as requiring an exemption under the EU’s Article 39 procedure, which the group said effectively treated it as compliant with existing rules—a conclusion ETSC disputes.
The EU’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles is scheduled to discuss the Dutch Article 39 request on October 6, with 25 minutes allocated to continued discussion rather than a vote.
The Netherlands’ RDW approved Tesla’s system in April, and Belgium followed, while Sweden, France and the Czech Republic were among the countries reported to have raised concerns.
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