French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot: Tesla FSD Enters Road Testing
French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot stated that he has had constructive communication with Elon Musk regarding Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) system; for months, the French side has been coordinating technical adjustments with Tesla to support France in the upcoming EU-level certification vote in the coming weeks. After Tesla provided two vehicles equipped with the system, the French side entered the road testing phase.
Tesla later clarified to the media that the system has not yet been approved, and the road testing did not just begin now. The company stated that it has been conducting road tests in France since 2024, covering over 200,000 kilometers, and has completed more than 5,000 customer ride demonstrations since December 2025. The two mass-produced vehicles were handed over to the French certification body UTAC for their first independent road evaluation, with test results aimed for mid to late September to align with the EU Motor Vehicle Technical Committee's vote. The committee meeting is reportedly scheduled for October 6, with some officials suggesting the vote could take place next month or in early December.
On July 22, Tabarot publicly stated that the existing form of approval does not provide sufficient safety guarantees. He specifically pointed out two issues: the system can exceed the speed limit while following traffic, such as going from 50 km/h to 70 km/h, with deviations of up to 50% of the speed limit, and it does not require the driver's explicit request; in urban areas, lane changes, intersections, and roundabouts, the monitoring of the driver's attention is insufficient to ensure timely takeover. He emphasized that the system is not autonomous driving. Musk responded at the time that delaying approval could cost lives.
After the Netherlands temporarily approved it in April, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, and Belgium followed suit, creating a split where five countries have approved it while France, Germany, and Italy have not. EU mutual recognition requires a qualified majority: at least 15 countries covering 65% of the population, and any opposition from France, Germany, or Italy can block it. Tesla announced that in the five European countries where it is allowed, vehicles equipped with the system had collisions at about one-quarter the rate of human driving based on over 100 million kilometers of data from April to August.
As the vote approaches, the testing serves to prepare domestic data that can be cited in opposition votes, rather than opening subscriptions to consumers. The buyer is Tesla, which seeks software revenue and the restoration of vehicle registration in Europe, while the seller is the Ministry of Transport, which has set speed limits and attention monitoring as red lines. The event is driven by the committee's schedule around October. The beneficiaries are the small countries that have approved it and Tesla's demonstration narrative, while the pressured parties are the software versions that have not yet completed the speed limit logic and UTAC, which must provide independent conclusions on the densely populated roundabout road network.
Source: Public Information
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Philippe Tabarot used a video in July to cite speeding and attention monitoring as reasons for France's veto, effectively rejecting the automatic recognition of the Netherlands' RDW's temporary type certification. Six weeks later, after a call with Musk and receiving two vehicles, he did not retract those two technical accusations but shifted the battleground from "current form is inaccurate" to "testing on French road networks." This relates to France's focus on roundabouts, speed limit cameras, and urban areas with speed limits of 30 to 50 km/h as core traffic political issues: a following logic designed to keep up with California traffic would be directly interpreted as illegal in a 50 km/h zone. Tesla insists that France has never signed a written rejection, while the minister maintains that the door has never been completely closed, with both sides leaving room for the October vote.
Capital and regulatory resources are being mobilized simultaneously. Tesla is packaging two years of internal road testing and 5,000 demonstrations into a deliverable safety narrative, and exchanging two mass-produced vehicles for UTAC's independent endorsement; the French side is timing the testing window for mid to late September, just in time for the Motor Vehicle Technical Committee. The qualified majority rule makes France's vote weigh more than Belgium's prior approval. The motivation is not to enable features for car owners but to determine whether the European software package can be sold in one go to the largest automotive market and to prevent the Dutch standard from becoming a fait accompli.
Comparisons can be made with General Motors' Super Cruise and Mercedes' Drive Pilot obtaining certifications country by country, and Waymo first securing urban operating licenses before expanding: whoever defines "sufficiently safe" first will define the subsequent mutual recognition costs. The industry is in a phase of regulatory fragmentation—five countries have opened up, while three major population countries have not, and the technology itself remains a supervised driver assistance system, with responsibility still resting on the driver.
Structurally, this belongs to regulatory change. The mechanism is: the EU ties the full territorial effect of software functions to population-weighted voting, preventing small countries from forcing France, Germany, and Italy to accept "following can exceed speed limits"; testing rights shift from company mileage to national certification venues, with speeding and attention monitoring becoming negotiable parameters. Pricing power is temporarily not with the chips but with those who can write attention data from roundabouts as voting reasons.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Small countries approve first, and the votes of large countries then determine the whole territory.
Road testing does not mean features are available for sale.
Following speed limits can be intelligent in one place and illegal in another.