Tesla FSD Approved in Finland Ahead of EU Vote, With Snow Warning

Software changes and a winter caveat

To get the green light, Tesla had to rework its software. According to Traficom, drivers can no longer ask the system to run permanently above the speed limit, and any speed-offset settings reset to zero each time the car restarts. Information about the speed the system selects is also more complete. The offset, which lets the car drive up to 50% over the detected limit, had worried Sweden and Norway. Tesla has also dropped the name Full Self-Driving in Europe, which Germany's transport ministry considered misleading. It is now called Tesla Assisted Driving.

Traficom assessed the system on roads with limits of 60 to 100 km/h, where bends and bumps often limit visibility. Jukka Juhola, a principal expert at the agency, said winter was taken into account, but warned that the system can be limited "when the cameras are covered by snow, sleet or other dirt" and when traffic becomes more complex than usual. The system relies solely on cameras.

In June, roughly 6,500 Finnish-registered cars were equipped to use it, about 0.24% of the country's 2.7 million passenger cars.

What comes next

The decisive EU vote is expected at the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles (TCMV) meeting on 1 December. It needs a qualified majority: at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65% of the EU population. If it passes, authorisation would take about three weeks to apply across the Union. Tesla has also accepted further changes requested by member states such as Latvia to ease adoption.