Slovakia approves Tesla's FSD (Supervised) on its roads
IA en un minuto newsroom · Editor: Jon Elgezabal
In 30 seconds
Slovakia now allows Tesla's FSD (Supervised) after recognizing the provisional approval that the Dutch RDW granted in April. The system accelerates, brakes, steers and changes lanes on its own in town and on highways, but the driver has to stay alert and is the one held responsible. Tesla plans to bring it to cars soon, and the decision for the whole European Union goes to a vote in December.
On Friday, October 16, Slovakia's Ministry of Transport announced that it officially recognizes the provisional type approval of FSD (Supervised), Tesla's assisted driving system. With this decision, drivers will be able to use it on Slovak roads, and the ministry stresses that the country thus becomes one of the few in Europe to allow it.
That provisional approval was granted in April by the RDW, the Dutch body that approves vehicles, and the other European Union countries can recognize it on their territory, as Slovakia has now done.
According to the ministry, it is an advanced driver assistance software package that helps in the city and on the highway. It can accelerate, brake, steer and change lanes by itself, get through intersections and react to traffic signs and traffic lights, relying on cameras and neural networks to do so.
"It is not a fully autonomous system, so you should not imagine the driver's seat being left empty," said Transport Minister Jozef Ráž. Responsibility for driving still lies entirely with the driver: the system keeps watch on their attention at all times, warns them if they stop paying attention to the road and, if needed, switches itself off. Ráž also said Slovakia is not lagging behind in modern transport technology.
According to Not a Tesla App, Tesla Europe announced on X that the system will start reaching the country soon, making Slovakia the ninth country in Europe to give it the green light, after Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Slovenia. In Europe, Tesla has renamed it Tesla Assisted Driving. Approval for the whole Union will be put to a vote in December and requires the backing of at least 15 countries, a qualified majority; France and Sweden are against it because of the Speed Offset function, which can let the car go above speed limits.
The ministry's press release gives no date for it to reach cars. Not a Tesla App expects Slovak owners to begin seeing it within the coming weeks, most likely on Hardware 4 vehicles first.
Why it matters · analysis and opinion
The route Slovakia has taken is the one Europe is opening country by country: a single body approves and the others recognize its decision, without waiting for a common rule. That speeds up the arrival, but leaves an uneven map in which the same car can use the system on one side of a border and not on the other. What does not change is who carries the responsibility: the rules still treat FSD as an aid, and whoever is at the wheel answers for what the car does. For fleets and transport companies, that is the useful takeaway: no national authorization turns this technology into driverless driving, and the training of the person driving remains the safeguard. The real test will be the European vote, where doubts over speed limits weigh heavily.
Official source: Slovak Ministry of Transport · Written with the help of AI: how we make the news
