Germany Backs Tesla's EU Approval If the System Is Renamed and Capped at 10% Over the Limit

Germany's transport ministry said on October 6 that it will back EU-wide approval of Tesla's driver-assistance software, on two conditions Tesla accepted in September talks: a new name, "Tesla Assisted Driving", and a speed offset capped at 10% over the posted limit.

The ministry's statement was reported by Reuters on October 7 and republished by The Star. Federal Transport Minister Steffen Bilger said he met Tesla in September to discuss technical details and liability. He said: "My goal is for Tesla drivers to be able to enjoy the benefits of 'assisted driving' throughout the EU without delay."

The speed offset is the real change

The number that matters is not the name but the offset. Reuters reported that the version approved in the Netherlands keeps a function that can exceed the detected speed limit by up to 50%. Germany and Tesla have now agreed on 10% over the posted limit, and Berlin says it will argue that position in the EU process.

Electrek's Fred Lambert notes that Tesla's system often exceeds 10% today, so reaching the German figure would need a software change. That is Electrek's reading, not a Tesla statement, and Tesla has not published a revised offset specification in anything we fetched.

1. Dutch-approved version (over detected limit)50 %
2. Germany-Tesla agreement (over posted limit)10 %

Source: Reuters via The Star, October 7, 2026

Note the two baselines differ. The Dutch figure is measured against the limit the car detects; the German one against the posted limit. A car that misreads a sign can still be inside its own offset while outside Germany's.

What changed on Tesla's German site

Electrek reported on October 9 that Tesla's German website no longer mentions Full Self-Driving, and that the old address redirects to the new "Tesla Assisted Driving" page. That is a single-source observation of a website. The ministry's own wording, per Reuters, is that Tesla offered the rename and that the old name is misleading because the system does not take over the full driving task.

Electrek also found that the German page is a translation of the US page with the product name swapped. It still carries the "7x safer" claim, which Tesla's footnote ties to the estimated US average. Tesla's US page still sells "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" for $99 a month, according to Electrek.

Who is for and against

Country	Position reported	Status
Germany	Backs EU approval, if 10% cap and rename	Has not recognised Dutch approval
Netherlands, Belgium	Support	Netherlands approved in April
Sweden, France	Concerned about speeding	No approval

Tesla's page lists eight approved countries: the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia and Croatia, Electrek reported. Germany is not among them.

Safety evidence is still thin

A separate Reuters investigation, published the same day, reported that Tesla's European safety research does not examine crash rates or deaths. It uses behaviours such as hard braking and horn-honking as proxies. Reuters also reported that Tesla has pressed regulators to reduce the rigour of safety reviews and submitted its own crash-reduction research. Tesla's first European factory is outside Berlin, and the company says approval is key to European sales against Chinese EV makers. Regulatory timing has slowed other Tesla hardware too: its first Semi service center sat at "awaiting plans" in a Las Vegas permit file.

If no EU deal emerges, Bilger said Germany would consider what can be done nationally, according to The Next Web. The member-state vote first due in October has slipped to December at the earliest while some countries run additional tests. That vote, and whether the 10% cap survives it, is the figure to watch.