Tesla presented misleading ‘Full Self-Driving’ safety data to European regulators
In its efforts to secure European approval of its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) system, Tesla has presented self-published safety statistics to regulators in Sweden and the
In its efforts to secure European approval of its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) system, Tesla has presented self-published safety statistics to regulators in Sweden and the Netherlands that independent traffic-safety researchers have said amount to misleading marketing. A Reuters examination published last month found that Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other leaders over the past year have increasingly cited statistics they say prove its FSD driver-assistance feature is up to 10 times safer than human drivers. But the news agency’s review found several invalid data comparisons underlying Tesla’s statistics that exaggerated its safety claims. Tesla has presented the inflated safety data to some European regulators, according to correspondence obtained by Reuters through public records requests, as the EV maker seeks wider approval of FSD in a region where it is trying to regain market share. Tesla approached RDW, the Dutch road regulator, in late 2024 to begin the FSD approval process. In a November 2024 letter to RDW, Tesla provided a link to its safety report and claimed “increased usage” of FSD “leads to safer roads.” Tesla charges a monthly subscription for FSD, which can drive itself under certain circumstances but requires the human driver to pay attention. After more than a year of testing and discussions with Tesla, RDW in April approved FSD for use in the Netherlands. The Dutch regulator is now seeking EU-wide approval on behalf of Tesla.
RDW declined to comment on the issues Reuters identified with Tesla's safety statistics, but the agency said in a statement that it "does not rely on marketing claims or external statistics" to make decisions and performs its own "tests, analyses and verifications" of the system on public roads and test tracks. The agency did not say whether it assessed Tesla's U.S. safety statistics. RDW said Tesla “collected a lot of data” during testing and the agency “validated, tested and audited all of this data.” RDW did not say what kind of data Tesla collected or what it measured. Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. Saving 32,000 Lives? Soon after the Dutch announced the decision on April 10, a Tesla policy manager, Ivan Komusanac, wrote an email to Swedish regulators asking for similar FSD approval. He attached a slide presentation displaying the exaggerated claim that Teslas using FSD can travel more than seven times farther between crashes than the average U.S. human driver. The presentation also claimed FSD could have potentially saved 32,000 lives and prevented 1.9 million injuries. Researchers interviewed by Reuters said those figures are highly misleading because they are based on the unrealistic assumption that every U.S. vehicle, including freight trucks and crash-prone motorcycles, would be replaced by an FSD-enabled Tesla car – and that every Tesla car is, in fact, at least seven times safer than the one it replaces.
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