Overview
- A mid-June Reuters investigation showed Tesla executives have cited statistics saying Full Self-Driving (FSD) can be up to ten times safer than human drivers and presented projections such as FSD vehicles traveling seven times longer between crashes and preventing 32,000 deaths and 1.9 million injuries.
- Independent researchers identified specific methodological flaws in Tesla's submissions, including an unrealistic assumption that all vehicles would be replaced by FSD‑capable Teslas and inappropriate comparisons that mix different crash types and vehicle classes, a practice experts described as comparing apples with oranges.
- The Dutch road authority RDW said it runs its own on-road tests and does not base approvals on marketing claims, yet five EU countries — the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark and Belgium — have granted provisional authorizations that await a qualified majority vote and a European Commission decision.
- Safety groups and research centres such as ETSC and Imec are demanding Tesla release raw data for independent verification, and Reuters reported Tesla did not respond to requests for comment about the findings.
- The controversy raises immediate safety and market questions: driver‑monitoring weaknesses shown by viral hacks that fool cabin cameras increase risk for road users, and independent testing or EU-level scrutiny could slow or reshape Tesla's plans for wider FSD deployment in Europe.