Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta is poised for a European launch, thanks to a update in regulations by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). On Wednesday the UNECE adopted a new regulation to approve vehicles with Driver Control Assistance Systems (DCAS), finally allowing advanced driving assistance technologies, such as FSD Beta, on European roads.
The new regulation was adopted at the UNECE’s 192nd session in Geneva. The DCAS regulation establishes a standardized framework for systems that support a combination of driving control assistance features, such as braking, accelerating, and overtaking, and not just speed (cruise) control.
The new regulation does not cover full driving automation however, and still requires the driver to remain engaged and responsible for the vehicle at all times, in line with the capabilities of Tesla’s FSD Beta. (h/t: @fminderop)
To avoid driver overreliance on such systems, the regulation stipulates that DCAS shall be designed to ensure that the driver remains engaged with the driving task. The driver’s hands must remain on the wheel and the system shall monitor the driver’s visual engagement with the road, triggering alarms after 5 seconds when it detects that this is no longer the case.
UNECE
The adoption of the DCAS regulation not only paves the way for the introduction of Tesla’s FSD Beta in Europe, it also should allow Tesla to reinstate certain Autopilot features that had previously been restricted. These features, such as requiring the driver to activate the turn signal to manually trigger what were previously automatic lane changes, and limiting how far the steering wheel can turn while on Autopilot, are likely to reappear before the release of FSD Beta.
So when can we expect Tesla to launch FSD Beta in Europe? According to UNECE, Tesla will have to “submit an outline of the systems’ design to type approval authorities,” so the exact timeline will depend on how quickly Tesla can pull together the required information, and how long it takes regulators to approve. However, according to Teslascope, a launch could come as soon as October in some European countries.
Once it is released, Tesla will have to monitor the performance of FSD Beta and provide updates to regulators at least once per year.
As we have previously reported, Tesla has been quietly testing FSD Beta on European roads for over a year, so they already have a solid amount of data to provide to regulators if required.
