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Tesla Full Self-Driving could soon be allowed in Germany, gov approves legislation aimed at autonomous driving
The national Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany decided on Thursday to change an existing traffic law that had prohibited vehicles from being engaged in autonomous mode. Drawing on votes from both the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CSU), the Bundestag has agreed to allow fully autonomous driving vehicles to travel on Germany’s streets. The (translated) law reads, in part,
“During vehicle driving, the driver may turn away from traffic and vehicle control by means of highly automated or fully automated driving function… [but must] immediately [assume control] if he recognizes that the conditions for the intended use of the highly or fully automated driving functions no longer exist… even if he does not control the vehicle in the context of the intended use of this function.”
The law provides a balance between driver responsibility in the event of traffic incident and the ability of the the driver to release control of the vehicle to a control system, depending on situation and duration. The driver must retain the capacity to reassume control as well as to deactivate the control system. All vehicles with autonomous driving systems would have a “black box” data storage system, which would assist in determining fault in the event of an accident.
The new German law supersedes the 1968 “Vienna Convention on Road Traffic,” which specified that human drivers must have full control over their vehicle at any time. Of course, at that time of that law’s implementation, autonomous vehicles had not yet been introduced.
Tensions were high immediately preceding the vote, according to Germany’s golem.de newspaper, which described the level of autonomy to be permitted as “highly automated and fully automatic vehicles.” SPD deputy Kirsten Lühmann accusing the body of assigning drivers the roles of “experimental rabbits for new technology.” Stephan Kühn, the Green party deputy, also disagreed with the extent of the law. “It is not enough just to formulate in the justification of the legal text what the driver is allowed to do without worry while the computer is driving the car. This must be re-written into the law itself.”
The SPD defended the amendments as sound and timely.
German Federal Minister of Transport Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) had offered draft legislation for the new law in February, but it received violent criticism and underwent significant revision, particularly around data protection regulations. At the beginning of this week’s debate, he envisioned Germany as having “the most modern road traffic law in the world.” Dobrindt has rationalized the law as providing value added software innovation that could be homegrown in Germany and Europe. With the new systems, he said, will come increased traffic safety, fewer traffic jams, and reduced environmental pollution [emphasis added].
Germany is a forerunner for European autonomous driving, with some sections of public highways already designated as live testing zones. The Institute for the German Economy calculates that Germany has registered 58% of all global patents in autonomous driving since 2010.
The approved revision states that the owner of the car is still liable for actions taken while under autonomous mode, as prescribed by section 7 of the Road Traffic Act (Hazard Liability). Specific German autonomous driving regulations have not yet been established; those will come alongside international regulations and definitions and will likely change, too, as technological development in autonomous driving continues to progress. Like so many in the auto industry today, German engineers, scientists, and regulators are in a race to figure out the details of how autonomous cars will function so that they can be market ready by the early 2020’s.
Of course, Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, has stated that his company’s electric vehicles will have autonomous capability by the second half of 2017. The Society of Automotive Engineers has identified different levels of autonomy, ranging from 0 to Level 5, with Level 5 signifying that a vehicle can drive itself at all times under all conditions and need no input from a human. Level 4 autonomy refers to a vehicle that can be autonomous almost all the time, within determined parameters, as seems to be outlined by the Bundestag.
Interestingly, according to Musk’s statements, Teslas may soon be able to approach Level 4. That would make Tesla R&D far ahead of any German innovation currently underway.
With a bicameral parliament, Germany has two chambers: the Bundestag (lower house) and the Bundesrat (Federal Council or upper house). Both chambers can initiate legislation, and most bills must be approved by both chambers, as well as the executive branch, before becoming law. Now that the autonomous driving legislation has been approved by the Bundestag, it will go before the Federal Council. Coalition forces feel confident that this week’s modifications to Dobrindt’s original draft proposal are sufficient to pass through the Bundestrat.
Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder was excited about the law, saying, “The Bundestag has cleared the way for the Automnation Deutschland to be the world leader in autonomous driving.” He acknowledged that changes will occur around liability rules or the use of data. “But we must not make the mistake of trying to settle everything down to the end in a long-term debate, then other countries will create facts and we will have the opportunity to use this technology.”
The first production vehicles equipped with autonomous driving features will be introduced to Germany sometime in 2017. “We can also be innovative in the legal framework and do not need to hide from the Silicon Valley ,” said Ulrich Lange (CSU), a CSU member, argued during the final moments of debate.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is heading to Czechia after the Czech Ministry of Transport recognised the Dutch RDW’s provisional type approval, making the country the seventh EU member state to clear the system for public roads. Tesla Europe announced on 21 September 2026 that “FSD Supervised is now approved in Czechia” and that rollout “will begin soon.”
The decision marks a notable reversal. Earlier in 2026, Prague had declined to automatically recognise the Netherlands’ April approval, citing concerns over speed-limit compliance, traffic-sign recognition and driver-attention monitoring, and arguing that a coordinated EU approach was preferable. Officials said months of expert review, talks with Tesla and other member states, and real-world data from countries already using the system resolved those issues.
🚨 Tesla FSD heading to Czechia 🇨🇿 pic.twitter.com/mkzlM9QjrB
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 21, 2026
“Safety remains the top priority,” the ministry stated.
FSD Supervised remains a Level 2 driver-assistance system: the driver must stay engaged and is legally responsible. Eligible vehicles need AI4, the company’s most up-to-date hardware version. Tesla is expected to push the feature over the air in the coming days, following the pattern seen after earlier national approvals.
Europe’s rollout began when Dutch regulator RDW issued a provisional EU type approval on 10 April 2026 after extensive testing. Mutual recognition then produced a rapid cascade: Lithuania (20 May), Estonia (29 May), Denmark (9 June), Belgium (10 June) and Slovenia (7 September). Czechia now completes that list of seven.
The approvals cover only a modest share of the EU population, but they add political weight ahead of a 6 October vote by the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. A qualified majority, at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population, could open the remaining markets, including large ones such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain that have so far preferred to wait for a bloc-wide decision.
For Czech Tesla owners, the immediate prize is access to the same supervised highway and city driving already available in the other six countries. For Tesla, each new market generates additional European driving data and strengthens the case that FSD Supervised can operate safely under the continent’s varied road rules. The Czech approval is therefore both a local milestone and another incremental step toward a wider European launch.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has established a Temporary Flight Restriction over SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas, rocket development and test facility, a move widely viewed as preparation for Tesla’s October 1 Roadster reveal. The restriction took effect September 18 and runs through October 2.
NOTAM FDC 6/3825 covers a 1.5-nautical-mile radius around the site near Waco and extends from the surface to 10,000 feet above ground level. The FAA cited hazards under 14 CFR 91.137(a)(3) and barred aircraft and drones from the zone. Tesla’s invitation to reservation holders already placed the event in Waco, about 20 minutes from McGregor, making the timing and location more than coincidental.
A TFR has appeared around SpaceX’s McGregor Testing Site up to 10,000ft and runs through until the 2nd of October 👀 pic.twitter.com/rcZ4p4JkLm
— Niall Anderson (@INiallAnderson) September 18, 2026
What stands out is the altitude. Typical recent TFRs at McGregor for engine static fires and component tests have used far lower ceilings, often around 2,000 feet. Raising the limit to 10,000 feet is unusually high even compared with some Starbase restrictions and signals operations that go beyond a standard ground-level engine test.
That extra airspace has fueled speculation about the long-promised SpaceX Package for the Roadster. Elon Musk has described cold-gas thrusters that could deliver sub-one-second 0-60 times and, more dramatically, brief lift-off. Reports earlier this year indicated Tesla planned a remote-controlled demonstration at McGregor in which the car would leave the ground with no one inside; spectators kept hundreds of yards away because of the noise.
The 10,000-foot envelope would give operators a large safety buffer even if the vehicle only hovers a short distance.
Tesla has not confirmed a flight demo. The company has only used the phrase “Go for launch” and posted a teaser image of the car on what looks like a launch pad. The TFR itself mentions only hazards. Still, closing airspace this high and this close to the reveal date strongly suggests the event will include more than a static display.
Whether the Roadster actually hovers on October 1 remains to be seen. What is certain is that the FAA has cleared a large vertical slice of Texas sky for whatever Tesla and SpaceX intend to show. Reservation holders heading to Waco will be among the first to find out if the car can do more than drive.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig
Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.
Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”
This is the future we shall bring into being pic.twitter.com/8aD0w8MDVc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026
The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.
This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.
What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.
That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.
Tesla Full Self-Driving expands to another European country
Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges
