Tesla Full Self-Driving has gotten a huge breakthrough as the company is still planning big things for its European expansion, hoping to bring the impressive platform into the continent after years of attempts.

Tesla Europe has announced a major breakthrough: the company has officially completed the final vehicle testing phase for Full Self-Driving (Supervised) in partnership with the Dutch vehicle authority RDW.

All documentation for UN R-171 approval and Article 39 exemptions has been submitted, with RDW now conducting its internal review. Approval in the Netherlands is expected on April 10, shifted from the original March 20 target, following 18 months of rigorous collaboration.

Together with RDW, we have officially completed the final vehicle testing phase for Full Self-Driving (Supervised) and have submitted all documentation required for the UN R-171 approval + Article 39 exemptions. The RDW team is now reviewing the documentation and test results…

— Tesla Europe, Middle East & Africa (@teslaeurope) March 20, 2026

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The process has been exhaustive. Tesla said it has logged more than 1.6 million kilometers of FSD (Supervised) testing on European roads, conducted over 13,000 customer ride-alongs, executed 4,500+ track test scenarios, produced thousands of pages of documentation covering 400+ compliance requirements, and completed dozens of independent safety studies.

The company expressed pride in the partnership and anticipation of bringing the feature to “patient EU customers” soon after approval.

Europe’s regulatory landscape has presented steep challenges for Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance systems. The EU enforces some of the world’s strictest safety standards under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe framework, particularly UN Regulation 171 on Driver Control Assistance Systems.

Unlike the more permissive U.S. environment, European rules historically limited system-initiated maneuvers, required constant driver supervision, and demanded country-by-country or bloc-wide exemptions. Tesla faced repeated delays, with initial February 2026 targets pushed back amid RDW’s insistence that safety, not public or corporate pressure, would govern timelines.

Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches

A former Tesla executive warned in 2024 that certain regulatory elements could slip to 2028, highlighting bureaucratic hurdles, extensive audits, and the need for harmonized data privacy and liability frameworks across fragmented member states.

Yet progress is accelerating. Amendments to UN R-171 adopted in 2025 now permit hands-free highway lane changes and other automated features, clearing technical barriers. Once the Netherlands grants national approval, mutual recognition allows other EU countries to adopt it immediately, potentially leading to an EU-wide rollout by summer 2026.

This European breakthrough is part of Tesla’s broader push into foreign markets. Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is already live in the United States and expanding rapidly.

In China, where partial approvals exist, CEO Elon Musk has targeted full rollout around the same February–March 2026 window, despite lingering data-security reviews.

Additional markets, including the UAE, are slated for early 2026 launches. These expansions are critical as Tesla seeks to monetize software amid softening EV demand globally.

For European Tesla owners, the wait appears nearly over. Approval would unlock advanced autonomy features that have long been available elsewhere, marking a pivotal step in Tesla’s global autonomy ambitions and reinforcing its commitment to navigating complex international regulations.

Tesla is reportedly in talks to purchase $2.9 billion worth of solar manufacturing equipment from a group of Chinese suppliers, including Suzhou Maxwell Technologies, which is the world’s largest producer of screen-printing equipment used in solar cell production. According to Reuters sources, the equipment is expected to be delivered before autumn and shipped to Texas, where Tesla plans to anchor its next phase of domestic solar production.

The move is a direct extension of a vision Elon Musk has been building for months. At the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January, Musk announced that both Tesla and SpaceX were independently working to establish 100 gigawatts of annual solar manufacturing capacity inside the United States. Days later, on Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call, he made the ambition concrete: “We’re going to work toward getting 100 GW a year of solar cell production, integrating across the entire supply chain from raw materials all the way to finished solar panels.”

Job postings on Tesla’s website reflect that same target, with language explicitly calling for 100 GW of “solar manufacturing from raw materials on American soil before the end of 2028.”

Tesla job listing for Staff Manufacturing Development Engineer, Solar Manufacturing

The urgency behind the latest solar manufacturing target is rooted in a set of rapidly emerging pressures related to AI and Tesla’s own energy business. U.S. power consumption hit its second consecutive record high in 2025 and is projected to climb further through 2026 and 2027, driven largely by the explosion in AI data centers and the broader electrification of transportation. Tesla’s own energy division, which produces the Megapack utility-scale battery storage system, has been growing rapidly, and solar supply is a critical companion component for the business to scale. Musk has argued that solar is not just a clean energy option but the only one that makes economic sense at the scale AI infrastructure demands.

Tesla lands in Texas for latest Megapack production facility

Ironically, the path to domestic solar independence currently runs through China. Sort of.

Despite Tesla’s stated push to localize its supply chain, mirrored recently by the company’s plan for a $4.3 billion LFP battery manufacturing partnership with LG Energy Solution in Michigan, Tesla still relies on China-based suppliers to keep its cost structure intact.

The $2.9 billion equipment deal underscores a tension Musk himself acknowledged at Davos: “Unfortunately, in the U.S. the tariff barriers for solar are extremely high and that makes the economics of deploying solar artificially high, because China makes almost all the solar.” Building the factory in America requires buying the machinery from the country Tesla is trying to reduce its dependence on.

Tesla named by U.S. Gov. in $4.3B battery deal for American-made cells

The regulatory pathway adds another layer of complexity. Suzhou Maxwell has been seeking export approval from China’s commerce ministry, and it remains unclear how quickly that clearance will come. Still, the market has already reacted, with shares in the Chinese firms reportedly involved in the talks surged more than 7% following the Reuters report that broke the story.

Whether Tesla can hit its 2028 target of 100GW of solar manufacturing remains an open question. Though that scale may seem staggering, especially in such a short timeframe, we know that Musk has a documented history of “always pulling it off” in the face of ambitious deadlines that may slip. But, rest assured – it’ll get done.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the date of Full Self-Driving’s next massive release: v14.3.

For months, Tesla owners with Hardware 4 have been utilizing Full Self-Driving v14.2 and subsequent releases. Currently, the most up-to-date FSD version is v14.2.2.5, which has definitely brought out mixed reviews. With releases, some things get better, and other things might regress slightly.

For the most part, things are better in terms of overall behavior.

However, many owners have been looking forward to the next release, which is v14.3, about which Musk has said many great things. Back in November, Musk said that v14.3 “is where the last big piece of the puzzle lands.”

He added:

“We’re gonna add a lot of reasoning and RL (reinforcement learning). To get to serious scale, Tesla will probably need to build a giant chip fab. To have a few hundred gigawatts of AI chips per year, I don’t see that capability coming online fast enough, so we will probably have to build a fab.”

Initially planned for a January or February release, v14.3 aims to add some reasoning and logic to the decisions that Full Self-Driving makes, which could improve a lot of things, including Navigation, which is a major complaint of many owners currently.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2 is a considerable improvement from early versions of the suite, but we have written about the somewhat confusing updates that have come with recent versions.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2.2.5 might be the most confusing release ever

They’ve been incredibly difficult to gauge in terms of progress because some things have gotten better, but there seems to be some real regression on a handful of things, especially with confidence and assertiveness.

Musk confirmed today on X that Tesla is already testing v14.3 internally right now. It will hit a wide release “in a few weeks,” so we should probably expect it by late April.

It’s in testing right now. Wide release in a few weeks.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 19, 2026

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Overall, there are high hopes that v14.3 could be a true game changer for Tesla Full Self-Driving, as many believe it could be the version that Robotaxis in Austin, Texas, some of which are driverless and unsupervised, are running.

It could also include some major additions, including “Banish,” also referred to as “Reverse Summon,” which would go find a parking spot after dropping occupants off at their destination.

What Tesla will roll out, and when exactly it arrives, all remain to be seen, but fans have been ready for a new version as v14.2.2.5 has definitely run its course. We have had a lot of readers tell us their biggest request is to fix Navigation errors, which seem to be one of the most universal complaints among daily FSD users.