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Tesla’s pooling deal with Fiat-Chrysler is proving to be a killer combo in Europe
New data from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) shows that the pooling deal between Tesla and Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles is proving to be a strong force, as the two companies recently made up for 39% of the total electric vehicles registered in Europe.
According to the ICCT, the FCA-Tesla duo made up for nearly 2 of every five electric vehicles sold in Europe during the first quarter of 2020. The next closest competitor was Volvo, which shared 22% of the market with their electric cars. BMW was third with 14%.
“This is the result of a strong uptake of Tesla battery-electric vehicle sales, with a tenfold increase in deliveries in markets such as the UK, while at the same time sales of the Fiat brand combustion engine vehicles were cut in half compared to the previous month,” an ICCT Fact Sheet said.
⚡️Unprecedented⚡️ EV sales🚗all across European car markets in Q1 2020:
📈Record 10% marketshare in March
🇪🇺Driven by EU car CO2 regulation that kicked in on 1 Jan 2020See @TheICCT @MockPeter analysis:https://t.co/eYe8UrfngZ pic.twitter.com/fi7Q2FMcbe
— T&E (@transenv) April 29, 2020
In April 2019, Tesla and Fiat-Chrysler struck a deal to “pool” together their fleets to meet tough European Union emissions standards. The EU allowed company “pooling” to reach the goal of 95g of CO2 per kilometer at the beginning of 2020, and FCA chose Tesla to help accomplish that feat. Fiat Chrysler will pay Tesla around 1.8 billion euros for the deal, which will help them avoid large fines for having excessive emissions rates.
Fiat-Chrysler has plans to transition some of its most popular vehicles to electric as emissions standards are proving to be a tough task for the company when it is standing alone. The Fiat 500e will roll out for its first deliveries in Europe in July 2020. Meanwhile, the company also has plans to electrify the Fiat Panda, a car that could launch as soon as 2021.
Furthermore, FCA also expressed intentions to build Plug-In Hybrid variants of the Jeep Compass, Renegade, and Wrangler in a $10.5 billion initiative to transition to a more sustainable transportation lineup. But until then, the automaker’s pooling deal with Tesla would be its trump card to avoid emissions fines in Europe.
Tesla’s presence in Europe is notable. The company’s Model 3, Model S, and Model X are currently all available for purchase in the region. The Model Y will be available for purchase when the first phase of Giga Berlin is finished, and Tesla plans to complete that project in July 2021.
The Model 3, for its part, has made waves in the region’s auto sector. While other manufacturers like Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW continue to maintain high sales numbers through their lineup of petrol-powered sedans, the Tesla Model 3 has competed with these companies head-on. Figures from JATO Dynamics suggest that the Model 3 was the third most popular car, regardless of power source, in Europe in December 2019.
The partnership between both Tesla and Fiat-Chrysler goes way past selling vehicles. The collaboration between the two companies will, of course, increase sales figures. However, the ultimate goal was to decrease the amount of CO2 emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere, which is an issue that Fiat-Chrysler would have struggled with on its own. However, Tesla has helped FCA come within just three points of its emissions goal of 95g of CO2 per kilometer.
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla has finally released its Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite for older cars that equip the Hardware 3 or AI 3 chip, which have not been able to handle the newest versions of the company’s driver assistance software.
Tesla officially started releasing the v14 Lite suite to owners in the Early Access Program last night. The company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. The build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of an AI3 car.
🚨 Tesla is releasing v14 Lite for AI3 owners who are in early-access
This will give AI3 cars the ability to experience new FSD features like parking preferences. https://t.co/pp6Q5FOKoz pic.twitter.com/tqexMB8SVy
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 29, 2026
It also includes a variety of new features that were available to AI4 cars running v14, including:
- Start Self-Driving from Park
- Arrival and Parking Options
- Speed Profiles
The release is highly anticipated because those owners with AI3 vehicles were early adopters into the FSD platform and were promised that their cars would be capable of achieving Full Self-Driving.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted during the company’s recent Q1 Earnings Call that these vehicles would not be capable of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, which is what Tesla had originally said.
Owners were not pleased with this answer, or the idea that their commitment to buying the suite outright for thousands of dollars would not yield the ability to drive without operating the car. Tesla gave some solutions for this, including a discount on a new car, or an upgrade to an AI4 or AI5 self-driving computer and new, upgraded cameras.
Tesla owners do not seem pleased with these options, as they require giving the company more money.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that Tesla came through for owners here by releasing v14 Lite before the end of Q2, something it had promised owners during the previous Earnings Call. Tesla has had trouble keeping up with timelines, but this is a big achievement for the team.
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features
