Tesla Accused of Submitting Inflated FSD Safety Data to European Regulators to Fast-Track Approval

To advance regulatory approval of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in Europe, Tesla has submitted self-generated safety statistics to regulators in countries including Sweden and the Netherlands. Multiple independent road safety researchers have criticized these figures as misleading and primarily promotional in nature. Over the past year, Tesla executives have frequently cited data claiming that FSD is ten times safer than human drivers. However, investigations revealed that this comparison is invalid and deliberately inflates the system’s safety performance. In November 2024, Tesla formally initiated the FSD approval process in the Netherlands, attaching a link to its safety report in a letter to the Dutch Vehicle Authority (RDW), asserting that “increased FSD usage will make roads safer.” The system operates on a monthly subscription basis and, while capable of autonomous driving under specific conditions, still requires drivers to remain attentive and ready to take control at all times. In April 2025, the RDW approved FSD for use in the Netherlands and is now representing Tesla in its application for EU-wide authorization. The agency stated its decision was based not on “marketing claims or external statistics,” but on independent “testing, analysis, and verification” conducted on public roads and test tracks. However, it did not clarify whether it had reviewed Tesla’s U.S.-derived safety data or specify what types of data and evaluation metrics were actually verified. Subsequently, on or after April 10, Ivan Komusanac, Tesla’s Head of Policy, wrote to Swedish regulators requesting parallel approval for FSD deployment and included a presentation slide claiming that Tesla vehicles equipped with FSD travel more than seven times farther between collisions than the average U.S. driver. The slide further projected that widespread FSD adoption could save 32,000 lives and prevent 1.9 million injury-causing crashes annually. Researchers noted that this conclusion rests on unrealistic assumptions: namely, that all motor vehicles across the U.S.—including trucks and motorcycles—would be replaced by FSD-equipped Tesla sedans, each performing over seven times safer than current vehicles. The investigation also found that Tesla’s statistics only counted FSD-related incidents severe enough to deploy airbags, yet compared this narrow metric against the U.S. national crash rate—which includes numerous minor fender-benders. Additionally, Tesla compared its brand-new vehicles against the older average U.S. vehicle fleet; since newer cars generally feature more advanced safety technologies, this skewed the apparent safety advantage. The Swedish Transport Agency declined to comment on Tesla’s submitted data but emphasized that its evaluation would not rely solely on “impressive aggregate numbers” and would instead consider all supporting evidence—though it did not disclose what additional materials Tesla had provided. Dudley Curtis, spokesperson for the European Transport Safety Council, expressed deep concern upon learning of the documents, stating he was “troubled by Tesla’s submission of U.S. safety data of questionable credibility” to Swedish authorities. He stressed that any safety claims should be based on conclusions drawn only after raw data has been independently verified by academic or other impartial research institutions. Tesla has publicly stated that securing European regulatory approval for FSD is critical to reviving its local sales. The company’s European sales have sharply declined following political controversies involving senior executives and now face intensifying competition from Chinese electric vehicle brands rapidly gaining market share. Under EU rules, FSD must gain approval from member states representing at least 55% of the EU population (covering 65% of the total) to be legally deployed across the entire bloc. During the transitional period, individual countries may grant national approvals. Greece recently indicated plans to authorize FSD, citing data “from across the Atlantic” that allegedly demonstrates a significant reduction in crash rates—but declined to confirm whether this data originated from Tesla’s own reports. Multiple emails show that European regulators have recently received numerous letters from Tesla owners urging faster FSD approval, citing the company’s safety statistics. For example, in autumn 2024, several Norwegian owners wrote to the national Public Roads Administration, claiming FSD is “far safer than human driving” and could reduce traffic accidents by up to 90%. The Norwegian authority responded that Tesla’s data, being “self-produced by the company,” cannot be effectively compared against official national crash statistics.