Tesla touts European supervised self-driving safety data ahead of EU vote

Tesla is putting its European safety numbers in the public domain as it pushes for a wider rollout of its supervised self-driving system. The company says cars using the technology recorded 4.1 times fewer collisions than manually driven Tesla vehicles in five European countries.

Tesla said the figures covered more than 100 million kilometres of driving between April and August. In the five countries where the system is permitted, FSD-equipped cars were involved in three highway collisions and nine on other roads. Manually driven Tesla cars recorded 137 highway collisions and 490 on non-highway roads, according to the company.

The figures come as the automaker lobbies ahead of a possible European Union vote on broader approval. The Netherlands gave provisional approval in April, followed by Belgium, Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania. Tesla said a vote could take place as soon as October 6, and that approval would need backing from at least 15 member states representing at least 65% of the EU population.

Tesla also posted an open-source safety dashboard, saying it had shared the material with EU regulators. The company said, "Leading up to a potential EU-wide approval vote ... we have decided to open-source one of the key pieces of evidence used to support the Netherlands approval."

The safety claims remain contested. Reuters previously reported that experts viewed Tesla's comparisons as invalid and potentially misleading. European regulators, including Dutch road authority RDW, have declined to publish the data behind the Dutch approval, calling it commercially sensitive. Tesla did not answer detailed questions for that earlier report. The company says broader approval is important for increasing European sales, although registration figures released Tuesday showed a mixed picture across the continent.

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Leading up to a potential EU-wide approval vote ... we have decided to open-source one of the key pieces of evidence used to support the Netherlands approval.