Tesla Assisted Driving gets a 10% speed cap in Europe. What it changes at 30, 50 and 100 km/h, and what it leaves unsolved

What the Dutch regulator changed

On 3 November the RDW, the Dutch vehicle authority, said it had assessed and approved changes requested by Tesla. The margin that lets the system exceed the limit falls from +50% to a maximum of +10%. It returns to 0% when the car starts, and other speed-related functions are also off by default.¹

FSD Supervised becomes Tesla Assisted Driving on the screen, in the manual and in other driver information. The RDW says the name does not alter how the system works, and that this is still driver assistance with the driver responsible. The update goes over the air to cars with hardware version 4.0 or later.¹

The RDW treated these as minor changes added to its existing approval, which it did not need to amend or extend. It informed Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia. With the Netherlands, that is 10 countries where the approval has been accepted, up from eight at the start of October.^1,9

Why the cap arrived now

The system needs wider backing. An EU-wide decision requires at least 15 of 27 member states, holding at least 65% of the EU population, and the committee handling it does not meet again until December. The countries that had accepted the approval by late September held about 12% of that population.⁷

Speed has been the main objection. Sweden's transport agency told the committee to vote against unless the ability to exceed limits was removed, and France's transport minister said he would not authorise the system as it stood, citing speeding and driver attention in towns.^10,11

Germany moved the other way. Its transport ministry said on 6 October that it had agreed with Tesla in September that the system may exceed limits by at most 10%, and that it would support this position in the EU process. It also called the old name misleading and said the driver stays 100% responsible.^2,6

The European Transport Safety Council, a road safety group, rejects any margin. It says UN Regulation 171 states that a system "shall not enable the driver to set a default offset". Resetting to 0% at each start looks aimed at that wording, though the RDW does not say so. The council's latest statement predates the RDW notice, and Charjin found no response from it yet.^1,4,5

The cap at real speed limits

Charjin worked out the highest speed the old and new margins allow. In a 20 km/h home zone it falls from 30 to 22 km/h. In a 30 km/h zone it falls from 45 to 33, on a 50 km/h road from 75 to 55, and on a 100 km/h road from 150 to 110. Those are calculated ceilings, and a car will not always reach them.¹

The time at stake is small. Over 10 km of clear road at a constant speed, 110 km/h instead of 100 saves about 33 seconds, and 55 km/h instead of 50 saves about 65 seconds. That is Charjin's arithmetic, and queues and junctions would shrink both figures.¹

The legal cost can be larger. ANWB's table of 2026 Dutch fines lists €46 for 5 km/h over inside a built-up area and €84 for 10 km/h over on a motorway, before administration costs. So one 55 in a 50, or one 110 in a 100, can cost far more than the minute or so it saves. These are Dutch amounts only, and the table does not say whether a measuring correction applies.¹⁴

Using the margin in full remains a driver's choice. Because the RDW and the German ministry both say responsibility stays with the driver, Charjin's reading is that a fine would too. Neither body addresses fines directly, so check your own country's rules.^1,2

What the cap does not touch

The most useful evidence comes from Johanna.be, a Brussels mobility non-profit. It tested a Model 3 on software 2026.21.100 and FSD v14.2.2.6 between 20 and 22 July, in standard mode, with the speed offset at 0% and contextual max speed off. Those are settings the new cap would not change.³

The car exceeded the limit in 16 of 29 Brussels 30 km/h segments, or 55%, averaging 44 km/h. That is about 47% over the limit, far beyond a 10% margin. In home zones it exceeded 20 km/h in five of 12 cases, averaging about 26 km/h.³

The cause appears to be how the car handles limits. It often read the 30 km/h sign correctly, then kept showing the driver 50 km/h. Across the Brussels sample, the driver saw a wrong limit in about 90% of segments. A Citroën C3 with ordinary sign recognition identified the zone signs on all seven segments compared, while the Tesla reflected the limit on one.³

The study also found no audible speed warning during its drives, and it found that braking to take over could release the steering, which sent the car straight ahead at two roundabouts. In six cycle streets it never showed the correct limit, and it tried to overtake cyclists, which Belgian rules ban. It did generally yield with care to people on foot and on bikes.³

If a car believes a 30 km/h street is a 50 km/h road, a 10% margin on that belief would be 55 km/h, or 83% over the legal limit. That is Charjin's arithmetic. The RDW notice says nothing about limit recognition, so nothing published shows this update addresses it.^1,3

The study has limits. It covers one car, one driver's video record, about two days and one software version, and it comes from a group that campaigns for pedestrians and cyclists. It predates this update, and Electrek reported no reply from Tesla.^3,12

What to do if you use it or are buying

If you subscribe, expect to start at 0% each trip and treat that as the sensible setting. Check the limit on screen against the signs, above all near schools and in residential streets, and be ready to slow the car yourself. Keep both hands ready when you brake to take over, because of the steering behaviour above.^1,3

Press reports put the price at €99 a month including VAT, or about €1,188 a year, with no one-time purchase and no refunds on subscriptions. Tesla's page reportedly says the car warns and then switches the system off when nearing a country where it is not approved, so plan cross-border trips around that.^8,13

If you live in Germany, France, Italy or Spain, do not pay for a car on the assumption that this feature will arrive. Germany's support is a position on the EU process, and the RDW says EU-wide approval is still under discussion. December is the earliest date for a vote, not a date for one.^1,2,7

What is still unknown

The RDW did not name the other speed functions now off by default, and a driver may still be able to turn them on. Tesla's own support pages blocked Charjin's requests, so its price and border wording here come from press reports of those pages. Tesla's rollout timing for each country is also unconfirmed.^1,9,13

The larger safety claim is also unsettled. Experts who reviewed Tesla's method for Reuters said its study does not support the claim that the system saves lives. Independent retests of this update in 30 km/h zones would give a clearer answer than the cap itself, and Charjin has not seen any yet.⁶