If you’ve ever doubted the benefits of self-driving cars, take a look at the data. In the US where Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) has been available since 2022, Tesla reports that users experience seven times fewer collisions on the highway, or five times fewer ‘off highway’ collisions.
Full Self Driving could, according to Tesla, save up to 32,000 lives a year in the US where there are well over 40,000 road fatalities every year.
Autonomous car tech is nothing new in Europe, with driver assistance systems that will keep you in lane and a set distance from the car in front on the motorway – including in stop/start traffic – commonplace. Some will even change lanes for you, if it’s safe to do so.
Then there are the various trials of fully autonomous vehicles around London, with Uber, Waymo and others testing driverless cars (still with drivers behind the wheel for safety) before being given the official go-ahead for passenger rides.
Key to all current autonomous tech is that the driver remains responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle. And the driver’s insurance will pay if anything does go wrong.
That’s why Tesla’s Full Self Driving is always followed by the word ‘supervised’ in brackets. The car can drive itself on motorways, country lanes and crowded city streets, but it has to be supervised – the driver is responsible and must take over at a moment’s notice if there’s any sign of danger.
Tesla has been testing FSD across Europe – including in the UK – since last year. These tests include demos to legislators and officials who have the power to say yes or no to allowing FSD to go live in each country.
The Netherlands has given the go-ahead first – with other EU members expected to follow suit in short order – and I was invited to Amsterdam, of all places, as one of the first non-Tesla people to take FSD for a ride in Europe.
For full disclosure, I’ve experienced FSD in the US, in both a Tesla Cybertruck and a Model Y, while my family in the US use their Model Y on Full Self Driving most of the time.
But, as we all know, European roads present their own unique challenges, and the streets of Amsterdam – full of tourists, cyclists, trams cars and trucks, and often lined by canals – present a whole different challenge.
Let’s start with how Tesla’s Full Self Driving (Supervised) works. The American company has eschewed fancy radar or lidar technology to rely on cameras – eight of them around the Model Y Rear Wheel Drive car I’m in.
There’s a camera on the nose of the car, one on each wing, another in each B-pillar between front and back doors, and one in the rear. They combine with information from the car’s GPS system to pinpoint its location, and with on-board maps, microphones and gyro systems that detect the car’s movement.
All that data is fed into the car’s ‘neural system’, with Tesla’s proprietary AI then converting it into separate streams. These are then sent to the car’s steering and speed systems to produce an output that’s designed to mimic driver behaviour.
Tesla reports that Full Self Driving users experience seven times fewer collisions on the highway, or five times fewer ‘off highway’ collisions
Clever tech is used to take account of weather conditions – including bright sunlight going straight into the cameras – while the system will even pick up on pedestrian hand and feet movement to detect which way they’re heading, and tell if they’re wearing headphones. The cameras do have to be kept clean and clear of obstructions, though.
There’s also a camera in the car – just above the rear-view mirror – that’s watching the driver all the time. We’ve become used to cars looking at our eyes and beeping at us if we’re not focused on the road. This does that, too, but it also watches your hands to ensure you are, what Tesla calls, ‘hands ready’ to take over if you need to.
The Model Y I tested was happy with my hands in my lap or with my arms folded, but it started beeping when I put my hands behind my head. It would eventually cancel FSD if it thought I wasn’t paying enough attention.
As I’ve experienced in the US, Tesla is learning and improving all the time. Around 198 million miles are driven every day in Teslas, with those cars all generating anonymous, aggregated data that is used to train Full Self Driving. And improvements are regularly fed into Teslas via over-the-air software updates.
Amsterdam is a brave place to stick me in a car with Full Self Driving. If I was doing the driving, it would be challenging my full range of skills; there are just so many potential hazards to take in. The idea of letting the car do the work here is hugely appealing – although some of the stress is still there. I was constantly looking left, right, straight on and behind just in case I had to intervene.
Let’s deal with those interventions first – which were very few. A couple of times, I had to give the car a gentle reminder when it didn’t spot a light that had changed to green. More importantly, I once had to step sharply on the brakes to stop going into the side of another car, but that was at a crossroads where the temporary traffic lights had stopped working. I wasn’t prepared to wait and see if there was an impact for the benefit of the test – the car may have avoided it, but I didn’t risk it.
The car also got a little confused over directions and road markings a couple of times, but always found another way with the navigation quickly re-routing. And on parking, good though Tesla’s self-parking system is (which is fully integrated into Full Self Driving), there were a couple of times I could’ve done it better and quicker myself, and I had to finish off putting the car all the way into a space.
Otherwise, in my hands, the car behaved impeccably. And it’s so simple to use – you set your destination on the navigation, either press the scroll wheel on the right hand side of the steering wheel or a button on the touchscreen (on older models it’s a dip of the gear selector), and with a beep, the car is in control.
The screen can be set to show exactly what the car is seeing – the road direction, other vehicles, traffic lights, road signs and pedestrians – and when you’re in FSD mode, there’s a blue strip ahead of the virtual car on-screen, indicating where it intends to go. This being a car company with a sense of humour, that blue line can be changed to a rainbow-coloured road fans of a certain kart racing game will recognise.
What’s most remarkable is how unremarkable it all is. The car accelerates with confidence – not super-speedy but a very natural acceleration – and it corners smoothly. The car will overtake when it needs to (I was always checking the mirrors, just in case) and on occasions, it even swapped lanes approaching traffic lights when it spotted an advantage to be had – just as I would.
My Model Y never jumped the lights and was more regimented when it came to the speed limit than most other road users – so much so that it felt oddly slow on the motorway at times.
And around the busy streets of the city centre, the car’s ability to spot every single hazard and react accordingly, was hugely impressive. Had I not been using FSD, I may have been a little more strident in squeezing between pedestrians and cycles, but the impeccably mannered Model Y always gave these more vulnerable road users the benefit of the doubt.
The way the car turned sharply and cruised down narrow, cobbled streets – judging its width more confidently than I might in certain situations – was impressive
There was one slightly awkward moment when an older guy didn’t know whether to cross in front of us or wait, and he looked to me for guidance. I couldn’t help as I didn’t know what the Tesla was about to do; in the end he just went and the car stopped. Maybe there needs to be a way for the car to send a message of its intentions to other people.
The way the car turned sharply and cruised down narrow, cobbled streets – judging its width more confidently than I might in certain situations – was impressive, too. As was the fact that the hundreds of people we passed on Amsterdam’s streets seemed to have no idea that it was the car doing the driving – although there was the odd double-take when they realised my hands weren’t on the steering wheel.
With other semi-autonomous tech I’ve become used to on motorways, a journey won’t pass without me having to intervene in one way or another. I suspected that would be the case with Tesla’s FSD, too, but I was amazed at how long and how far I was able to go without intervening.
There are still particular challenges that I need to be convinced about with Full Self Driving – single track country lanes, for example. Tesla says its UK tests have involved that exact situation with an oncoming tractor thrown in for good measure. Apparently, the car simply reversed enough for the tractor to pass. But would it be quite as subservient with another car – or another Tesla using Full Self Driving? I’m looking forward to finding out.
Of course, there are already plenty of people for whom Full Self Driving just doesn’t appeal – whether that’s just because they love every aspect of driving or they don’t trust the technology. What I always remind them, though, is that many are happy to travel on a plane that’s on autopilot from as little as 15 seconds after take-off, and might even land on autopilot too.
For me, Full Self Driving will be another driver aid that I use when I want it, and I’d probably even use it more than expected due to the sheer convenience. There will always be times when I just want to enjoy the drive, but for some of the tedious stuff that’s difficult to enjoy, why not let the car take the strain?
I’d highly recommend that you just give it a go – and I say the same about electric cars: try it, you might just like it.
As much as we might not care to admit it, a computer is likely to be a better driver than you or me, while driverless cars will keep older people mobile for longer – my Dad has just given up his driving licence, but would still dearly love to have his own car.
One of the big questions is how much Full Self Driving might cost. The technology is already built into all newer Teslas, so it’ll be accessed by paying a monthly subscription. In the Netherlands, Tesla is charging €99 (£89) a month – so expect something similar when FSD comes to the UK.
That’s another question – when will we see FSD in the UK? Discussions and demonstrations are ongoing – and with one European country already having given regulatory approval, with others likely to follow, the UK might not be too far off.
What isn’t in doubt is Tesla’s determination to make Full Self Driving – supervised or unsupervised – a big part of its future. The steering wheel-less Cybercab is being tested on public streets, while Tesla’s Robotaxi service is running in Austin, Texas using a fleet of Model Y cars. Tesla has also previously said how, in the future, owners could put their cars to work as driverless taxis while they sleep or are at the office.
There’s also one other big incentive. At Tesla’s 2025 annual general meeting, a deal was approved for a potential $1tn bonus for Elon Musk if several core targets are met. Key amongst those were ten million subscriptions to Full Self Driving and one million self-driving Robotaxis in operation over the next decade. That’s quite some encouragement for the boss to make it all work, while the safety benefits are a big incentive for regulators to approve their use.
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