- Tesla hasn't officially announced its intention to bring the Robotaxi to Europe.
- The Full Self Driving program is expected to come to Europe in 2025, paving the way for the Robotaxi.
- The European Union will align itself with the United Nations' new driverless car standards that will allow hands-free driving in Europe.
We’re one day away from finally seeing the Tesla Robotaxi, which company founder Elon Musk believes is the culmination of Tesla’s mission in the automotive space—making driverless cars. We have a good idea of the under-the-hood tech that will make it all possible—it’s Tesla Full Self-Driving—but we don’t know when and where these fully driverless vehicles will be deployed and under what conditions.
Several driverless ride-hailing schemes are currently operating in the United States that no longer require a safety driver to be aboard the vehicle to intervene in unforeseen situations. The U.S. and China have demonstrated forward-thinking by allowing fleets of these vehicles on public roads, a feat Europe has yet to match.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta program has been operational on U.S. roads since 2020, but not in Europe (or China). In Europe, Tesla's neural network-powered FSD, arguably the world’s most advanced autonomous driving system, isn’t legal yet, but the manufacturer says it’s coming in the first quarter of 2025, paving the way for the Robotaxi.
European law still requires drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel at all times, even when their sensor—and camera-laden car is fully capable of driving itself, particularly on the highway where there is less unpredictability. Each country in the European Union theoretically has the right to approve driverless cars on its roads. Still, there’s also a legal framework for Level 4 autonomous cars for the entire Union to abide by, and it has not been adopted yet.
The EU does grant special permits for autonomous vehicles, but only a handful are operational today, and they’re usually trucks operating on a pre-approved route, not passenger cars. It’s taking longer in Europe than in the U.S. because there’s more emphasis on clarifying the legal implications of allowing Level 4 vehicles on the road with nobody behind the wheel (or without a steering wheel altogether).
According to information from the official European Commission website regarding the “technical rules for driverless vehicles and automated vehicles,” the Commission notes that it “adopted technical legislation for fully driverless vehicles (Level 4 of automation, e.g., urban shuttles or robot axis), the first international rules of their kind.” It says that “the rules will cover testing procedures, cybersecurity requirements, data recording rules, as well as safety performance monitoring and incident reporting requirements for manufacturers of fully driverless vehicles.”
However, even though the legal framework for L4 autonomous vehicles is ready, specific safety standards, insurance, data protection, traffic regulations and even ethical considerations still need to be clarified and made official. Currently, you are still legally required to keep your hands on the wheel even if the vehicle is fully capable of driving itself.
This will likely change when the EU officially aligns itself with the United Nations Regulation on Driver Control Assistance Systems (DCAS), which the UN adopted earlier this month. Tesla has not yet released any official statements about its Robotaxi plans in Europe, but this could change later today with the official unveiling of the driverless vehicle and with these new UN standards now finalized.
Tesla shouldn’t have problems creating a driverless Robotaxi network in China, where the WeRide startup has operated since 2017. Its fleet consists of robotaxis, robobuses, robovans, and even a robosweeper that autonomously cleans the streets. They are present in 30 cities from 7 countries, including the U.S., where it’s testing a fleet of 12 driverless taxis in and around the city of San Jose. According to Reuters, it has been allowed to operate driverless vehicles without a safety driver onboard in California since 2021.
