Tesla's Data Handling on Autopilot Safety Under EU Scrutiny Ahead of Vote
An international journalism investigation reportedly found that Tesla presented misleading safety statistics to European regulators to accelerate approval of its Full Self-Driving Supervised system. The allegations involve distorted statistical methods and marketing manipulation, with EU decision on system approval scheduled for October 2026.
What happened
An international investigative journalism inquiry led by Reuters and Electrek in 2026 revealed that Tesla allegedly presented misleading safety statistics to regulatory authorities in several European countries including the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark to accelerate approval of the Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised system.
The FSD (Supervised) system is currently approved in five EU countries: the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Estonia, and Lithuania, and is used by over 70,000 Tesla owners covering more than one million kilometres daily. Ahead of a potential EU-wide vote scheduled for 6 October 2026, Tesla published safety data and analytics on a shared dashboard that was provided to all EU member states in April 2026, following approval by the Dutch transport authority (RDW).
Reported impact
Tesla claimed that FSD (Supervised) has a 4.1 times lower probability of being involved in an accident compared to manual driving, measured over one hundred million kilometres on EU public roads. The company stated that the system is already saving lives where it has been approved.
Index analysis
The allegations centre on accusations of misleading marketing, distorted statistical methodologies, and international governmental investigations into Tesla's handling of assisted and automated driving data. The company stated it adapted the FSD (Supervised) design to comply with applicable regulations (UN-R-171 DCAS) but requested exemptions for certain behaviours through the procedure provided by Article 39 of the EU Regulation.
Governance controls
Tesla shared a dashboard with analytical and telemetry data with all EU member states in April 2026, shortly after RDW approval, with all presented data referring to the period before that date. The company emphasized that EU countries recorded 19,400 road deaths in 2025, approximately 53 per day, and that the majority of these incidents are attributed to human error and are largely preventable with current technology.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.