Italy Backs Swift EU Approval of Tesla FSD (Supervised) TAD

30 October 2026. Italy has come out in support of a swift EU approval of Tesla FSD (Supervised) TAD. Matteo Salvini, Italy's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, posted on X on 29 October that Italy "supports a swift EU approval of Tesla Assisted Driving", after what he called a very positive and constructive conversation with Elon Musk. That makes Italy the second of the EU's big states, after Germany at the start of October, to publicly back EU-wide approval, and it adds a lot of population weight to the Dutch request ahead of any vote at the TCMV.

It's political support rather than an approval, so it doesn't switch anything on for Italian owners. Italy hasn't recognised the RDW type approval, and the EU count stays at 10 of 27 countries.

What did Salvini say about Tesla Assisted Driving?

Salvini posted in English at 08:21 GMT on 29 October, after speaking with Musk:

"Very positive and constructive conversation with @elonmusk today. Italy is looking with great interest at the opportunities offered by assisted driving technologies, with a focus on innovation and road safety, and supports a swift EU approval of Tesla Assisted Driving. Thanks for the exchange, Elon!"

Musk replied in the same thread at 13:02 GMT with a short "Much appreciated. Thank you!", and by 30 October Salvini's post had passed 890,000 views on X.

Later the same day, speaking at the North-West Logistics Forum in Genoa, Salvini said he had told the ministry's officials to open the doors "as wide as possible, within the framework of current legislation, to innovation", adding that companies want to invest in Italy. That quote comes from la Repubblica's English edition, translated from Italian.

The wording matters. Salvini uses Tesla's new European name for the system and asks for an EU approval, which points to the vote in Brussels rather than to a separate Italian decision.

Terminology

• FSD. FSD stands for Full Self-Driving. Here it means the supervised version, where the driver must watch the road and stays responsible, and 'FSD' is used for short.
• TAD. Tesla Assisted Driving is the name Tesla now uses in Europe for FSD (Supervised), which is why this article writes Tesla FSD (Supervised) TAD.
• RDW type approval. The RDW is the Dutch vehicle authority, and its provisional type approval of 10 April 2026 is the approval that other EU countries have been recognising.
• Article 39. Article 39 of EU Regulation 2018/858 lets an approval authority exempt a new technology from rules it can't yet meet, first nationally and then EU-wide if the Commission authorises it.
• TCMV. The Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles is the committee of member state experts that votes on whether the Commission should authorise the exemption across the EU.
• MIT. The Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti, Salvini's ministry, is Italy's vehicle type approval authority.

Is Tesla FSD (Supervised) TAD approved in Italy?

No, not yet. Italy is one of the 17 EU countries that haven't recognised the RDW type approval, so Italian Tesla owners can't use FSD (Supervised) TAD on their own cars today. Article 39(5) of the regulation lets any member state accept the Dutch provisional approval on its own territory, and that's the route the ten countries in the table below used, but Salvini's post doesn't say Italy will take it.

Italy's ministry has been looking at Tesla's file for a while. In July 2026, Gaetano Servedio, a director general at the MIT, confirmed that Tesla had submitted formal documentation and that technical talks were under way, as covered in the Italy ministry review article. Earlier, on 28 April, Senator Carlo Calenda had pressed the government on timelines and the Dutch precedent in a parliamentary inquiry. The Italy page now records Salvini's post alongside that July review.

What does Italy's support mean for the EU vote?

An EU-wide approval needs the Commission to authorise the Dutch exemption, and that goes through a TCMV vote by qualified majority, which means at least 15 of the 27 member states, together representing at least 65% of the EU's population. Germany and Italy are the EU's first and third most populous countries, so their support counts for a lot on the population side, even though it's still only two states on the count side.

On Eurostat's figures for 1 January 2026, the EU has 451.99 million people.

Population from Eurostat table tps00001. The ten are the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia and Latvia, as listed on the EU tracker.

So if Germany, Italy and the ten recognising countries all voted yes, the Dutch request would have 12 states and about 45.8% of the population, which leaves it three states and roughly 87 million people short. Before Italy spoke up, the same group without it came to about 32.7%, so Rome's support closes a large part of the population gap in one go. A recognition isn't a vote, though, and most of the ten haven't published how they'll vote at the TCMV, so the twelve is a best case rather than a confirmed tally.

The remaining big states make the difference. France holds 15.3% of the EU's population, Spain 11.0% and Poland 8.0%. On the same best case, adding France would take the total to 61.1%, adding France and Spain would reach 72.1% with 14 states, and adding Spain and Poland without France would come to 64.8%, just under the line. France's transport minister, Philippe Tabarot, said on 2 September that French authorities were working with Tesla on the technical changes that would let France support approval, and Spain's industry ministry said in July that there would be no unilateral decision that isn't coordinated with Europe. Sweden's transport administration, Trafikverket, wrote to the committee on 30 April recommending a vote against unless the speed offset is removed, and Germany's transport ministry said on 6 October that it had agreed with Tesla that the system may exceed the speed limit by at most 10%.

It looks like France is now the country that matters most. With Germany and Italy on board, a French yes would bring the population threshold within reach of a few smaller states, although the 15-state count would still need several countries that haven't said anything yet.

When could the EU vote on Tesla FSD (Supervised) TAD?

There's no date yet. The TCMV was due to continue discussions on the Dutch request at its 6 October meeting, so December is the earliest apparent opportunity for a vote, although none has been announced and no official agenda for it has been published.

I think the timing matters. Salvini's post came just over three weeks after Germany's statement, so Italy and Germany could push together for a vote at the December meeting rather than another round of discussion. There's more on what happens after a TCMV yes vote and on the objections in the Article 39 objections dashboard.

Which EU countries have recognised Tesla FSD (Supervised) TAD so far?

Ten of the 27 have recognised the RDW type approval, each on its own territory only.

Dates and statuses are from the EU tracker. Italy, Germany and the other 15 EU countries haven't recognised the RDW type approval, as the FSD approval map shows.

What changes for Tesla owners in Italy?

Nothing changes in the car for now. FSD (Supervised) TAD could reach Italian owners in one of two ways: the MIT could recognise the RDW type approval under Article 39(5), as Latvia did on 26 October, or the TCMV could vote for EU-wide approval and the Commission could adopt it. Either way, Tesla would still need to turn it on by software update.

In the meantime, Tesla is running supervised ride-alongs in Italy, with locations from Milan and Turin to Rome and Corciano listed on the demo rides page. A ride-along doesn't switch anything on in your own car, and even after an approval the driver stays fully responsible, because it's a driver assistance system. There's more in what Tesla Assisted Driving is and in the article on Germany's backing for EU approval.

It looks like the most useful thing Italy has done here is say it out loud. A big state that publicly backs the Dutch request is much harder to leave out of the conversation before a vote than one that stays quiet.

Sources

• Matteo Salvini on X, 29 October 2026
• Elon Musk's reply on X, 29 October 2026
• LaPresse: Salvini speaks with Musk, 29 October 2026
• la Repubblica (English edition): Salvini at the North-West Logistics Forum in Genoa, 29 October 2026
• Corriere della Sera: Salvini and Musk call, 29 October 2026 (Italian)
• Teslers.it: the MIT director general's reply on Tesla's filing, July 2026 (Italian)
• Italian Senate: Senator Calenda's inquiry, 28 April 2026 (Italian)
• German Federal Ministry for Transport (BMV): current status of the Tesla assistance system approval, 6 October 2026 (German)
• franceinfo: France authorises road tests of Tesla FSD, quoting Philippe Tabarot, 2 September 2026 (French)
• Spanish industry ministry written reply, shared 23 July 2026 (Spanish)
• Reuters: Sweden may oppose Tesla's supervised self-driving tech over speeding, June 2026
• Reuters: EU vote on Tesla's supervised self-driving system pushed back, 25 September 2026
• RDW: explanation of the European type approval for Tesla with provisional validity in the Netherlands, 10 April 2026
• Regulation (EU) 2018/858, Article 39
• Council of the EU: qualified majority
• Eurostat: population on 1 January 2026 (tps00001)
• EU tracker, for country statuses and recognition dates