Elon Musk flew to Germany in time for the Giga Berlin grand opening ceremony and personally handed over the keys of the first “made in Germany” Tesla Model Y vehicles to German customers. Beyond the customary victory dance and the chatter about Master Plan Part 3 and what-not, Elon Musk touched on some important topics that are worth mentioning.
There were laughter and dancing at the Giga Berlin opening ceremony and everyone was happy, even though the Tesla facility Gruenheide was a hard nut to crack for Elon Musk. Cascading problems blocked the gigafactory construction for months and compounded to more than a year of delays in starting the production. But all is well now, and Elon Musk checked all the boxes in achieving what many considered harder than Tesla Full Self-Driving: building the biggest car factory in Germany.
Speaking of the Full Self-Driving suite, Elon Musk made another of his forward-looking statements regarding the controversial automated driving system that seems to be stuck in a beta stage for eternity. During a Q&A session with Tesla fans, Musk announced that Tesla Full Self-Driving will get to Europe soon, but not before the beta-testing will start in Canada first.
The Canada FSD Beta rollout will happen later this week as planned, Musk confirmed with his fans at the Giga Berlin opening. In a couple of months, Tesla will also submit FSD to European regulators and will roll out the beta stage in Europe pending approval.
“We’re getting to a point where the FSD Beta is very good in the U.S. and later this week expanding to Canada. And then I think we’ll be ready to show it to regulators in the EU,” Musk told the small crowd gathered at Giga Berlin.
Tesla FSD in Europe is especially challenging since there are a lot of special-case situations and many details differ from country to country. The sheer complexity of European roads and regulations makes for a very difficult job for FSD.
“You know, there’s a lot of little tricky things. The rules are not the same. But I think probably we can start doing Beta later this year, depending on regulatory approval,” Musk said. “Things are a little different in the U.S. Like in the US, things are legal by default and in Europe, they’re illegal by default, so we have to get approval beforehand; whereas in the US you can kind of do it on your own cognizance more or less.”
The European Commission published the regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles in September 2021, as the Draft EU ADS Regulation. This will be the basis for all future legislation regarding autonomous cars and will be observed by all countries in the EU.
After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions. Full profile
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