Tesla wins EU nod & updates app

Tesla just cleared a gate it had been stuck at for years: on April 10, the Dutch vehicle authority RDW said it issued a type approval for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Supervised system, the first such approval for Tesla in Europe. RDW said the system can now be used in the Netherlands and could later be admitted in other European Union member states. (rdw.nl) That approval is narrower than the name sounds. RDW said Full Self-Driving Supervised is a driver-controlled assistance system, not a self-driving car, and the human in the seat remains legally responsible at all times. (rdw.nl) RDW also described how hard that gate was to open. The agency said it examined and tested Tesla’s system for more than one and a half years on a test track and on public roads before granting approval. (rdw.nl) The rule in practice is simple: Tesla can steer, brake, and handle many driving tasks, but the driver has to stay ready like a student with hands hovering over the wheel during a driving lesson. RDW said the car monitors whether the driver’s eyes are on the road and whether their hands are available to take over immediately. (rdw.nl) While Europe was approving supervised driving, Tesla was also polishing the rider side of its driverless business in the United States. Tesla’s Robotaxi support page says the service is currently available only in limited areas of Austin, Texas, and the app is currently only available for Apple iPhone users. (tesla.com) That app already shows how tightly Tesla is scripting the trip. Tesla says riders must go to the designated pickup point, match the license plate in the app, fasten a seatbelt, and tap “Start Ride,” and the car may cancel the trip if the rider does not arrive within seven minutes. (tesla.com) The latest app refresh added more of those small but important instructions. Recent reports on the update say Tesla added a tips section that tells riders the vehicle seats up to four passengers, warns them not to sit in the driver’s seat, says exterior lights will pulse when the car arrives, and says the interior cabin camera may be used to ensure safety. (blockchain.news, ibtimes.com.au) Tesla has also been adding the plumbing for a bigger network, not just a prettier app. Release notes tracked by Not a Tesla App show Apple Pay support, code pointing to an Android version, new commands including “Pull Over” and “Disengage Driverless,” and a cleaner way to edit a destination from the car screen through the app. (notateslaapp.com) Put together, the Europe approval and the Austin app work on the same problem from opposite ends. One side is regulators deciding how much machine driving they will allow with a human still on the hook, and the other side is Tesla teaching riders exactly how to use a car with no driver up front. (rdw.nl, tesla.com) Wall Street is reading that as a growth story with a bill attached. A Morgan Stanley note described by News.az said analyst Andrew Percoco raised Tesla’s 2026 delivery estimate from 1.58 million to 1.6 million vehicles and called scaling an unsupervised robotaxi fleet the most important factor for Tesla’s stock in 2026. (news.az) The catch is that robotaxis are not a software launch in the usual sense. Every new city needs approved operating areas, support staff, charging, cleaning, remote assistance, and more vehicles on the road, which is why analysts are pairing the upside story with warnings about heavier capital spending and near-term cash pressure. (news.az, tesla.com) What changed this week is not that Tesla suddenly has fully autonomous cars across Europe or a mass-market robotaxi network across America. What changed is that the company now has one official European approval for supervised use and a more detailed public app for paid rides in Austin, which is what a lab project looks like right before it tries to become a product. (rdw.nl, tesla.com, blockchain.news)