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Level 3 Driving Autonomy in the EU
There are six levels of (vehicle) driving autonomy, according to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE [sae.org]). Levels 0 to 2 require the human driver to continuously monitor the road, but things start getting interesting from Level 3 upwards: from there, legal liability shifts from the human driver towards the automated system itself.
A little more than a year ago, the Low Countries (The Netherlands, Belgium) allowed Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) Mode on its roads -- a first in Europe. Now that list [datawrapper.de] has grown [fsd-eu-tracker.de] to 10 countries, with Germany and Italy set to follow. If 15 countries, which together represent more than 65 percent of the EU's population, allow FSD, this opens up the possibility that FSD automatically will be approved in the whole of the EU. The expectation is that this milestone will be reached by December -- yes, that's December, next month.
Tesla has had to make some allowances [teslarati.com] though. First one is that the term 'FSD' needs to be withdrawn: the system will be renamed to Tesla Assisted Driving (TAD). Four more things: (a) customers need to be presented with an explanatory video making clear that the system is, in fact, not able to self-drive, (b) the system needs to disable itself when the driver doesn't show focus enough (i.e. is toddling off), (c) FSD/TAD is allowed only up to speeds of 130km/hr (80 miles per hour) and (c) the system's speeding is limited to 10%.
Tesla hopes to sell more Tesla's that way; but that is not guaranteed. Returning to those SAE levels, Tesla's FSD/TAD is classified as a 2+ system. Other US competitors are also at that level, reportedly (Ford Mustang Mach-E, F-150, Expedition; Lincoln Navigator, Cadillac Escalade / LYRIQ, Chevrolet Silverado / Blazer EV, GMC Hummer EV).
With European competitors, on the other hand, Level 2+ is moving towards standard for mid-market vehicles (BMW 530i, new €51,000, used €30,000): but then Mercedes (S-Class, EQS Sedan [vindeversmercedes.com]) and BMW (7 Series/i7 with Personal Pilot L3 [bmwgroup.com]) are already at Level 3 -- breaking through that SAE's magical automation barrier.
