Tesla FSD reaches Lithuania, but Europe is still approving it country by country

Tesla is now rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) in Lithuania, according to Electrek, after the Lithuanian transport safety authority recognized the Dutch RDW certification. That makes Lithuania the second European country where the driver-assistance system can be used on public roads. The story is not about a single software switch; it is about vehicle homologation and the uneven way Europe approves automated driving features.

The operative word is “Supervised.” Tesla FSD in this form is not unsupervised autonomy and does not remove responsibility from the driver. It remains an advanced driver-assistance system in which the human behind the wheel must monitor the road and the vehicle. Tesla describes the product under its Full Self-Driving umbrella, but the European approval language is more exacting: certification, operating boundaries, driver supervision, and rules for systems that can perform parts of the driving task without becoming autonomous vehicles.

The regulatory anchor is the Dutch RDW, the vehicle authority that first approved FSD in Europe after more than 18 months of testing. Lithuania did not repeat the whole process independently. It used mutual recognition and accepted the Dutch certification. Behind that decision sits UN Regulation 171, the framework Europe uses for Level 2 vehicle automation. That is why Tesla’s European rollout is not happening through one continent-wide switch. It is advancing through national permissions that may recognize the same technical approval at different speeds.

For Tesla, Lithuania matters because it shows that the Dutch approval is not staying isolated. Belgium had been expected as a likely next mover, but Lithuania arrived first. Greece is moving toward approval through a bill intended to grant the same type of recognition as the Dutch pathway, while Ireland’s Department of Transport has confirmed that Tesla is engaging with national authorities. None of that is dramatic in a consumer-product sense, but it is operationally important. Every regulator that accepts the RDW logic makes FSD look less like a Dutch exception and more like a European approval pattern forming in public.

The larger prize is still EU-wide approval. That requires more than a few national recognitions. The threshold cited in the research brief is political and demographic: 55% of EU member states representing 65% of the bloc’s population must vote in favor. That is why the expected TCMV votes in July and October will matter. If those votes line up, Tesla moves closer to its stated goal of wider European availability by summer 2026. If they do not, FSD keeps expanding as a patchwork: active in one country, blocked in another, and stuck elsewhere between legal caution, type approval, and national transport policy.

The most interesting part is not that Lithuania is “second.” It is what this says about the European software-defined car. App rollouts are measured in days. Vehicle automation rollouts are measured in certificates, technical committees, and national trust in another authority’s test process. Tesla has added another country to the map, but the European map itself is still under negotiation.