France authorises tests of self-driving Tesla cars on its roads

France has authorised tests of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system on public roads, less than two months after the government said it was not yet safe enough to approve the technology.

The decision was taken after a “constructive exchange” between Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot and Elon Musk and was announced in an X post on September 2 by Mr Tabarot.

“For several months, French authorities have been working closely with Tesla on the technical adaptations that will allow France to support its regulatory approval, which will be decided at the European level in the coming weeks,” he said.

“With Tesla making two FSD-equipped vehicles available, we are now entering a new phase: road testing,” he added.

However, less than two months ago, France held a different position. In a video published on July 22, Mr Tabarot said France did not believe the system was yet safe enough to be authorised.

“In France, we consider that this system brings a certain number of technological advances, but that the safety trade-offs are not yet sufficient for authorisation in its current state,” he said.

He said the system could, in some circumstances, allow a vehicle to travel faster than the speed limit.

“If the system notices that the vehicles around them are travelling faster, it could, for example, drive at 70km/h instead of 50km/h if traffic is moving at that speed, and this without explicitly requesting it.”

He added that French authorities had concerns about whether the system could keep drivers sufficiently attentive, especially during complex manoeuvres such as changing lanes, crossing junctions and navigating roundabouts.

“This is not an autonomous driving system,” Mr Tabarot said in the July video. “The driver remains responsible for driving the vehicle at all times, including when FSD is activated.”

Despite the concerns, France has continued to support the development of autonomous driving technology.

In his July video, Mr Tabarot said more than 200 autonomous vehicle trials had been carried out in France since 2015 and that the government wanted to go further and allow approved autonomous vehicles on French roads from 2027.

The latest decision now allows Tesla to move to the next stage of testing in France, while approval of the system itself will be considered at European level.

Self-driving technology is also being tested elsewhere in Europe.

In the UK, Uber and British autonomous driving company Wayve are set to launch a robotaxi service in London using 15 vehicles. However, the vehicles will initially operate under human supervision.

At the same time, self-driving car company Waymo, which runs so-called robotaxis in the US, recently registered a business in France.

Owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, it previously expressed an interest in expanding its taxis around the world, and claims its US taxis, based on a Jaguar electric car, are 10 times safer than those driven by humans.