Tesla’s German website no longer says “Full Self-Driving.” In Europe the package is now called “Tesla Assisted Driving,” and the old address redirects to a new page that carries the new name. The change surfaced on October 9, 2026, three days after the German Federal Ministry of Transport published a statement saying the old label overstated what the system does.
The American product is untouched. Tesla’s own American page still sells the feature as “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” and says it can drive a car “almost anywhere” under the owner’s supervision. The split now runs along the Atlantic: one system, two names, and a ministry in Berlin that wanted the word “Full” gone from the European one. Tesla’s willingness to concede the label while keeping the software underneath is the detail that makes the German arrangement unusual.
The ministry’s October 6 statement
The Federal Ministry of Transport laid out its position in a statement dated October 6, 2026. Its reasoning is mechanical rather than rhetorical. The system helps with acceleration, braking and steering, but it does not take over the whole driving task, so a name built around “Full Self-Driving” misdescribes it. The driver has to stay attentive at all times, and the ministry says responsibility for safe operation stays with that driver “100 percent.”
The same page says Tesla itself offered the replacement name, “Tesla Assisted Driving,” during talks with Transport Minister Steffen Bilger in September. Bilger describes the outcome of those talks as a constructive agreement. That ordering matters for the story: the ministry’s criticism and Tesla’s offer come from the same set of September negotiations, and the website change followed the published statement.
Bilger’s conditions and the 10 percent speed ceiling
The rename was not a unilateral gesture; it came with a request attached. Bilger says he will push for EU-wide approval “as quickly as possible” so Tesla drivers can use Assisted Driving across the bloc. He also concedes that many technical and liability questions remain open. Germany is working on the file with the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), the Dutch type-approval authority and Tesla, and the ministry calls its approach “technology-open and safety-oriented.”
A speed rule was part of the deal. According to the statement, the ministry and Tesla agreed in September that the system may exceed the legal limit by at most 10 percent, and Germany will back that tolerance in the EU procedure. The ministry argues that small overages can help traffic flow in some situations. Electrek’s account of the change adds that Reuters reported the Dutch-approved version allows up to 50 percent over the detected limit, so Tesla would have to change the software to fit the German ceiling.
Eight approved countries and the December committee vote
Tesla’s European page lists eight EU countries where the system is approved: the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia and Croatia. Germany is not among them. The Dutch authority granted the national approval that the other countries lean on, a point Electrek’s reporting repeats, and Tesla wants the EU’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles to extend it across all 27 members.
That vote has slipped. Electrek reported on September 25 that the draft agenda for the October 6 meeting held only a 25-minute “continuation of discussions” and that the committee does not meet again until December. Approval needs 15 of 27 member states representing at least 65 percent of the EU population. Sweden wants a rejection unless Tesla removes the ability to set speeds above posted limits, and France has declined to recognize the Dutch approval over speeding and driver attention in cities. Germany, Italy and Spain have not recognized it either, which puts the population threshold out of reach without some of them.
The marketing copy under the new name
The renaming is narrower than it first sounds. Electrek found that the new German page is largely a translation of the American page. It still says the car can drive “almost anywhere” under supervision and carries the claim that the system is “7x safer” than human drivers, measured against the estimated U.S. average. A new name sits on top of marketing copy that the ministry’s own reasoning would also question.
The naming fight also has an American precedent. A California judge ruled in December 2025 that Tesla’s branding was “unambiguously false and counterfactual,” as Electrek covered at the time. Tesla’s American site still uses the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) name. The decision that Germany and Tesla reached in September applies only on the European side.
The next dated marker is the EU committee’s December meeting. If the Dutch approval is extended there, Bilger’s wish for Assisted Driving in German cars comes true under a 10 percent speed ceiling that the current Dutch-approved version does not meet.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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