Italy's government has come out in favour of approving Tesla's driver-assistance system across the European Union. "Very positive and constructive conversation with @elonmusk today," Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who is also Italy's Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, wrote on X at 08:21 UTC on 29 October 2026. "Italy is looking with great interest at the opportunities offered by assisted driving technologies, with a focus on innovation and road safety, and supports a swift EU approval of Tesla Assisted Driving."
Tesla Assisted Driving is the name Tesla adopted in Europe this month for the system it sold as FSD (Supervised).
A change of tone in Rome
Italy has not recognised the Dutch approval of the system on its own, and Salvini's post does not say it will. He backs the other route: a single EU-wide decision by the member states' Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles, which is not expected to vote before December.
That is still a shift. In April, when Senator Carlo Calenda asked the transport ministry to prioritise the system, the ministry replied that no decision had been taken at European level and that Italy would not pre-empt the EU's joint assessment. Six months later, the minister in charge is asking for that assessment to end quickly, and in Tesla's favour.
Salvini did not say what the call covered, whether Italy has set conditions, or whether Italian officials have reviewed Tesla's safety documentation. By 10:20 UTC neither Musk nor Tesla Europe had mentioned the call on X.
Musk has done this before
Germany's support followed a similar path. On 6 October the federal transport ministry said it would accompany the European procedure "constructively" after Tesla agreed to rename the system and to limit how far it can exceed a speed limit to 10%, as Minister Steffen Bilger announced. At the time the ministry described this as an exchange of views with Tesla.
A ministry answer to a written question from Left Party MP Vinzenz Glaser, reported by taz on 28 October, now identifies that exchange as a meeting with Musk himself. Bilger and state secretary Stefan Schnorr met him on 9 September "on Tesla's driver-assistance system", the day after Bilger was sworn in. The ministry did not answer taz's questions about it. Glaser called the meeting a scandal.
The vote Italy moves
An EU-wide authorisation needs a qualified majority: 15 of the 27 member states, representing at least 65% of the EU population. Ten countries have recognised the Dutch approval, most recently Latvia on 26 October, but most are small. Germany, France, Italy and Spain together hold close to 58% of the EU population, so the population test cannot be met with fewer than two of them on board.
Italy makes it two. Germany and Italy, the largest and third-largest member states, could in principle carry the vote without France and Spain, but only if nearly every other member state voted yes as well. France, the second largest, refused in July to approve the system "as it currently stands", citing its speed behaviour and driver monitoring, and said it wanted Europe to decide together.
What changes for Italian owners
Nothing yet. The supervised system is not available in Italy, and on the route Salvini backs, Italian owners get it only after an EU decision. The speed question that stopped France has not been settled in public. Tesla has not confirmed the 10% cap it agreed with Germany, although Latvia's approval authority said Tesla had lowered its maximum threshold for exceeding the speed limit.