Slovenia has changed its traffic law so that a driver may take their hands off the steering wheel while an approved driver-assistance system is switched on. The National Assembly passed the amendment to the Road Traffic Rules Act on 20 October 2026 by 49 votes to 3 under the urgent procedure, and Portal24 reported on 30 October that it had entered into force.
For Tesla owners, it completes what the September approval started. On 7 September Slovenia recognised the Dutch approval of Tesla Assisted Driving, then still sold as FSD (Supervised), and Tesla said the rollout would "begin soon". That approval is about the car. The amendment is about the driver.
When the hands may come off
The Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy set out the conditions on 19 October, in an amendment written for the final vote:
| Condition | What the law requires |
|---|---|
| Vehicle | A two-track vehicle, such as a car |
| System | Switched on, SAE J3016 level 1, 2 or 3 |
| Approval | Type-approved, or individually approved, under the Motor Vehicles Act |
| Circumstances | The road, its surface, visibility, traffic, weather, and the state of the vehicle and its load must allow it |
The ministry says the change separates the use of approved systems from the testing of unapproved ones, which keeps its own rules. The driver remains responsible. "The driver must monitor traffic conditions at all times and be ready to take over control of the vehicle immediately," State Secretary Damijan Jaklin told the Assembly, according to 24ur. He said the systems covered by the exemption had already been checked.
The rules do not name Tesla. "Our approach is technology-neutral, meaning the same rules apply to all approved systems, not just Tesla," Marko Dvornik, State Secretary for Mobility and Transport, told Tesla Mag in written answers sent on 23 October.
What the police can check
The amendment also gives officers a way to test a claim that the system was driving. Martin Mikolič, an MP for NSi, SLS and Fokus, told the Assembly that a driver must let the police verify whether the system was actually active, calling it "an important safeguard that prevents abuse".
How far that check goes is not consistent between the sources. Portal24's summary of the law says a driver must, on request, let an officer see the data on when the system was activated and how it worked, and take that data from the vehicle, with a €300 fine for refusing. Dvornik told Tesla Mag that officers may check whether a system was active by looking at the vehicle's display, and that they "cannot access personal data or download information from the vehicle". During the debate the Social Democrats warned that the technology must not lead to an unclear or disproportionate intrusion into privacy.
Levica voted against and Svoboda abstained. Levica's Vladimir Šega objected to the urgent procedure and said there was no reason to change the rules on automated driving without further checks of the technology.
What a Slovenian owner should take from it
Latvia's approval authority, describing the same system in October, said hands may leave the wheel while a camera checks that the driver is watching the road. Slovenia has now put that into its traffic law, with limits: only with an approved system switched on, only when the road and the weather allow it, with the driver watching throughout, and with the system's status open to a police check. It is a different kind of law from the one Slovakia passed in September, which licenses operators of driverless vehicles and gives a privately owned car no new permission. Slovenia's is about what the person in the driver's seat may do.
The EU-wide decision is still pending. Slovenia is one of ten EU countries where the system is approved, and the member states' technical committee meets again in December, but whether it will vote is not yet decided.