Tesla has launched Europe's first public FSD (Supervised) shuttle pilot in Germany's Eifel region. Two Tesla Model Y vehicles built at Grünheide are operating regular routes between schools, doctors' surgeries and home addresses in the town of Prüm, with Tesla's Full Self-Driving software actively engaged and a safety-monitor driver behind the wheel.

The pilot is run as a three-way cooperation between the Verbandsgemeinde Arzfeld, the Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm district and Tesla Automation. Coverage in German national press by Ostfriesen-Zeitung, Badische Zeitung and others on 14 May 2026 confirmed the launch.

What the shuttle does

The service is free of charge and aimed primarily at two user groups:

  • Schoolchildren travelling between home and school on routes that do not have a regular bus service.
  • Seniors with appointments at doctors' surgeries or pharmacies in Prüm and the surrounding villages.

Riders book a slot through a local hotline and a Tesla Model Y is dispatched to the address. The car drives with FSD (Supervised) engaged for the journey, while the on-board safety monitor — a trained Tesla Automation employee — stays alert behind the wheel and can take over instantly. The local district has not disclosed the per-trip cost to Tesla or the funding split.

Operational record so far

According to the Ostfriesen-Zeitung report, there have been no incidents since the pilot began. The safety monitor has intervened only in a small number of edge cases — including one occasion where the FSD stack drove into a dead-end street and tried to manoeuvre in a tight parking lot before the human driver took over.

The district described the early results as good enough to expand from two to five operating days per week, eventually offering coverage across a regional population of around half a million people.

Why this matters — regulatory context

FSD (Supervised) has not yet been approved for general consumer use in Germany. The Dutch RDW remains the only EU regulator to have granted Tesla a type approval, on 10 April 2026 under UN R-171, and the EU Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles is expected to vote on broader recognition in May or June 2026.

The Eifel pilot sits in a narrow but legitimate slot: it operates as a research and test programme, not a commercial rideshare. That regulatory framing is what allowed the cars to roll without waiting for German national approval, and it makes the Eifel route the first place in continental Europe where members of the public can actually ride in a Tesla driving with FSD engaged. Until now, the only way for European drivers to experience FSD was through Tesla's invite-only ride-along demos in Italy, France and Germany earlier this year, none of which carried regular paying passengers.

Sources