Researchers at Chemnitz University of Technology studied how pedestrians responded to an automated shuttle approaching at different speeds, operating in automated, manual and tele-operated modes.

Initial findings showed that operating mode had little effect on participants’ reported experience. Higher speeds slightly reduced perceived safety and comfort.

A separate study varied the shuttle’s braking profile and final stopping position. Both influenced how pedestrians perceived the interaction, suggesting that people respond to how a vehicle slows down and where it stops, beyond simply whether it yields.

These are preliminary findings from a campus shuttle setting, with further testing needed across other vehicles and road scenarios.

This is a real product sold by this company. I recall NHTSA banned the “steering wheel defeat device” (weighted grip/clamp). Shouldn’t NHTSA ban this too? It says “purely decorative” but we all know it’s to defeat the driver monitoring system.

(Or did I just accidentally promote this product and become a part of the problem ?)

https://apexevlabs.com/products/magnetic-mini-head-buddy

What starts out as a joke is already everyday life in Silicon Valley. Here at these EVgo charging stations, a Waymo robotaxi and a Lucid-Nuro-Uber robotaxi test vehicle were peacefully parked side by side, charging. While there was still a safety driver inside the Lucid-Nuro-Uber engineering vehicle who plugged in the charging cable, I wonder how Waymo managed it? At least I didn’t see anyone near the vehicle.

Recorded on Middlefield Road in Mountain View on October 9th, 2026 at 12:00pm PDT.

Tesla drops ‘Full Self-Driving’ name in Europe after Germany pushback

Fred Lambert

| Oct 9 2026 - 8:16 am PT

Tesla’s driver-assistance package is now called “Tesla Assisted Driving” in Europe. The company’s German website no longer mentions “Full Self-Driving,” and the old address now redirects to a new “Tesla Assisted Driving” page.

The rename follows Germany’s Transport Ministry calling the FSD name misleading, and it’s part of a deal that has Berlin backing Tesla’s push for EU-wide approval.

Germany wanted a new name, and Tesla offered one

In a statement published October 6, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport (BMV) wrote that the name of the system formerly sold as “FSD – Full Self-Driving Supervised” is misleading because the system doesn’t take over the full driving task. The driver has to pay attention at all times and remains fully responsible for the car.

Tesla offered to rename it “Tesla Assisted Driving” during talks with Transport Minister Steffen Bilger in September, according to the ministry.

They also agreed on speed. Germany says the system can go up to 10% over the speed limit, and it will back that position in the EU approval process. Tesla will need to change FSD to make that happen as it often goes way beyond 10% of the limit.

That’s a real concession from Tesla. Reuters reported that the version approved in the Netherlands allows speeds up to 50% over the detected limit.

In return, Bilger says he wants Tesla drivers to be able to use the system across the EU as quickly as possible. Musk thanked Germany on X with a “Danke schoen.”

Same pitch, new name

The rebrand is mostly a find-and-replace job. Not much else changed.

Tesla’s new German page is a translation of its US FSD page with the product name swapped out. It still says the car will drive you “almost anywhere” under your active supervision with minimal intervention. It still claims the system is “7x safer” than human drivers, a figure Tesla’s own footnote says is measured against the estimated US average. And it still ends with a section titled “Die Zukunft ist autonom” (“The future is autonomous”) that promotes Robotaxi and Cybercab.

Back in the US, tesla.com/fsd is still selling “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” for $99 a month.

Tesla’s page lists eight EU countries where the system is approved: the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia and Croatia. Germany isn’t on the list yet. As we reported last month, the EU vote has slipped to December at the earliest, and bloc-wide approval needs 15 of 27 member states representing 65% of the EU population. France and Sweden have both raised concerns about speeding.

Electrek’s Take

This should be the name everywhere, and Tesla knows it.

“Full Self-Driving” was an aspiration when Tesla started selling it. In October 2016, Tesla said every car it was building had the hardware for full self-driving. At its Autonomy Day in April 2019, Musk said FSD would be “feature complete” by the end of that year and that Tesla would have over a million robotaxis on the road in 2020. You could argue the name was a bet on the future back then. A bad bet, but a bet.

Tesla has missed that target every single year since. It’s now been almost exactly 10 years since the 2016 announcement, and Tesla has admitted that the cars it sold as self-driving capable from 2016 to 2023 don’t have the hardware to do it. So at what point does an aspirational name become a false one? A California judge answered that last December, calling the name “unambiguously false and counterfactual.”

I've been documenting this depot for the past 6 years, and this time it had a record number of almost 200 vehicles, with about 102 Ojais and 97 (give or take) Jaguar iPaces. The first time that Ojais were the majority. The replacement is in full swing.

The recording was made today at around 2:30pm PDT, with a huge fleet in San Francisco during the very busy TechWeek. Not just a lot in SF, also the entire Bay Area shows a large fleet being active.

It seems like it's barely ever talked about compared to FSD but Supercruise being hands free is extremely nice on the highway.

I just got a Chevy with it and it is a life changer for road trips. It works perfectly on the highway for me, while on curving backroads its a bit more scary but still pretty solid. Surprised at how many areas it covers as well since I'm in a rural area and it covers nearly all the roads around me

I'd like to get FSD someday, but as a stop gap, I've been quite impressed

Do yourself a favor and mute. The cackling clowns are 100% Florida 🤦🏻‍♂️

I have no idea what to expect but I do know that higher art would be the one paying me and everything but I’ll be working for a different company. Also for resumes, would it be OK to put that I’m working for the company that contracted me? Like for example, if the role is to be worked at Google, but higher art is the one paying me on a résumé. Can I still put that I work for Google because technically I report to Google’s managers and everything.

This is a good summary of Mobileye's AV program.

Who would have thought? Germany came to an agreement with Tesla to approve the FSD - approval pending a name change, Tesla suggested Tesla Assisted Driving - and urges other European countries to follow. The German ministry even allowed manual speed adjustments by the human supervising driver 10% over the posted speed limit.

California’s SB 1246 covers what happens when an autonomous vehicle needs remote assistance or someone physically at the scene.

Starting July 1, 2028, remote drivers must be based in the U.S. and hold a license valid for driving in California. Manufacturers must also maintain communications capacity for simultaneous remote assistance or teleoperation sessions and have local technicians available to respond to crashes, immobilized vehicles, and blocked emergency access.

The law also requires notification to local authorities during fleetwide failures and quarterly reporting on incident responses. California’s separate April regulations opened a permitting path for heavy-duty autonomous trucks, making recovery capacity relevant beyond robotaxis.

In all the discussions about failures of AVs in the real world, we must not forget, why this technology is being developed. We can mention statistics, fatalities, injuries, etc. but a simple video of a line of safety vehicles that alert drivers on highways in bright colors, with flashing lights, well in advance of construction or maintenance areas, and still, humans are regularly missing them. And this is the result that reminds us, why we work on AVs.

But the new law isn't set to take effect until July 1, 2028.

Trying out the premium ADAS feature (5000 per year, or 34000 for lifetime subscription) which covers the full point to point navigation. Tried it over some rural mountain resort town (Sanqingshan).

I’m fairly new to ADAS, and i’m still getting used to using it comfortably in an urban/dense environment. But so far it has been pretty flawlessly and never overwhelmed.

The car is a Fangchengbao Bao-8, which is a full sized off roading SUV

Ps: wife recorded the footage. Had my hands on the wheel throughout. I’m a foreigner living/working in China and this is my car

This has to be causing chaos for anyone trying for imminent scale, right? Particularly for consumer ADAS.

Waymo started testing in Munich last week with first images popping up on social media, and now I have gotten videos and more images from the drives and the Waymo depot, which is a few kilometers outside Munich in a town called Aschheim. There are about 40 vehicles on what still seems to be a temporary depot, only guarded by construction fences, not counting the vehicles that were driving through Munich.