On May 21, Tesla announced without warning that Lithuania became the second country in Europe to open FSD (Full Self-Driving Supervised) after the Netherlands. This news sent the entire European Tesla community into a frenzy, but the story behind it is far more exciting than “the Lithuanian government approved it” – all this was revealed by a Reddit account. andriuslink The true story of a Lithuanian Tesla owner who single-handedly brought down the European bureaucracy.
🧵 THREAD: How one Tesla owner cracked European FSD bureaucracy (and caught Tesla off guard) 🇱🇹🔥
Part 1/5
Yesterday, @TeslaEurope officially announced that FSD (Supervised) is rolling out in Lithuania — making it the 2nd country in Europe after the Netherlands. But the real… pic.twitter.com/lvUssZgRBy— Tesla Inside (@TSLA_inside_) May 21, 2026
Lithuanian Tesla owners relied on an application letter to get Lithuania to approve FSD in a flash
On April 10, the Dutch Vehicle Authority (RDW) officially approved Tesla FSD Supervised, becoming the first country in European history to approve this system. This approval, which took 18 months, 1.6 million kilometers of road testing and more than 4,500 closed-site scenario verifications, can be said to be a milestone in European autonomous driving regulations.
News reaches Lithuania, Reddit user andriuslink Sitting at home, staring at the FSD button on the steering wheel, I suddenly had an idea: “Doesn’t the EU have a mutual recognition mechanism? Why should I wait in line in Brussels like everyone else?”
Lithuania approved FSD (Full Self-Driving): r/TeslaLounge — Lithuania approved FSD: r/TeslaLounge
He immediately decided not to be a keyboard talker, but directly turned into a legislative activist: he turned on the computer, started filling out the official application form, scanned and attached all the approval documents from the Dutch RDW, and also found local reporters to participate.
Lightspeed reply from the Lithuanian Transport Safety Agency (LTSA)
Andrius’ approach has a precise legal fulcrum:Article 39 of EU Regulation (EU) 2018/858. This is an exemption clause specifically designed for “new technologies that do not comply with the existing classification framework”, allowing a single member state to grant EU type certification to new technologies, and other member states can directly adopt the certification through the mutual recognition mechanism without the need to conduct complete testing from scratch. This was the path taken by the Dutch RDW when it approved FSD, and Andrius saw this as a legal shortcut.
This mechanism was originally designed by the EU to speed up the circulation of new technologies in the single market, but in the past it was mostly promoted by companies or government agencies. Andrius, as an individual citizen, applied directly to the Lithuanian government, citing EU regulations to require the government to recognize the certification that the Netherlands had completed. What’s even more ruthless is that he also contacted the local media and put the entire process on the news page, leaving no room for the government to pretend to be dead. This two-pronged strategy of “application + media pressure” is simply a textbook-level operation of citizen participation.
As a result, the civil servants of the Lithuanian Transport Safety Agency (LTSA) were so efficient this time that they were completely unlike a public agency. They even replied at the speed of light: “Okay! We will directly recognize the Dutch approval by exception!”
Lithuania’s government says a decision on @Tesla FSD (Supervised) approval is expected soon 🇱🇹⚡️
The Lithuanian Transport Safety Administration is currently evaluating Tesla’s approval request with a decision likely coming soon “once final procedures are completed”. pic.twitter.com/Idm5Ll34ly
— Arnas (@Prodigers) May 11, 2026
The moment Tesla Europe’s business collapsed
The best is yet to come. Andrius rushed into the local Tesla store with this official approval document. As soon as the clerk looked at the document, his whole face switched from smiling service mode to “It’s over now” collapse mode, and he stammered: “Uh… we… can’t comment on this matter at the moment…”
Why are Tesla stores so surprised? Because Tesla Europe’s original plan was not like this at all. According to industry sources, Tesla originally expected to gradually conduct testing in major Western European countries, and the testing phase was not expected to end until May 31. They never expected that a Lithuanian young man would use the EU’s own rules to bypass the entire bureaucracy and overtake him! It’s almost like driving an FSD on the highway and throwing all the officials out of the rearview mirror.
HW4 owners in Lithuania have received the update
Lithuanian Transport Minister Juras Taminskas said in an official statement that the Lithuanian government has indeed officially recognized the EU type approval of Dutch RDW, allowing FSD Supervised to be driven on Lithuanian roads. Tesla Europe also officially announced on X: “FSD Supervised is now being rolled out to Teslas in Lithuania!”
FSD Supervised now rolling out to Teslas in Lithuania 🇱🇹!
Making European roads safer, one by one pic.twitter.com/Uuj0bNG7pP
— Tesla Europe, Middle East & Africa (@teslaeurope) May 20, 2026
The current rollout is limited to new Tesla vehicles equipped with Hardware 4 (AI4), and owners of older HW3 models will have to wait until the “FSD v14 Lite” version is launched later this summer. In addition, the Lithuanian version of FSD adopts a European-specific UI interface to comply with local traffic regulations.
FSD’s dual-track path to European expansion
The Dutch RDW is actively promoting the achievement of unified recognition across the EU through the European Commission’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles (TCMV). This would require a qualified majority vote of 55% of member states representing 65% of the EU population, which has not yet been scheduled. However, Lithuania’s case has opened up a national route for “countries to recognize Dutch certification on their own”. The Greek Ministry of Transport has stated that it will submit a bill to follow up, and Belgium is also expected to follow the same route. The Irish Department for Transport is negotiating.
From a global perspective, Lithuania is Tesla FSD Supervised’s ninth market in the world. According to Tesla’s latest financial report, there are currently approximately 1.3 million FSD paying users worldwide, of which 180,000 new subscribers were added in Q1 2026.
An era when one person changes the rules
Sometimes changing the rules does not require protests, petition groups, or waiting for a hundred EU meetings. All it takes is a super-bored Tesla owner, a laptop, and the funny courage of “I’ll give it a try.” Tesla owners all over Europe are now preparing to copy and paste the Dutch approval documents, saying: “I will be next! Let’s take the Dutch route!”
However, the follow-up to this incident is quite surprising. The netizen who prompted this incident, Andrius, cannot enable FSD on his Tesla in Lithuania because his car was purchased in France, so it cannot be enabled yet (because France has not approved FSD).
Source: KOCPC Chinese