Tesla’s ambition to roll out its Full Self-Driving (FSD) suite across Europe by the end of 2025 has hit a thorny regulatory patchwork: each member country maintains its own standards for autonomous vehicles. To navigate this, Tesla is lobbying for per-country exemptions—special approvals that allow limited deployment of FSD under local rules—rather than waiting for a unified EU framework. This pragmatic approach could let Tesla collect real-world data at scale in diverse driving environments, refine its AI systems, and build regulatory goodwill, all while offering early adopter customers a glimpse of hands-off highway and urban driving. Yet the strategy carries risks: inconsistent performance across borders, uneven public perception, and complex liability landscapes. In this article, we explore the challenges of European AV regulation, Tesla’s exemption-centric playbook, the technological and safety considerations, anticipated timelines, market implications, and the longer-term quest for pan-European autonomous mobility.