Well, fair is fair.
When I published my piece on the evening of April 10, it was already after 20:00 (8:00 PM). On a Friday night, that is usually well beyond the point where one would expect a public authority to drop a meaningful approval update before heading into the weekend. Based on the information available at that moment, it was entirely reasonable to conclude that Tesla’s much-discussed deadline had slipped yet again.
This time, however, Tesla actually delivered. 👍
RDW has now confirmed that Tesla received type approval with provisional validity in the Netherlands on April 10. That is not a trivial footnote. It is a real milestone, and Tesla deserves credit for it.
After all the noise, all the shifting expectations and all the familiar drama around dates, there is now an actual regulatory result on the table. And not for some minor convenience feature, but for a system that pushes driver assistance into territory far beyond the usual motorway-lane-keeping comfort zone. RDW says it has examined and tested the system for more than one and a half years on its test track and on public roads.
So yes, hat tip to Tesla. 🎓
It also does not magically erase the criticism that came before. Tesla’s communication around these milestones has often been noisy, imprecise and needlessly hype-driven. That does not mean the earlier criticism suddenly becomes invalid. Tesla’s communication around these milestones has often been theatrical, messy and far too eager to turn expectations into apparent facts. But criticism only has value if it remains tied to reality, and reality now says that Tesla got this one over the line.
So congratulations are in order. With, of course, just a faint trace of amusement that after all the hype, there is finally some paperwork to go with it. For once, the date did not merely produce noise. It produced an approval.
Today, this one deserves a little more than my usual five cents. Let’s make it ten. 😜
//Alex
alexreusch 