Tesla to launch supervised full self driving “soon” in Australia and New Zealand

Tesla has now announced that its supervised full self-driving (FSD) software will soon be launching in Australia and New Zealand.

In a post on X, Tesla Australia and New Zealand account shared a video with the caption: “FSD Supervised coming soon to Australia & New Zealand”.

The video shows a driver getting into the seat of a parked Tesla Model 3 and touching a button on the car’s centre screen to start the FSD system before ending on an upside-down “Coming Soon” shot.

This news comes off the back of a series of testing videos that have been spotted in Australia and New Zealand. Tesla held a special event last week at which various “influencers” and some auto media were invited. The Driven was not invited.

In May, Tesla released a video of its supervised full-self-driving (FSD), which showed a Tesla Model 3 driving on Australian roads in Melbourne without any driver input on its trip. 

This excited many Australian owners who have been waiting for local testing for years and the latest update could be the closest we have come to an initial release.

Then in July, Tesla released another video showing a supervised FSD journey around the streets of Sydney. That FSD trip started with the car seen going around a roundabout where the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera house are seen in the background.

A few days later the company’s country director, Thom Drew, responded on LinkedIn, clarifying that there are no regulatory blocks for the software to be rolled out in right-hand-drive markets of Australia and New Zealand. 

Earlier this month, Tesla shared a video of FSD testing in New Zealand, highlighting its capabilities of driving on narrow inner-city streets of Auckland.

During the drive, a Model 3 sedan was seen going around tight road sections with multiple speed humps. 

On some streets in Auckland, there are cars parked on both sides of the road, meaning only one car can squeeze through. Tesla’s FSD system ducked behind the cars and allowed oncoming traffic to drive through before proceeding through when the path was clear.

These videos highlight the testing Tesla is undertaking to bring FSD to Australia and New Zealand. 

It comes after the system was initially released in the US as a Beta a few years ago. Then earlier this year, it was launched in Mexico, China (city streets version) and now potentially our market.

More information on the imminent launch of FSD supervised and how it will be rolled out is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.