Israel’s Ministry of Transportation approved Tesla to test supervised autonomous driving on public roads, as the country seeks to position itself as a global hub for smart vehicle technology.
Tesla‘s CEO Elon Musk said last week that Full Self-Driving is now “100% unsupervised” as the company removes chase vehicles that had accompanied early robotaxi trips operating without safety monitors.
The trial, announced Sunday, allows Tesla vehicles to operate with autonomous systems while a driver remains seated and ready to take control, according to the local newspaper Israel Hayom.
The approval followed a meeting led by Transportation Ministry Director General Moshe Ben Zaken that included Tesla Israel head Itay Raved and officials from the Vehicle Division and Tax Authority, the newspaper reported.
“The State of Israel leads in innovation with giant steps,” Transportation Minister Miri Regev said.
“Integrating smart autonomous systems on roads, under supervision and control, is another step toward strengthening road safety and reducing accidents caused by human factors,” Regev added.
The ministry said the trial is part of Regev’s plan to establish Israel as an international center for autonomous vehicle development and testing.
“Israel currently serves as a preferred testing and development arena for advanced vehicle technologies for leading global vehicle manufacturers,” Ben Zaken said.
Tesla’s Autonomy Progress
The approval comes as Tesla advances its autonomous driving efforts globally.
“We have cars operating with no one in them and no safety monitor and no follow car or anything like that in Austin right now,” Musk said last week in response to a shareholder question.
For consumer vehicles, “we’re just being very cautious with the rollout,” Musk added, citing “unique issues in particular cities” that Tesla wants to address before broader deployment.
Musk said last week that autonomy was “essentially a solved problem at this point.”
One of the targets guiding the CEO’s new performance package in the upcoming decade is for Tesla to achieve 10 million active FSD subscriptions.
Tesla disclosed last week that it has reached 1.1 million active subscriptions as of the end of 2025.
