Update, August 18, 2026: The 93,000-mile figure is still a factory-campus total, not public-road mileage in Germany. Since this story first ran in May, the Dutch RDW has kept FSD (Supervised) approved on Dutch roads and pushed for wider EU use. Germany has not approved consumer FSD on public roads. A Reuters report on August 6 said several European regulators, including Germany, are withholding FSD test details as trade secrets.
Tesla has logged about 93,000 miles (150,000 kilometers) of Full Self-Driving use at Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg — in a country where owners still cannot use FSD on public roads. The miles come from new Model Y vehicles driving themselves from the end of the production line to the outbound lot on Tesla’s private factory grounds.
The combined distance was reported on May 11, 2026 by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, citing Tesla factory footage. Other outlets carried the same figure two days later, alongside Giga Berlin’s 750,000th Model Y. This article separates what that number proves from what it does not.
Key facts
- What: About 93,000 combined FSD miles (~150,000 km) by new Model Ys at Giga Berlin.
- Where: Private factory campus roads, from the end of the line to the outbound lot — not German public roads or the Autobahn.
- When: Figure public as of May 11, 2026; Tesery first published this explainer on May 13, 2026.
- Also disclosed: Giga Berlin had completed its 750,000th Model Y around the same time.
- Germany public-road FSD: Still not approved for consumer use as of August 2026.
- Elsewhere in Europe: The Netherlands approved FSD (Supervised) on April 10, 2026. That is a different, supervised public-road program.
How Tesla logged 93,000 FSD miles in Germany
Factory-tour footage shared by Tesla Manufacturing shows a new Model Y leaving final assembly and continuing on its own across the campus. Instead of a driver shuttle, the car uses FSD to follow a fixed route to the outbound logistics area.
The Tesla Model Ys rolling off the production line at Giga Berlin have now driven themselves on FSD a combined 93,000 miles from the end of the production line to the outbound lot.
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) May 11, 2026
Open the original X post for the factory-lot video. The 93,000-mile figure originates there, quoting Tesla Manufacturing’s Giga Berlin footage.
That route is a narrow operational design domain: wide, marked internal paths, few pedestrians, no mixed city traffic, and a single job — get from point A to point B. It is useful for plant logistics. It is not a stand-in for unsupervised driving on German streets.
A general-assembly employee identified as Jan appears in the footage discussing the fleet’s combined distance. Tesery has not independently audited Tesla’s odometer total. The 93,000-mile number should be read as a company-reported factory statistic, first amplified by Merritt’s post.
Factory grounds vs public roads
Germany’s rules for automated driving remain cautious. Owners there still do not get the FSD (Supervised) or unsupervised features sold in some other markets. Running the software on Tesla-owned property avoids the public-road approval process. It does not change that process.
Two distinctions matter:
- Private campus vs public road. A closed factory loop is not evidence that the same stack is legal, or ready, on German highways.
- Supervised FSD vs factory moves. Dutch approval covers FSD (Supervised) with a driver responsible. The Berlin shuttle is an industrial yard move. Mixing those stories overstates what Giga Berlin has shown.
This article does not claim the factory runs have been incident-free. Tesla has not published a public incident log for the campus shuttle.
What the factory loop is actually good for
The operational case is straightforward. At a plant aiming at high Model Y volume, manually shuttling every finished car costs labor and time and creates low-speed ding risk. An automated handoff can clear the line faster and keep humans on higher-value work.
The software case is narrower. Repeatable campus trips can help Tesla watch a vision stack on the same route, after a software push, in one controlled setting. That is complementary to customer-fleet “edge case” data, not a replacement for it. It is also a small preview of fleet logistics — moving finished vehicles to a lot — that a future Robotaxi network would need inside depots. It is not proof that Robotaxi is ready for Berlin streets.
August 2026 update: Europe moved; Germany did not
The May story sat in a gap: FSD working on a German factory lot while German drivers still could not use it. That gap is still there. What changed is the rest of Europe.
On April 10, 2026, Dutch regulator RDW issued a provisional approval for FSD (Supervised) after lengthy testing. Reuters later reported that Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, and Lithuania used that path for their own provisional clearances, while an EU-wide decision remains a separate process. See Tesery’s earlier breakdown of the Reuters safety-data dispute and the U.S. FSD data audit fight.
On August 6, 2026, Reuters reported that Tesla had pressed European agencies to keep FSD safety-review files confidential, and that regulators in several countries — including Germany — said they could not release test or performance data, citing trade secrets. That reporting is about public-road supervision, not the Giga Berlin shuttle. It is the current context for anyone reading the 93,000-mile figure as a regulatory signal. It is not one. Germany still has not opened public roads to consumer FSD.
FAQ
Can Tesla owners use FSD on public roads in Germany?
No. As of August 2026, consumer FSD is not approved for German public roads. The 93,000 miles were accumulated on Tesla’s private Giga Berlin campus.
Did new Model Ys drive themselves off the production line?
Yes, according to Tesla factory footage and Merritt’s May 11 report: finished Model Ys use FSD to go from the end of the line to the outbound lot on factory grounds.
Does this mean European FSD approval is imminent?
No. Factory-campus driving does not substitute for public-road type approval. The Netherlands approved FSD (Supervised) in April 2026; Germany has not followed.
Is this the same as unsupervised Robotaxi?
No. A fixed factory route is a logistics task. Robotaxi eligibility and public unsupervised driving are separate programs with different risk and legal bars.
Related Tesery coverage
- Reuters: Tesla’s FSD safety data and European regulators
- FSD v14.3.4 and Tesla’s Robotaxi rehearsal
- Is your Tesla eligible for Robotaxi?
Featured photo: aerial view of Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg in Grünheide. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
