After a "constructive exchange" on Wednesday evening between Elon Musk and Philippe Tabarot, the transport minister hailed "a new step" in approving this type of vehicle.
A first soon to be seen on France's roads? Paris gave the green light on Wednesday 2 September for tests of Tesla's self-driving cars on its roads.
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The Minister for Transport, Philippe Tabarot, also spoke on Wednesday with Tesla boss Elon Musk about the move. "With the provision of two vehicles, we are now entering a new phase: that of on-road trials", the minister said in a message posted on the social network X.
Yet back in July, Paris had initially said it did not intend at this stage to authorise Tesla's fully automated, supervised driving system, citing safety concerns. But the minister appears to have changed his mind after his "constructive" exchange with the Tesla chief.
Robotaxis taking to the streets of London
Since the start of the year, five European countries have authorised vehicles from the manufacturer fitted with the FSD Supervised system - for Full Self-Driving (Supervised) - to operate on public roads.
Among them is the United Kingdom. Ride-hailing platform Uber and British autonomous driving start-up Wayve announced on Thursday the launch in London of a commercial service using 15 robotaxis.
To begin with, these self-driving vehicles will run under human supervision in the UK capital, while awaiting guidelines from Transport for London (TfL) on the matter. Wayve then plans a deployment in Tokyo, followed by roll-outs in "ten other cities", still in partnership with Uber.
