Two clips published on September 15 tell a bigger story about Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) than any spec sheet could. One shows John Foppe — born without arms — using FSD to commute and visit family over 500 miles away. The other shows the same system threading a Tesla through one of the narrowest sections of Slovenia's highest road. Together, they illustrate the two most compelling arguments for the technology: it opens doors for people who couldn't otherwise drive, and it keeps performing in conditions most human drivers would find genuinely stressful.
1. John Foppe Has Been Driving Teslas for Over Seven Years
Tesla's official account shared a video of John Foppe, who was born without arms, explaining how FSD Supervised has changed his daily life. He uses it to commute to his non-profit job and to make trips to visit his daughter — a round trip of over 500 miles — without conventional steering. Foppe isn't a new Tesla owner trying out a feature; he's been driving Teslas for more than seven years, which means his experience spans multiple generations of Autopilot and FSD development. That longevity matters: it's a real-world longitudinal data point, not a staged demo.
2. FSD Is Now Approved in Slovenia — the Sixth EU Country
The Slovenia footage isn't just a scenic flex. According to verified reporting, Tesla's FSD (Supervised) received official approval in Slovenia on September 7, 2026, making it the sixth European Union country to greenlight the system. Demonstrations on challenging routes took place around September 12–14, ahead of the wider rollout. The approval process matters because each EU country evaluates the system independently under its own regulatory framework — clearing six of them is meaningful progress toward broader European availability. Owners in Slovenia can expect deployment to begin soon.
3. The Mangart Saddle Road Is Not a Normal Test Route
The specific road featured in the Slovenia footage is the Mangart Saddle Road — Slovenia's highest road, sitting at 2,055 meters in the Julian Alps. It's a narrow, cliffside route with oncoming traffic, no guardrails in sections, and tight low-speed maneuvering requirements. According to reporting on the demonstrations, FSD also handled steep countryside roads in the Vipava Valley, passing construction scaffolding and managing oncoming vehicles on single-lane stretches. These aren't edge cases cherry-picked for a press event — they're the kind of roads that genuinely test spatial reasoning, speed management, and real-time environmental adaptation.
4. FSD Remains Level 2 — the Driver Is Still Responsible
Both the accessibility story and the mountain road footage are genuinely impressive, but the legal and technical classification hasn't changed. FSD (Supervised) is still a Level 2 driver assistance system, which means an attentive driver must remain ready to intervene at any moment. That's true whether you're John Foppe navigating a highway commute or a driver on a cliffside road in the Alps. For owners considering the subscription — currently $99/month in the U.S., or $49/month with Enhanced Autopilot — the capability is real, but the responsibility doesn't transfer to the car. For our full coverage of FSD and Autopilot developments, see our FSD coverage.
What this week's footage does shift is the perception gap. The gap between what FSD can demonstrably handle and what most people assume it can handle keeps narrowing — and Tesla is clearly aware that real-world stories, not benchmark numbers, are what close that gap fastest.
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Sources & reporting notes
The links below identify the material source records used for this report.
- @TeslaNewswire on X (2026-09-15T16:08:07.000Z) — Direct source
- @Tesla on X (2026-09-15T16:31:06.000Z) — Direct source
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