Paris' Place Charles de Gaulle — the star-shaped junction around the Arc de Triomphe — funnels traffic from 12 avenues across unmarked lanes under a unique priority-to-the-right rule, producing a stop-start jumble that many consider the most hair-raising drive in Europe.

During Paris Motor Show test drives, a Jaecoo 7 SUV running Chinese startup Momenta's R7 driving model threaded the roundabout, negotiated the chaos and picked an exit without a single human intervention on a route of roughly an hour, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Writing for Bloomberg via the Los Angeles Times, Chunying Zhang rode in systems from Tesla, Xpeng and Chery's Jaecoo that are awaiting European regulator approval.

Tesla's Assisted Driving had the shortest, easiest run but confused a flashing amber right-turn rule and braked suddenly once, prompting intervention.

Xpeng's Navigation Guided Pilot was the model driver — gentle braking, room left for cyclists, construction zones handled — but undershot 30 km/h limits on narrow roads and became a slow road block.

Momenta allowed roughly 10% over the limit to blend with traffic, though it braked abruptly at lights without countdowns.

Automotive Blog's Gareth Herincx rode a Denza Z9GT using BYD's 'God's Eye' City Navigation on Driving Assistant (CNOA), a Level 2+ system with one LiDAR, 11 cameras, three millimetre-wave radars and 12 ultrasonic sensors.

It created its own imaginary lane through the melee and managed the roundabout until leaving too late at the exit, forcing the driver to steer hard right; a reversing Fiat 500e later also required a takeover.

He says the run showed we're still some way off full autonomy, with CNOA due via over-the-air update in 2027.

European cities are among the toughest tests for smart-driving technology: cyclists appear from nowhere, lanes get blocked and local rules outstrip what maps encode.

The Los Angeles Times notes the drives weren't a controlled comparison — the Tesla ride lasted just eight minutes — so they establish no pecking order, but they demonstrate how many routine tasks in Europe's chaotic cities machines can already handle.

For Chinese brands expanding into Europe like Jaecoo-maker Chery, advanced driver assistance bolsters a pitch of attractive EV technology at affordable prices.

Europe is inching toward fully driverless deployment well behind the US and China, per the Los Angeles Times. Trials remain limited to places like Zagreb, where China's pony.ai, Uber and Verne are testing cars without safety drivers, while Wayve and Waymo run tests in London and Munich.

Tesla showed its Cybercab robotaxi at the Paris show with its supervised driving system still awaiting EU approval.

Xpeng plans to bring its next-generation NGP driver-assistance system to Europe from 2027, subject to regulatory approval, while Chery hasn't set a timeline as it continues testing and validation, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Denza's CNOA reaches cars via OTA update in 2027, according to Automotive Blog.

Xpeng's Liu Xianming summed up the challenge: 'The only metrics to gauge whether an autonomous driving system is successful is whether or not it fit to the local environment and whether or not local people want to use it.' Regulatory sign-off, not raw capability, now looks like the bottleneck.