The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) is reviewing Tesla's “misleading” ads after a court in Germany recently banned them.
Tesla has been promoting its autopilot technology as having full autonomous vehicle capabilities. The country's top antitrust regulator was looking into whether Tesla's description may have violated Korea's advertising laws.
| Tesla CEO Elon Musk. |
Last week, a German court banned parts of Tesla's ad statements, which include phrases such as “full potential for autonomous driving” and “autopilot inclusive,” ruling the vehicles are not capable of driving without human intervention.
“The selected words raise consumer expectations (of autonomous vehicles) that contradict reality,” the court ruled.
Tesla said it would appeal against the court ruling. Tesla also sells a more upmarket selection with a full self-driving (FSD) package offering more advanced features.
However, even the cars with the FSD package require drivers to remain fully attentive to be able to take control when needed.
Citing the German court ruling, the country's Citizens United for Consumer Sovereignty (CUCS), a nonprofit organization, urged Tesla to withdraw its ads from Korea, claiming they contained exaggerated statements that could misguide consumers to think the electric vehicles could drive without human intervention.
CUCS urged the FTC and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to investigate the matter.
“Tesla's exaggerated ads mislead consumers to think that its vehicles are fully autonomous,” CUCS said in a recent statement.
The FTC is also reviewing Tesla's level of self-driving technology in relevance to the ads.
The review does not automatically lead to an official investigation. After the review, the FTC will decide whether or not to conduct an investigation.
Some industry watchers believe it will be difficult to conduct an investigation because it would be difficult to define the term “autonomous driving.” The autopilot system helps the driver to stay in their lane automatically while keeping a safe distance from other vehicles.?
Carmakers typically rely on the six levels of autonomous driving defined by SAE International to define their self-driving technologies. Level four automated driving allows a vehicle to perform all driving functions only in certain conditions, while level six is fully autonomous.
No carmaker has yet released a vehicle with level four automated driving. Tesla's vehicles are considered to provide level three, described as “limited self-driving.”
Tesla has been promising self-driving cars since 2016, but still has not demonstrated “hands-free driving” which CEO Elon Musk earlier claimed would be possible by the end of 2017.