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German Court Bans Tesla Ad Statements Related To Autonomous Driving (reuters.com)

(Tuesday July 14, 2020 @07:30PM (BeauHD) from the cease-and-desist dept.)


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters:

> Germany has [1]banned Tesla from repeating what a court says are misleading advertising statements relating to the capabilities of the firm's driver assistance systems and to autonomous driving, a Munich judge ruled on Tuesday. Tesla can appeal the ruling. The case was brought by Germany's Wettbewerbszentrale, an industry sponsored body tasked with policing anti-competitive practices. The Munich court agreed with the industry body's assessment and banned Tesla Germany from including "full potential for autonomous driving" and "Autopilot inclusive" in its German advertising materials. It said such claims amounted to misleading business practices, adding that the average buyer might be given the impression that the car could drive without human intervention and might suggest such a system was now legal on German roads.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot-germany/german-court-bans-tesla-ad-statements-related-to-autonomous-driving-idUSKCN24F1T5

Failling German manufacturers (Score:3)

by backslashdot ( 95548 )

Wonder how much BMW, Volkswagen, and Benz (which recently basically admitted they're at least 5 years behind Tesla) paid to have this done?

Re: (Score:1)

by Anonymous Coward

Probably nothing. When the system works as it should, all it takes for them to investigate is some complaints.

Re: Failling German manufacturers (Score:2)

by hunter44102 ( 890157 )

Calling something autonomous (autopilot) is definitely misleading when it requires a driver. Please call it Driver Assist like everyone else and the perception problems go away

Half overdue Half rediculous (Score:1)

by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 )

Tesla (Elon) deserves to be slapped upside and down their face for what they've said about Autopilot over the years, the offered timelines, the claims of technology that didn't exist etc... and they likely deserve a class action lawsuit, at least from people who leased FSD and never even got the promised features during their lease.

Buuuuuuuuuuttt... ...the claim that the name "Autopilot" is misleading is absurd. Let's play a little hypothetical scenario: You're waiting in the boarding area to get on your

Partly good (Score:2)

by timeOday ( 582209 )

I don't see a problem with "Autopilot inclusive" since the word Autopilot has no other common usage for cars besides whatever Tesla uses it for.

"full potential for autonomous driving," on the other hand, is clearly an unproven statement. Nobody alive knows for sure how close autonomous driving really is.

Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change.