Many people think that Tesla should not use the names Autopilot and FSD for its driver assistance systems, because it will make people think that these systems are already true autopilot systems. The practice was even sued by a German agency before.
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Back in 2020, a court in Munich, Germany ruled that Tesla had misleading marketing because of its use of the terms “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” in its driver assistance system, the organization that brought the suit was Wettbewerbszentrale (Competition Center), one of the largest and most influential national self-regulatory bodies in Germany.
The German Competition Center said Tesla’s use of the words “autopilot” on its vehicles was misleading because the vehicle still requires a driver to operate it. The group also accused Tesla of selling its cars promising that they would be able to “drive autonomously in cities,” a feature of the company’s FSD system.
Tesla filed an appeal against this, which was handled by the Munich Regional High Court, which ruled in Tesla’s favor last October, according to TeslaMag.de, but has only recently been made public.
The win is significant for Tesla because the competition center initially wanted to ban the company from using promotional terms like “autonomous driving” in its marketing. The higher district court in Munich dismissed the lawsuit, saying anyone who visits Tesla’s website and intends to buy one of its electric vehicles will be told that the car they are buying is not fully self-driving.
Still, the competition center did score a small victory in its efforts to rein in Tesla’s alleged misleading marketing of Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, with Tesla having to revise its official German website to mention future features in its vehicles in some languages. In the case of FSD, Tesla has to state that it will be available “in the near future”, not “at the end of the year.”
Tesla’s successful appeal to the Munich Higher Regional Court was reportedly final. Tesla has encountered the same problem in the United States, and the California Motor Vehicle Administration has also filed a legal lawsuit against it. Anita Gore, deputy director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles Public Affairs Office, pointed out that the purpose is to prevent drivers from misunderstanding. and misuse of new vehicle technology.
