Regulators were concerned that the old name could lead people to believe that it enabled full driverless capabilities.
Tesla has changed the name of its Full Self-Driving feature in some of its European websites, including Germany, Spain and France, to “Assisted Driving.” While the Full Self-Driving feature is already available in some parts of Europe, Tesla is working to get it approved in more countries. As Reuters reports, the rebranding came after Germany revealed that its Transport Minister Steffen Bilger is advocating for its swift approval. In the country’s announcement, it explained that the term Full Self-Driving, particularly because it is still of the Supervised variety, is “somewhat misleading.”
The system doesn’t actually drive the car, Germany’s Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport said, and it only provides assistance for certain tasks, like accelerating and braking. Bilger said he discussed regulators’ concerns over the feature with Tesla in September and that they had reached an understanding. The automaker then agreed to rename the feature Tesla Assisted Driving. “I will now advocate for the system’s timely approval across Europe,” he said.
In Europe, Tesla Assisted Driving is already available in several countries, including the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Croatia. Reuters says Swedish and Italian authorities are assessing whether the name Full Self-Driving could cause confusion among consumers and make them believe it has unsupervised driving capabilities. The rebranding could remove the hurdles Tesla is facing to be able to roll the feature out to the rest of the continent in the future.
