Tesla renames Full Self-Driving to Assisted Driving on some European websites

According to Reuters, the rebranding followed Germany's announcement that Transport Minister Steffen Bilger is advocating for swift approval of the feature. Germany's Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport said the term Full Self-Driving is "somewhat misleading," particularly because the system is still the Supervised variety. The ministry said the system does not actually drive the car and only provides assistance for certain tasks, such as accelerating and braking.

Bilger said he discussed regulators' concerns about the feature with Tesla in September and that they 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. The Full Self-Driving feature had already been available in some parts of Europe before the name change.

Reuters reports that 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 faces in rolling the feature out to the rest of the continent in the future.

Editor's Summary

Tesla has renamed Full Self-Driving to Assisted Driving on European websites in Germany, Spain and France after German regulators said the old name was misleading. The change follows talks with German Transport Minister Steffen Bilger, who wants swift approval of the system across Europe. Tesla Assisted Driving is already available in several European countries, while Swedish and Italian authorities are still reviewing the Full Self-Driving name.