Tesla Is Once Again In Trouble Over Its Full Self-Driving Marketing

• France has put Tesla on notice: change how you market FSD or face a $58,000 per-day fine.
• The automaker has four months to comply before fines start.
• This isn’t the first time a country has had an issue with Tesla’s branding of Autopilot or FSD.

Tesla’s Full-Self Driving may not be fully self-driving, but it is now fully in-trouble.

France is the latest European country to take issue with the name of the automaker’s Level 2 driver-assistance software and has threatened to slap Tesla with a $58,000 per-day fine if doesn’t end what the country’s Directorate General for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) considers to be “deceptive commercial practices” involving the functionality of FSD.

Photo by: InsideEVs

Reuters says that authorities at the French Ministry of Economy began investigating Tesla’s marketing of Autopilot and FSD back in 2023 after consumers reported the business to France’s Fraud Control via Signal Conso. This week, the agency officially gave Tesla the ultimatum: clean up your act within four months or face a massive fine.

From the Ministry’s website (translated):

In the event of failure to comply within this period, given the particular seriousness of the practice, the injunction aimed at ceasing the deceptive commercial practice regarding the fully autonomous driving capability option of certain TESLA vehicles is accompanied by a penalty payment of 50,000 euros per day of delay.

Specifically, regulators called out deceptive business practices regarding the capabilities of the autonomous driving capabilities of Tesla’s vehicles—or lack thereof—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Ministry also hit Tesla with five other substantiated claims surrounding contractual and monetary practices (such as issuing sales contracts without delivery details and being sluggish on refunds) based on the consumer complaints to the DGCCRF.

The fines aren’t a drop in the bucket, either. $58,000 per day is the equivalent of Tesla selling FSD to 7 people in the country every day at its $8,000 price tag (or 58 people subscribing to its $99 per month FSD subscription). On a broader scale, that’s about $1.8 million per month or $21.2 million per year in fines. Sustainable? Maybe—CEO Elon Musk has said that Tesla’s FSD take-rate is “much higher” than 2%. But considering that delivered just 721 vehicles in France last month, it would seem that’s a net negative unless the FSD take-rate is around 29%.

Tesla’s reputation in France isn’t exactly great right now, either. Not only is the government upset with the automaker over the whole deceptive business practices ordeal, but consumers are outright rejecting the brand (hence the extremely low May sales figures). In fact, Tesla was recently hit with a lawsuit by French consumers looking to return their leased cars—not because there were any defects with the actual cars, but because Musk’s political endeavors had turned he cars into “strong political symbols” and “veritable extreme-right ‘totems.'”

France is also not the first country to double-down on questioning how Tesla markets its driver-assistance suite. The automaker recently changed its FSD branding in China following industry-wide regulatory naming crackdowns, plus regulatory probes in California and lawsuits in countries like Germany.

If enough people have to ask, maybe (just maybe) it’s time to consider a change. Most folks know by now that the current FSD and Autopilot stacks need a driver behind the wheel. And those that don’t? Well, they need the education more than anyone else for safety reasons.