Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has called out automotive company Tesla for the false advertisement of its vehicles.
The commission which handles antitrust cases disclosed that Tesla exaggerated the features and capabilities of its vehicles on its local website which it found misleading to customers.
It disclosed that Tesla exaggerated the performance of its superchargers, the driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, and their fuel cost-effectiveness.
Some Tesla consumers have disclosed that the driving range of most of its vehicles drops by up to 40 percent in cold temperatures when batteries need to be heated.
Therefore, the South Korean anti-trust regulator stated that it would impose a $2.2 million (2.85 billion won) fine on Tesla citing its failure to inform customers about the shorter driving range of its vehicles in low temperatures amongst other false details on its website.
Many regulators have disclosed that Tesla’s Semi-autonomous feature is still in the beta testing stage, but continues to use customers as test subjects which doesn’t sit right.
This is not the first time Tesla will be sued for false advertising. Recall that on September 15, 2022, a lawsuit was filed in a California Northern District Court, alleging that Tesla falsely advertised its ADAS known as Autopilot, and its FSD software.
The lawsuit alleges that Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have been deceitfully advertising its ADAS tech as either fully functioning or close to being “solved” since 2016, despite knowing full well that the capabilities of Autopilot and FSD doesn’t live up to the hype.
The automotive company currently has a market capitalization of 385.98 billion, and recently reported a delivery of 1.3 million vehicles in 2022, while it produced a total of 1.37 vehicles.
Meanwhile, the company stock fell over 60% last year, as investors express concerns that Musk’s takeover of Twitter which he purchased in October for $44 billion has been a distraction.