South Korea fines Elon Musk’s Tesla to the tune of $2.2 million for false advertising

South Korea’s antitrust regulator, the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) announced that it will be imposing a fine of $2.2 million or 2.85 Korean Won on Tesla, for failing to inform customers that the driving range of all of their electric cars drops significantly during cold winters. [caption id=“attachment_11927302” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] According to South Korea’s antitrust regulator the driving range of all Tesla EVs drops by up to 50.5 per cent in cold weather, a fact that Tesla hid from their customers. The charging times of their cars also worsen significantly as the temperature drops, another fact they hid. Image Credit: AFP[/caption] The KFTC alleges that the Ev giant had made false claims about the range and the charging speed of its electric cars, and presented the figures in such a way that misled people into believing that battery life and the time it takes to recharge the car are the same throughout the year, across all seasons. The American automaker also made deceptive claims about the cost-effectiveness of fuel savings compared to gasoline vehicles, it added. According to the KFTC, the driving range of Tesla’s electric vehicles drops by up to 50.5 per cent in cold weather compared to how they were advertised on the local, Korean-language website. Tesla also failed to inform buyers that the speed with which the car charges, also varies greatly depending on the kind of charger being used, the external temperature, as well as the state of charge of the battery.   Tesla also made some skewed estimates about the possible fuel savings. The EV giant failed ot disclose how the charging cost of their EV is affected by various factors such as charging speed and the government’s policy on price discounts. The KFTC also imposed an additional 1 million Korean Won on Tesla in addition to the aforementioned 2.85 Korean Won, for not providing adequate information on the cancellation policy and making it unnecessarily convoluted, among other issues. On Monday, Tesla said it had delivered 1.31 million electric vehicles in 2022, a record for the EV-making giant. This figure was a 40 per cent jump from a year before. However, things haven’t been going well for Tesla, at least not on Wall Street. After two years of record-breaking growth in the financial markets, the company’s shares plummeted 65 per cent over the course of 2022.