Nearly half of U.S. consumers said they believe Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) tech should be illegal as its brand hits new lows, a report found.
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At the same time, many consumers said the automaker’s FSD features put them off from buying a Tesla, according to the Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report for August that surveyed “more than 8,000” consumers in the U.S.
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FSD is Tesla’s higher-end driver-assist tech, which takes over some operations but still requires a driver’s supervision. Tesla’s website says the current model can do “route navigation, steering, lane changes, parking and more.” The automaker’s entry-level driver-assist features are known as Autopilot.
By a 2-to-1 margin, consumers surveyed in the EV report said they are less likely to buy a Tesla because of its FSD tech — only 4% said the tech makes them “much more likely” to buy a vehicle.
Consumers also expressed dislike for Tesla’s camera-only approach to its autonomous vehicles with 70% of respondents saying that AVs should use both LiDAR and cameras — only 3% said they like Tesla’s approach, the report found.
About 70% of respondents said they want the government to mandate both LiDAR and cameras.
More than 65% of consumers said Tesla should “be held responsible” for accidents that involve its driver-assistance tech, the report said.
At the beginning of August, Tesla was ordered to pay more than $300 million for a fatal Autopilot crash in Florida in 2019. Federal jurors found the company partially liable for its role in the crash, ruling that Tesla’s driver-assistance system failed to prevent a deadly collision that killed one person and severely injured another.
At the heart of the lawsuit was the claim that Tesla deceptively marketed Autopilot as more capable than it actually was, encouraging drivers to put too much trust in what is, legally, still a driver-assist feature, not an autonomous system.
Nearly 80% of consumers said they support regulations that would require Tesla to properly show how to use its Autopilot and FSD features in ads.
Tesla’s reputation isn’t getting any better, either. The report found that brand positivity and trust reached new lows for the EV maker, plus it identified “increasing concerns” over safety.
Days after being found partially liable for the fatal crash, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Tesla was training a new self-driving model.
Tesla scored a negative 15 brand positivity score among consumers — more than doubling from April. Toyota and Honda, on the other hand, scored net positive views. Tesla’s trust score dropped to negative 12 — quadrupling from April.
“Tesla is the only EV brand that consumers hold net negative views of,” the report said.
Only 13% of respondents found Tesla cars “very safe.” Plus, 47% of consumers don’t view Tesla as “family friendly” cars.
“No other company had more than 25% of consumers report it as not family-friendly,” the report said.
— Shannon Carroll contributed to this article.