Tesla renames 'Full Self-Driving' to 'Assisted Driving' in Europe as it chases clearance for software

Oct 9 (Reuters) - EV-maker Tesla has started calling its "Full Self-Driving" feature "Tesla Assisted Driving" on its European websites, dropping a name regulators have said was misleading, as CEO Elon Musk pushes for EU-wide approval for the software.

The rebrand comes after Germany said on Tuesday Tesla had offered to switch to the new name. Musk has described the self-driving technology as key to the company's future growth.

Tesla's FSD page for Slovakia now redirects to a "Tesla Assisted Driving" page, as do pages in other European countries such as Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. The US site still refers to it as "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)."

A Reuters report published this week detailed how Tesla mounted a campaign to win approval for FSD in Europe, including encouraging owners and supporters to lobby national regulators for faster approvals.

In September, a Norwegian Tesla owner asked the Norwegian Public Roads Administration whether Tesla's changes to how it described FSD addressed concerns about the name, according to documents Reuters obtained through freedom-of-information requests.

"Please do not simply say again that 'we are waiting for the EU' without explaining what Tesla or Norway must deliver in the meantime," the owner said.

Several regulators have said the old name is misleading because the system requires constant supervision and drivers remain legally responsible.

In Sweden, consumer protection authorities had earlier asked the Swedish Transport Agency to assess whether the marketing of FSD could give buyers the false impression the system was capable of fully autonomous driving.

In Italy, authorities had said in internal government correspondence that the name "Full Self-Driving", together with Tesla's promotional material, "could lead users to believe that the vehicle is equipped with unsupervised automatic driving functions attributable to higher levels of automation, particularly SAE Level 3", in communication seen by Reuters through freedom-of-information requests.

Eight EU countries already allow the system, with Slovakia expecting to become the ninth within days.

An EU-wide vote has been pushed from October to at least December, with countries like France conducting additional testing.

(Reporting by Prathik Jayaprakash in Bengaluru and Marie Mannes in Stockholm; Editing by Pooja Desai)