Tesla no longer uses the term "autopilot" or the Chinese equivalent of "self-driving" in its Chinese website, following the crash of a Model S on one of the country's highways.
The modifications to the company's website were done, as the Beijing driver who was involved in the incident complained that Tesla overplayed the function's capability, misleading buyers into thinking that the feature has much more increased capabilities.
The accident took place earlier in August when the driver was driving on a Beijing highway. The Model S was unable to detect and avoid crashing into a vehicle that was parked in the roadway. Both vehicles suffered damages, but luckily nobody was injured.
This is the first time China has reported an incident involving autonomous vehicles. Earlier this year, Florida saw the first fatality from a self-driving car accident, causing regulators to start probing the Autopilot feature present in Tesla's cars.
Tesla told Reuters that its team of translators has been "addressing any discrepancies across languages for many weeks." The company points out that the timing with the Chinese crash is simply a mere coincidence.
"At Tesla we are continuously making improvements, including to translations," Tesla states.
The former version of Tesla's page contained both autopilot references and the term "zidong jiashi," which translates as self-driving. At the end of the past week, both terms were removed from the page.
After the tweaking, a phrase translating into "self-assisted driving" was deployed instead.
In the wake of the Model S crash, the staff of Tesla China went through additional training. One of the key elements of the training refers to explaining to customers that the autopilot function demands the drivers to have both hands on the wheel.
Tesla collected data from the car involved in the Beijing highway crash and found out that the car had Autopilot active at the moment of the incident, but the driver did not have his hands on the wheel.
On the U.S. side of the company, a spokeswoman repeatedly pointed out that the system is far from delivering fully autonomous driving and it only offers assisted driving. This means that the driver should always pay attention to the vehicle and be ready to take control.
Reuters reports that salespersons from Tesla China took their hands off the wheel while demonstrating the function to potential buyers.
No Chinese authorities were available for commenting on Tesla's crash and self-driving policies in the country.
The crash might have a negative impact on the carmaker's sales in the country, which is estimated to be the world's largest adopter of self-driving vehicles.
