China EV maker warns terms like self driving may mislead people

On Aug 16, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a formal investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot system after almost a dozen collisions at crash scenes involving first-responder vehicles. — Getty Images/TNS

The chief executive officer of Chinese electric-car maker Li Auto Inc has said the industry should limit using the terms autonomous and self driving, considering no automobile today is truly capable of that and its common usage is becoming misleading for consumers.

Li Xiang’s comments, on his WeChat account Monday, come days after a fatal accident involving an electric car from rival Nio Inc. The 31-year-old driver of that vehicle had Nio’s navigation-on-pilot function activated and was killed when his car rear-ended another on a highway.