Ad regulation

Examples of EV and hybrid ad regulation

Regulation of electric and hybrid vehicle advertising has evolved slowly in comparison to advances in vehicle technology. In consequence, large gaps now exist in the regulation which leave room for misleading claims from carmakers and advertisers. 

In 2014, the UK ad regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), issued advice to advertisers on the marketing of electric vehicles. Chief concerns at that time related to range claims and the role of the battery in extending range; possible confusion between powertrain variants; claims about emissions and the true lifecycle emissions savings of electric vehicles; and country-specific emissions claims. 

Since then, electric and hybrid advertising – and technology – has evolved much faster than accompanying regulation, leaving carmakers with plenty of space to control the messages they broadcast to the public. Unfortunately, this has led to cases of greenwash and potentially misleading information making it into advertising.

Below are examples of where regulation has grappled with the issues of electric and hybrid advertising.

2019: “Self-charging” hybrid claims

In 2019, the ASA declined to uphold a complaint against a series of adverts for the Toyota Lexus UX (a full hybrid). Complainants argued that the term “self-charging hybrid” as used in the ads was misleading about the source of the car’s power, which remained fossil fuels. 

The ASA ruled that in the absence of any comparison to other powertrains or of any absolute claims about the advertised car’s environmental benefits, the claim “self-charging” was to be interpreted objectively as informative of how the battery charges from the internal dynamics of the vehicle. 

It is worth noting that an analogous ad campaign that Toyota Lexus ran in Norway in 2020 was banned by the Norwegian Consumer Authority on the grounds that “it is misleading to give the impression that the power to the hybrid battery is free of charge, since the electricity produced by the car has consumption of gasoline as a necessary condition”.

2021: Absolute environmental claims banned

In 2021, the ASA upheld a complaint against Hyundai over ads for the NEXO fuel cell electric vehicle that claimed the car was “so beautifully clean, it purifies the air as it goes”. The ASA ruled that the claim omitted information about, for instance, pollution from tyre wear and was therefore misleading as it failed to provide substantiation. 

2023: Confusing powertrain information

In 2023, the ASA ruled against Nissan over adverts for the adverts for the Nissan Qashqai with e-power that used the slogan “fuelled by petrol driven by electric” to describe the car’s powertrain. The ruling noted that the ads were misleading as they “did not make the nature of the vehicle’s power source sufficiently clear.”

In a change to previous rulings on electric vehicles, the Nissan ruling states: “whilst the ad did not include any explicit claims in relation to the car’s environmental impact, we considered that by focusing on the car’s use of electricity, consumers were likely to understand that the car was a better choice for the environment than traditionally fueled vehicles. However, because the ads did not make sufficiently clear the nature of the vehicle’s power source and because it required petrol to power the electric motor, which would produce tailpipe emissions, we considered that the ads were also misleading in this regard” (emphasis added).

2024: Zero Emission Vehicle

In February 2024, the ASA upheld a complaint brought by the ASA against BMW UK for ads using the term “zero emissions vehicle” in an ad for a BEV. It was argued that this is a misleading claim since it fails to make clear that only the operation of the vehicle is zero emissions, not the full lifecycle (including manufacturing). 

In a similar case, another complaint brought by the ASA against MG Motor challenged the use of the term “zero emissions” in an ad which promoted the MG HS Plug-in Hybrid, MG ZS and MG5 EV Trophy Long Range models. In this case, the argument was that only the MG5 EV Trophy Long Range was fully electric and one particular configuration of the MG ZS was fully battery electric, the other models are hybrids and therefore not even zero emissions during operation.