Hyundai And Toyota EV Ads Banned In UK And Ireland Over Misleading Charge-Time Claims

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We’ve got so accustomed to automakers launching new electric vehicles and telling us how fast they can charge that it’s easy to forget those headline figures are very much a best-case scenario and not necessarily representative of all buyers’ experiences.

But one organization that wasn’t prepared to let that slide is the UK’s advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA). It’s slapped the wrists of two car companies for making exaggerated claims about charge times and misleading buyers about the true availability of high-speed charging stations in the UK and Ireland.

Hyundai and Toyota have both been forced to stop running certain advertisements after the ASA investigated complaints that the charging times quoted in the ad spots didn’t represent the kind of real-world figures owners could expect to achieve and that access to quick chargers was less widespread than claimed.

Related: BMW Radio Ad Was Banned After Furious UK Listener Complained About ‘Irresponsible Revving’ Sounds

Toyota’s ad claimed that the bZ4X SUV could be filled to 80 percent in around 30 minutes using a 150 kW charger and Hyundai claimed the Ioniq 5 would take 18 minutes using a 350 kW supply. Those kinds of numbers are very familiar to us, but when questioned, both firms admitted that they were achieved in ideal conditions and the ASA ruled that multiple other factors including the age and condition of a battery, the battery temperature, and the ambient temperature could affect the real charge times, most likely making them longer.

The ASA also challenged the automakers’ assertions about the availability of chargers. When Toyota ran its ad claiming drivers could “easily find rapid-charging points in a number of public locations” Zap Map showed there were 419 chargers capable of outputting 150 kW, but they were in only 134 locations across the UK, with only seven being located in Scotland and two in Wales. Northern Ireland had none at all.

And the situation is even worse for Hyundai drivers looking for one of those mythical 350 kW chargers. Hyundai’s own Charge myHyundai website displayed only 37 ultra-quick chargers in the UK, with six of those being found in the Republic of Ireland and again, none on the other side of the Irish border.

The car companies said they weren’t misleading the public because buyers would be able to use slower-rate chargers on short journeys, but that wasn’t enough for the ASA which handed out its first EV advert bans, and probably not its last.