The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that two online advertisements for electric vehicles by BMW and MG Motors made false claims of “zero emissions” that failed to take into account the pollution produced during manufacture of the vehicles and how the electricity they run on is generated.
“Electric vehicles themselves produce no emissions while driving but the production or recharging of an electric vehicle using grid-sourced electricity can generate emissions,” the ASA maintained.
The first ruling was against a Google advertisement from German manufacturer BMW, seen on 16 August 2023, which boasted that its electric vehicles are “zero-emission cars”.
BMW acknowledged that it had used the term “to target consumers” when carrying out internet searches. The company stated that the term “was included in the advertisement due to Google’s automatic keyword functionality.”
BMW agreed that “an advertisement must clearly indicate that (the zero-emission claim) only applies while driving,” and will proceed to disable Google’s functionality on these keywords.
The second ruling concerned an advertisement by British firm MG Motor – also seen on Google on 16 August – that made similar claims of “zero emission” technologies. According to the ASA, “MG confirmed that all references” to this term “have been removed from their advertisements.”
