Tesla sold Koreans FSD for nine years on cars barred from ever running it

At a two-day National Assembly audit in October 2026, South Korea's transport ministry confirmed it has conducted zero independent road-safety tests on Tesla's Full Self-Driving, and that both versions deployed in the country do not meet domestic safety standards. Of 229,311 Teslas registered in Korea, only 47,458 — about one in five — can legally run FSD at all. Under oath, Tesla Korea CEO Seo Yeong-deuk pledged for the first time that the company would cooperate with the ministry to obtain FSD verification, and conceded Tesla Korea had never requested ministry testing.

The divide comes from trade architecture: the KORUS FTA deems US-built Teslas compliant with Korean standards without testing, while China-built Model 3 and Model Y — more than 90 percent of Tesla's Korean sales — need certification Tesla never sought. Korean buyers nonetheless paid about 9,043,000 won (roughly $6,730) for the FSD option over nearly a decade; in December 2024, 98 owners sued at Seoul Central District Court for the fee back, arguing nine years of waiting exceeds any reading of "coming soon".

The gap bred workarounds — 85 attempted illegal activations recorded by April 28, countered by Tesla remotely and permanently disabling FSD on caught vehicles — and a pricing pivot: from August 10, 2026 the option became a 150,000 won (about $112) monthly subscription. All this landed while Tesla's Korean business boomed: 89,148 registrations from January to September 2026, up 104.4 percent, with about 90 percent of them the China-built Model Y that cannot run FSD. The Korea Fair Trade Commission has separately been scrutinizing the sale of the FSD option on uncertified models.

More than 181,000 of 229,311 Korean Teslas can't run FSD; 98 owners are suing for refunds of about 9.04 million won each; the KFTC is probing the option sales.

The KORUS FTA exempts US-built Teslas from Korean testing, so Tesla could enable FSD on three models but not on the China-built cars that dominate its Korean sales.

Tesla Korea never asked for certification — the CEO admitted the company had been passive while collecting the fee.

Korean law assigns accident liability to the maker of an autonomous system; Tesla's Level 2 positioning pins liability on the driver, so FSD cannot fit current Korean standards.

The incentive to keep selling never went away: the option cost about $6,730, and still sells as a roughly $112 monthly subscription on cars that cannot enable it.

Selling an option is a promise about the regulatory road, not just the software: charge for features only where the buyer's car can legally switch them on.

Seo's pledge is conditional on Korea establishing a verification system, and the liability dispute remains unresolved; a parliamentary bill on autonomous-vehicle road use introduced on July 21, 2026 is still under deliberation. The 98-owner refund suit continues, and the KFTC's scrutiny of FSD option sales is ongoing.