Tesla admitted on Wednesday that one of its cars crashed in Beijing while in self-driving mode. The driver has accused the company of overselling the capabilities of the technology.

Tesla said it had reviewed the data to verify if the car was indeed in autopilot mode, a system that takes over the steering and braking in certain conditions. However, the company found out that the driver's hands were not detected on the steering wheel - as Tesla instructs its drivers to do when shifting to driverless mode.

Like Us on Facebook

"As clearly communicated to the driver in the vehicle, autosteer is an assist feature that requires the driver to keep his hands on the steering wheel at all times, to always maintain control and responsibility for the vehicle, and to be prepared to take over at any time," a spokeswoman from Tesla told Reuters.

The Tesla Model S drove by 33-year-old programmer Luo Zhen accidentally collided with an illegally parked Volkswagen in Beijing last week. Luo has admitted that he was not paying attention, and his hands were indeed away from the wheel.

He, however, claims that customers were not informed about the limitations of the technology "when buying the car" and blamed the crash on a fault in Tesla's autopilot system.

"The impression they give everyone is that this is self-driving, this isn't assisted driving," he said.

Confusion among consumers follows as the Chinese term "zidong jiashi," which is translated as "self-driving," has appeared a couple of times in Tesla's Chinese portal.

"China's way of referring to these technologies is a big problem. Although a similar risk exists for the term Autopilot in the west, Chinese consumers are less likely to read the instruction manual," Zhong Shi, a Beijing-based automotive analyst, told The Financial Times.

Tesla, on the other hand, has made clear that it has "never described autopilot as an autonomous technology or a 'self-driving car,' and any third-party descriptions to this effect are not accurate."   

TagsTesla, autopilot, Self-Driving Car, driverless car