Tesla is facing some backlash in China after an unhappy customer crashed its Shanghai Motor Show booth and was arrested.
While Tesla doesn’t use motor shows to debut vehicles like other automakers, the California-based automaker still attends a few of the more prestigious auto shows to display its current vehicle lineup.
The Shanghai Motor Show is one of them, but it didn’t go well for Tesla this year.
An angry customer ended up protesting at Tesla’s booth at the show by jumping on the display cars and complaining about Tesla’s “brakes not working.”
Part of the incident was captured on video and posted on social media:
Local Chinese media outlets reported that the owner was arrested and placed on “police detention” for five days:
Two men forcibly removed the woman from Tesla’s booth by grabbing her arms and legs. The woman is now under police detention for five days.
The nature of her complaint is unclear, but she apparently was involved in an accident with her Tesla and she believes the brakes weren’t functioning properly.
People on social media were upset by the fact that she was dragged out and detained by the police, but a response from Tesla has apparently made things worse.
Tesla issued a response that started trending on social media in China, with the majority of the sentiment being reportedly negative.
Global Times reported that a lot commenters thought Tesla was was being “cocky”:
But it was the company’s comment on the incident that roiled Chinese social media. The company said “it acknowledges sensible criticism” but at the same time that “it will not compromise to meet unreasonable claims.”
Update: Late on Tuesday, Tesla issued a statement apologising for not addressing the customer’s complaint in a timely manner, and said it would conduct a self-inspection of its service and operations in China.
This is the second controversy in a matter of weeks that has had Tesla scrambling in China to improve customer perception.
The automaker’s data collection in the country also attracted attention in the media earlier this month.
Tesla issued a statement saying that they will ensure how data is collected in China will stay in the country.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
