Woman detained for protesting Tesla at car show in Shanghai

The hot issue of how Tesla handles Chinese customer complaints came to a boil this week, while police detained a woman after protesting at the Tesla booth at the Shanghai Auto Show 2021. The woman was dragged from the floor show after jumping over a Tesla Model 3, where he shouted about a braking problem for which the company was criticized for its Chinese-made cars. Since then, Tesla has said it will conduct a self-inspection of its services and operations in China.

The woman, to whom the police referred only by the last name “Zhang”, according to Reuters, was detained for “disturbing public order”. She had previously protested about the brake problem after being involved in an accident. She appears to be detained for five days.

The video with Zhang, above Tesla, went viral on Monday on China’s largest social networks and on Twitter, where the state tabloid Global Times distributed a video.

China’s Tesla division initially said on Chinese platform Weibo that Zhang crashed his car because he was speeding, but admitted that he had not yet “fulfilled” [its] they want to “gain confidence and understanding from consumers”.

That response provoked an already hot reaction to the protest. Another state news outlet, CCTV, called for an investigation into the alleged braking problems, while a third, Xinhua, said Tesla had shown “no sincerity in solving the problem.” pronounced them too. The Committee on Political and Legal Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China told WeChat that Tesla should respect Chinese consumers and comply with local laws and regulations, according to Bloomberg, while the Central Commission for the Inspection of Discipline said that “enterprises should not be arrogant and unreasonable”, according to Reuters.

The reaction was so intense that Tesla released a second statement on Tuesday apologizing for not handling Zhang’s complaints sooner. He also easily capitulated on the brake issue, saying in the same statement that he will now review his services and operations as a result of the protest and the backlash.

Tesla has been producing cars in China since opening a new factory outside Shanghai in early 2020 – the first in the country to be wholly owned by a foreign carmaker. While that plant already accounts for a large share of Tesla’s global sales, the company has been affected by complaints about the quality of the cars it produces there. Tesla was reprimanded by several government agencies earlier this year in China for how it handled customer complaints about the quality of its cars. In response, the company said it “sincerely accepted the guidance of government departments” and that it “reflected deeply on [its] shortcomings. ”

Tesla’s response to pressure from the Chinese government is a harsh response to the way it operates in the United States, where CEO Elon Musk often teases regulators.