In the past two days, the news of a Chinese woman causing a scene at the Shanghai Auto Show and accusing Tesla, a leading American electric car manufacturer, of “brake failure” has been on the news. The Chinese authorities have criticized Tesla’s arrogant attitude, and Tesla apologized on Weibo late at night on the 20th and said it was willing to accept the investigation. However, some scholars interviewed by Radio Free Asia analyzed that this seems to be not a simple consumer dispute, but a possible political purpose behind it.
On the 19th, a woman surnamed Zhang wearing a white T-shirt with the word “brake failure” and the Tesla logo printed in red, went to the Tesla booth at the Shanghai Auto Show and shouted “Tesla brake failure” on the roof of her car. She was detained for five days for disturbing public order. Local media reported that the woman claimed her father was driving a Tesla Model 3 when the brakes failed in February, resulting in an accident that injured the occupants of the car.
Tesla cited background data that the brakes were applied at a speed of 118.5 mph and that no abnormal braking was observed. The media reported that the two sides have so far failed to coordinate, with Zhang refusing to submit her car to a national third-party agency for testing and Tesla refusing to provide background data on the accident car. Zhang has publicly protested several times before.
Tesla first responded in a microblog post saying that if it was a Tesla product that was faulty, it would be resolutely responsible, but the company would not compromise on unreasonable claims either. Tesla also revealed that the owner had previously been involved in a collision because of a speeding violation, and later insisted on the return of the car on the grounds of product quality, although after two months of negotiation, the owner did not accept third-party testing and also refused all other solutions. The online response to Tesla was lopsided and negative.
Chinese officials criticized one after another, Tesla softened its attitude and apologized
The Chinese official media CCTV published a commentary saying that regulatory intervention is the best solution. Xinhua, on the other hand, said in an article on April 20 that Tesla’s response after the incident appeared arrogant; if the store is bullying its customers, it should strengthen its supervision. Chang’an Jian, the public number of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Political and Legal Affairs Commission, said in an article that the female owner should apologize for disturbing public order, but Tesla’s response was arrogant and arrogant, which chilled the hearts of Chinese consumers.
Tesla finally softened its attitude, posting a message on its official microblogging site late on the 20th at 11:00 p.m., saying, “We apologize for not being able to solve the owner’s problem in a timely manner,” and “We have set up a special handling team to deal with the matter exclusively. We will try to learn our lessons and carry out strict self-examination and self-correction in cooperation with the investigation of all relevant government departments, so as to respect consumers and the market” and “apologize to the owners once again.”
A driver in Jiangsu, Mr. Hu told Radio Free Asia, “a friend to buy Tesla, he is the autopilot out of the question, and not very much, right. It may be that this problem has, is public opinion to make this bigger, Tesla seems to store big bully, how others coordinate with him are not coordinated well, so that things have become bigger.”
Ordinary people’s rights can pass security checks and can also get the official media endorsement rare
In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Gong and Jian, a Chinese dissident who is stranded in Taiwan, questioned whether this was directed by the Chinese government. In China, there are no channels for dissidents to speak out. Tesla’s participation in the auto show must be applied for and approved by the public security department, and the woman wearing a T-shirt with a protest slogan was able to go in and jump in the car, performing art-like fierce protest performance, and afterwards, she was able to appear in the central-level media, and even the government came out to speak for the rights defenders, which must have very big political considerations. If you do other rights defense in mainland China, such as anti-China brand, anti-demolition, the end must be very miserable.
Gong and Jian believe that the Chinese mainland to issue a warning, all companies in China want to make money must be politically correct, do not eat China’s rice smash China’s pot!
Gong and Jian said: “China has a saying that is very clear, that is, you can not even speak against the voice now, you have to applaud, if your applause is not loud enough, not warm enough, you may still be a counter-revolution. It is also possible that China is now for the research and development of electric vehicles, but also reached what they call a certain breakthrough, so take Tesla as a target to hit, and then develop China’s own electric vehicles.”
Lin Ting-hui, deputy secretary general of the International Law Institute of Taiwan, also questioned in an interview with Radio Free Asia that Zhang’s daughter wore a T-shirt with “Brake Failure” printed on it to the auto show, obviously with premeditation. In addition, mainland China has strict control over the media, but in the Tesla incident, not only did not suppress the action, but also through the CCTV propaganda, is this not a silver lining?
Chinese official media has made a series of negative attacks on Tesla in the past six months
Lin mentioned that now that the Sino-US relationship is moving toward a complex struggle, Tesla has become the object of the Chinese Communist Party’s flag-raising campaign, which has launched a series of negative attacks against Tesla in the past six months. “For example, it created a propaganda video to show that Tesla is easy to catch fire, easy to cause accidents when charging, easy to cause accidents on autopilot, and CCTV deliberately put together these accidents to systematically make negative propaganda.”
Lin Tinghui analysis, the CPC Central Committee made the decision to target Tesla, mainly because the next generation of 5G and 6G automobile industry is related to electric vehicles, on the one hand to suppress Tesla, on the other hand to vigorously foster their own electric vehicle industry.
Lin Tinghui said: “The Chinese Communist Party did not expect that Tesla is not just an electric car, it is actually a group of computers, which must have a highly sophisticated car chip, but the car chip is in the hands of the United States. Although the Chinese Communist Party used this tactic to warn the United States and Tesla, but after the warning, what leverage can the Chinese Communist Party have to bargain with the United States? Negotiate with Tesla? If China does not allow Tesla to enter its market, will China be able to produce the same level of electric cars? I’m afraid that Chinese electric cars will have more accidents and higher failure rates than Tesla.”
Lin Tinghui mentioned that Tesla’s boss is additionally developing space business, and the Chinese Communist Party is systematically suppressing both Tesla’s car and aerospace system industry chain.
Taiwan Executive Yuan consumer protection officer Wang Deming told Radio Free Asia on 21st that Taiwan’s consumer protection division received 26 consumer disputes about Tesla last year, one related to brake failure, and the others were about defective products, such as foggy lights, audio problems, yellowing headlight modules, etc.
Wang Deming analyzed that Tesla seems to be a case-by-case dispute: “If there are big problems, the amount of complaints are hundreds or thousands of pieces, which is systematic. (We) received a reflection of the brake problem, only one so far.”
Wang Deming said that in a democratic society in Taiwan encountered this kind of consumer disputes, the country has a set of practices: “to the notary third person identification to see how, if it is a problem of the industry, the industry must be responsible for the end, if there is no problem, the related costs of consumers to bear their own, because it is a problem of driving habits, not the machine itself.”
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