Visitors look at a Tesla Model 3 sample car at the 19th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition on April 19, 2021.
The female owner of a Tesla in Henan, China, is suing Tesla for 50,000 yuan (RMB) for “infringement of reputation”. The woman’s husband, Mr. Li, claimed, “If you want to do it, do it in a serial. In response, there was a public backlash in the Chinese online community, while Tesla responded that it would respond to the lawsuit and make every effort to promote the testing of the vehicle by a third-party authority.
On May 6, local time, Ms. Zhang and her wife in Henan formally sued Tesla’s Shanghai and Beijing branches as well as Global Vice President Tao Lin for infringement of their reputation rights. The lawsuit mainly requests the following: 1) requesting the three defendants to immediately stop infringing on the plaintiff’s reputation and eliminate the impact; 2) ordering the three defendants to publish a notice of apology to the plaintiff in the national media and a written apology letter to the plaintiff on their official microblog (top of the microblog for 30 consecutive days); 3) ordering the three defendants to pay the plaintiff RMB 50,000 in compensation for moral damage.
The lawsuit claims that the plaintiff, as an ordinary car owner, had a product quality dispute with Tesla due to a car accident, but Tesla failed to actively negotiate with the customer in a respectful manner, and instead publicly published “false statements that were made out of nothing and contrary to the facts”, with the intention of portraying the plaintiff as The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiff’s “unreasonable and professional car trouble” image has seriously misled public opinion and caused serious impact on the life of the plaintiff and his family. The lawsuit states that the plaintiff, “in order to protect their legitimate rights and interests,” has submitted a civil complaint to the North Pass District Court in Anyang City on May 6, “demanding that the relevant personnel be held legally responsible.
Some Chinese netizens posted on online social media platforms questioning why the couple did not sue for “brake failure”, the focus of the incident. The woman’s husband, Mr. Li, responded that he would sue for the infringement of reputation first, “this is only the first episode”, after which they would sue again for the accident vehicle brake failure, “little by little with him, to give him the whole series”.
On May 7, Tesla released a statement to publicly respond to Ms. Zhang and her husband’s lawsuit.
The statement said that it had taken note of the lawsuit filed by Ms. Zhang, and that Tesla and Ms. Tao Lin would respond to the lawsuit and believe that the law would give a “fair and just verdict”.
The statement also said that Tesla has been focusing on product quality issues and has been pushing hard for the vehicle to be tested by a third-party authority under the designation or supervision of the relevant departments, hoping to help Ms. Zhang “return to normal life as soon as possible”. However, up to now, Ms. Zhang has not agreed to accept the qualified third-party testing under the designation or supervision of the relevant departments.
The statement also highlighted that the driver at the time of the accident was Ms. Zhang’s father, but the person concerned has not yet come forward to explain the driving situation at the time of the accident, and the so-called “brake failure” allegation is only Ms. Zhang’s verbal description, “without valid evidence recognized by the relevant third parties “Ms. Zhang still has not agreed to analyze the EDR data on the vehicle to find out the truth.
The statement concluded by re-emphasizing, “We will continue to push forward with vehicle testing matters to give an explanation to all the public who are concerned about the incident.”
Once the above news came out, Chinese online social media platforms once again exploded, for the female owners of the couple suddenly put aside the brake problem to accuse the “nominal infringement”, many netizens questioned: “How not to ask for a refund of the car and money?” “The cause of action is really drunk, should not be brake failure?” “Dizzy! Not to sue the brakes? How do you let the general public accept this fact?”
Some netizens posted that they had a sympathetic attitude towards the owner, but the female owner has been unwilling to accept the test of the vehicle, so they also began to have doubts.
Some netizens questioned the owner: “Every day with Tesla trouble, not to work?” Some netizens then followed up with a post saying, “This is to go to work ah.”
Another netizen left a comment saying, “Behind this to say no one, ghosts do not believe!”
Another netizen posted a comment, “Early on I wondered, since the words are well documented, why only trouble and not prosecute? Because who claims, who cites evidence, is afraid of no evidence to sue? Now finally squirm to sue, combined with the car does not have a half-assed relationship.”
It is worth noting that on the day the female owner sued, Tesla announced that in order to allow users to freely view the vehicle background data, is developing an owner data platform for all owners to query access to the data of the car-machine interaction, the platform is expected to go online within the year.
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