The video shows a woman in a T-shirt saying “Brakes don’t work” shouting similar accusations at a Shanghai auto show.
An unhappy customer who invaded the Tesla booth at the Shanghai Motor Show, getting on top of a car in protest, creating a big stir on social media and apologizing to the company, will be arrested for five days, Shanghai police said Tuesday.
Police said the woman and an accomplice woman, identified only by their last names, Zhang and Li, “caused chaos” at the fair Monday when they arrived at the Tesla screen “to express their dissatisfaction with a consumer dispute “.
Zhang was ordered to detain for “disturbing public order,” while Li received a warning, police said.
Videos that went viral on Monday showed Zhang wearing a T-shirt with the words “Brakes don’t work” and shouting similar accusations as staff and security struggled to regain calm.
On Tuesday afternoon, Tesla issued a statement apologizing for not dealing with the customer’s complaint in time and said it would conduct a self-inspection of its service and operations in China.
Tesla sells about 30 percent of its cars in China, manufactured in the Shanghai factory. But it has faced occasional criticism over issues such as complaints of battery fires.
Monday’s incident prompted state broadcaster CCTV to call for an investigation into the frequency problems reported in Tesla cars, while China’s anti-graft surveillance dog intervened with a comment saying the disputes should have to settle within the rule of law.
“Individuals should not take extreme action and companies should not be arrogant and unreasonable,” the Central Discipline Inspection Commission said on Tuesday.
Tesla said Monday that the woman owned a vehicle that had been involved in a collision earlier this year. She cited the “speeding offenses” for the crash, and added in a statement on social media that she had been negotiating with her for the return of the car, but the talks had stalled on a third-party inspection.
Zhang and Li could not be reached for comment.
The incident continued to draw social media attention on Tuesday, representing two of the ten most popular topics on the Weibo platform, similar to Twitter.
Last month, Tesla underwent a check in China when the military banned the entry of its vehicles into its complexes, alleging security concerns about the cameras in its vehicles, sources told the agency. Reuters news.
This prompted founder Elon Musk to say that if Tesla used cameras to spy in China or anywhere, it would be shut down. Earlier this month, Tesla said the cameras in its cars were not activated outside of North America.