The first day of the Shanghai Motor Show in China was interrupted on Monday by a protester who jumped on a Tesla and shouted “Tesla brakes fail” before being dragged by security, according to the photos and video posted to social media places.
The woman can be seen standing on a Tesla Model 3, seemingly without shoes, while calling out to the crowd of onlookers. The protester was wearing a custom T-shirt with the Tesla logo and security tried to block her from public view with umbrellas. Some videos show her beating her umbrella and even destroying at least one before security takes over.
Tesla has been on fire for security reasons in recent years, with people experiencing problems related to everything touch screens hard battery fires. Tesla’s autopilot function has also come under intense scrutiny for failing to be able to drive autonomously, with the latest potential “autonomous driving” incident killing two people in Texas on Saturday.
It is unclear whether the unidentified protester at the Shanghai Motor Show owns Tesla, as it was sometimes identified on social media, or if she was perhaps a relative of someone injured in a Tesla, as she was sometimes also identified on social media. It is also unclear whether the woman who protested Monday is the same person who staged a protest at the top of a Model 3 last month in Henan, China.
A first tweet from a journalist for Chinese state media blurred the protester ‘s face, but her face did not change in a tweet from the Twitter’ s main Twitter account Global Times. Twitter is officially banned in China, as are other U.S.-based social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube, but some mainland Chinese users can move around the network via a VPN.
G / O Media may receive a commission
The public show will likely raise doubts about Tesla’s presence in China, the world’s largest electric car market. But it is unlikely to slow production at Tesla’s gigabyte production line with production of about 250,000 cars a year. Things are going so well for Tesla in the country that it seems Elon Musk’s electric car company is buying 100 hectares more in China.