Industry dynamics

While Tesla owner protests atop a car, another carmaker shows ballet in similar setting

Publishtime:1970-01-01 08:00:00 Views:32

While Tesla faced intense pressure during the Shanghai auto show because of a lady standing on the roof of a car protesting "brake failure," Dongfeng Peugeot-Citroen Automobile was showing a ballet performance on its show car.

The stark contrast was reported by numerous Chinese media outlets, which said that Peugeot was alluding to Monday's protest at the Tesla booth.

Some users, however, said that Peugeot launched the show years ago, only this year it was particularly notable because of the Tesla fiasco.

On April 19, at the Tesla booth at the Shanghai auto show, a woman wearing a T-shirt with the words translated as "Brake Failure" stood on top of a car in protest, causing widespread concern.

Then a Tesla China executive said "there is no way to compromise, this is a process that new products must go through", and stressed that their own research showed that "90% of customers are willing to choose Tesla again".

This tough statement was immediately criticized by a large number of Chinese Internet users. The official Chinese media Xinhua News Agency published an article questioning "who gave Tesla the edge to be 'uncompromising'".

Late on April 20, Tesla said on Weibo that it apologizes for not being able to resolve the owner's issue in a timely manner.

Tesla has set up a working group to make every effort to meet the owners' demands in a compliant and legal manner, in order to satisfy them, the company said.