On July 11th, a Shanghai court ruled in a second trial that Ms. Zhang, who climbed onto a Tesla roof at the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2021, had violated Tesla’s reputation rights. She was ordered to apologize to Tesla and compensate them with 170,000 RMB. Additionally, media personality Mr. Feng, who orchestrated the incident, was also ordered to apologize to Tesla and pay 250,000 RMB. This “Shanghai Auto Show incident” resulted in Tesla experiencing direct losses of over 170 million RMB in orders. The news made it to the top searches in mainland China on July 13th.
In the second trial judgment on July 11th regarding the “rights protection” case involving a Tesla roof incident at the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2021, the Qingpu District Court in Shanghai upheld the original verdict. Ms. Zhang from Henan was found guilty of infringing Tesla’s reputation rights and was ordered to apologize and pay 170,000 RMB.
The court also concluded in the second trial judgment that media person Mr. Feng played an organizing and planning role in the “Shanghai Auto Show incident” on April 19, 2021. Due to Mr. Feng’s long-term attacks on Tesla on Weibo, damaging Tesla’s reputation, the court ruled for him to apologize on his Weibo account and in the “Legal Daily” and compensate losses with 250,000 RMB.
According to the report by the “Daily Economic News” on July 12th, in another trial ruling, a CEO of a Chinese new energy vehicle company was found guilty for making inappropriate comments and was ordered to apologize to Tesla and compensate them.
Multiple mainland media reports indicated that an assessment report from a judicial evaluation agency revealed that the “Shanghai Auto Show incident” resulted in Tesla suffering direct losses of over 170 million RMB in orders and tens of millions in reputational damage. Furthermore, several incidents occurred after this event where car owners claimed that Tesla had “brake failure,” but judicial appraisal institutions ultimately found that the accidents were not related to Tesla vehicles themselves.
On the evening of July 11th, Ms. Zhang told Red Star News that the reputation dispute brought by Tesla was not related to product quality disputes. A data-related sale contract dispute was being handled by the Beijing Daxing District Court, and the final judgment has not been delivered yet.
During the Shanghai Auto Show media day on April 19, 2021, a female Tesla owner (Ms. Zhang) wearing a T-shirt with “brake failure” climbed onto a Tesla display car’s roof and shouted “Tesla has brake failure.” The incident quickly gained attention online.
On March 9, 2021, a video of “Henan woman sitting on a Tesla roof for rights protection” sparked attention. In the video, Ms. Zhang sat on a crashed Model 3 Tesla with the words “Tesla brake failure” and a recording playing “During the Spring Festival period, Tesla Model 3 brake failure caused a traffic accident, endangering a family of four.”
In response to this, Tesla issued a statement on March 10, 2021, determining the incident as a car owner’s full liability accident due to a traffic violation and stating they found no abnormalities in the vehicle’s braking system after analyzing the relevant data.
On April 23, 2021, Tesla officially explained the incident on Weibo:
1. Due to the car owner not creating a dedicated folder in the USB drive, the dashcam was not activated, resulting in no video recording of the collision.
2. The momentary lateral deceleration during the collision did not reach the thresholds for side airbags and curtains to deploy, and there was no intrusion damage to the left rear door trim panel, thus the safety airbags did not inflate.
3. Tesla’s vehicle data is stored in encrypted form, making it inaccessible for direct reading, modification, or deletion.
4. The car owner had been using the vehicle for over a year normally, and the accident was not due to a product quality issue, so the demand for a full refund of the vehicle from Tesla had no legal basis.
In May 2024, the Qingpu District Court in Shanghai issued a first-instance judgment that Ms. Zhang had violated Tesla’s reputation rights and was ordered to apologize and compensate Tesla with 172,275 RMB.
The judgment showed that Ms. Zhang failed to provide any evidence proving the existence of brake failure in the vehicle in question. Ms. Zhang admitted during the trial that her claim of brake failure at the time of the incident was based on subjective judgment and did not request a judicial appraisal on the existence of the brake failure. Therefore, based on the principle that the party making the claim bears the burden of proof, Ms. Zhang was legally responsible for failing to provide evidence.
Moreover, the public security authorities determined that the cause of the traffic accident in question was due to the driver of the vehicle at fault for failing to maintain a safe distance from the preceding vehicle to take emergency braking measures, making them fully responsible for the accident. Therefore, Ms. Zhang’s defamatory behavior, without any objective basis to prove brake failure in the vehicle, constituted defamation.
Ms. Zhang expressed her non-acceptance of the first-instance judgment and revealed her intention to appeal. Now, with the second trial verdict, the matter has been settled.
As a leading electric vehicle company, Tesla, though priced higher than Chinese-made electric vehicles, still holds a significant position in the Chinese market. Therefore, internet user “yingran0729” believes, “There must be unfair competition factors at play.”
“Dbyyz” also commented, “How could an ordinary person have the energy to go through this ordeal for four years? It’s clear that life should move on, as all answers have already been given.”
A Baidu user, 5722101760, jokingly remarked, “She (the car owner) dares to cause trouble with Tesla; look at who dares to cause trouble with the likes of my BYD.”