Wearing a shirt that read “The Brakes Don’t Work,” and “Invisible Killer,” a lone woman climbed upon a Tesla Model 3 on Monday at the Auto Shanghai Expo, while yelling allegations about the company’s brakes being faulty, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The protester, which was captured by numerous bystanders, claimed to have almost lost four family members in an accident due to faulty brakes.
The protest occurred at a Tesla-specific booth of the automobile expo and was picked up by state media outlets, before long garnering 150 million views on Weibo through a hashtagged post saying the Tesla booth had become “a platform for rights defenders.”
Tesla’s vehicle data however shows the car was traveling at almost 120 kilometers per hour (75 miles per hour) and the car’s braking and emergency-warning systems had functioned properly.
— jdiddymac (@jdiddymac) April 19, 2021
A video below shows the woman shouting on top of the Model 3, while exhibitors try to shield her with umbrellas, in a bid to stop her protest from being shown.
A female Tesla owner climbed on top of a car’s roof at the Tesla booth to protest her car’s brake malfunction at the Shanghai auto show Monday. The booth beefed up its security after the incident. pic.twitter.com/ct7RmF1agM
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) April 19, 2021
One Weibo user with over 5 million followers responded to the post, alleging to have purchased three Teslas with no faulty brakes, but a slew of other bugs and concerns. Another user claimed Tesla was “hoodwinking Chinese consumers,” with others encouraging those to buy Chinese products instead.
China is the world’s largest auto market, making it a particularly important market to spur on mainstream EV adoption for Tesla. The country is also home to a number of younger EV startups, including Xpeng Motors and NIO, as well as a cast of automakers with a mix of both EVs and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, like Li Auto and Warren Buffett-backed BYD.
