Despite concerns over Tesla’s quality control following an incident of protest at Auto Shanghai, Tesla has stated that it may be looking to tailor new vehicles to the Chinese market, which is both an important market for the U.S.-based company and is also the world’s largest auto market.
At the Auto Shanghai car expo this week, Tesla China Vice President Grace Tao told the 21st Century Business Herald that the U.S. automaker plans to develop new products made specifically for the Chinese market (via TechCrunch).
While the models would initially be developed in China, they would later be sold globally, according to Tao’s statement.
Tesla Threatens Lawsuit Over ‘Giga-Sweatshop’ Hit Piece in China, Defends Build Quality https://t.co/PhD8xwwbyD
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) December 30, 2020
The news came on the heels of a woman climbing upon a Tesla Model 3 at the event, alleging that the company’s brakes didn’t work as expected, before being escorted away by security. The incident went viral via a post on Weibo, which garnered over 220 million views within just two days. In it, the woman claimed that she had had four relatives almost killed in an accident involving a Tesla’s brakes, in which the vehicle could not stop.
Following the woman’s arrest, Tesla claimed on Weibo that the car had crashed from going over the speed limit, rather than any quality control issues on their part.
In response to the viral post of the woman climbing the car, Tesla China emphasized its hopes to inspect the issues raised by the public in a follow-up post on Weibo.
In the post, Tesla China wrote, “We have since the start been willing to work with national and authoritative third-party organizations to thoroughly inspect the issues raised by the public. By doing this, we wish to win assurance and understanding from consumers.”
The company continued, “But we still haven’t fulfilled this wish, mainly because our ways of communicating with customers may be problematic. Secondly, we indeed can’t decide for our customers how they want to resolve these issues.”
