Author/ Author of Caijing Tianxia Weekly Han Ling
Edited / Mao Shiyang
Tesla sued the Big V, saying it faked brake failures
Tesla has once again sued car reviewers.
On January 26, Tesla officially sued self-media big V Chen Zhengang (account name "Xiaogang Xuechang"), suing him for infringement of the right to reputation. "Xiao Gang Xuechang" is a TikTok certified creator in the automotive field, with nearly 15 million fans on the platform.
On January 27, Chen Zhengang responded simply on his personal Weibo (account name is "Xiao Gang Senior Oh"), saying "Okay I know." However, as of now, Senior Xiao Gang has not disclosed more information about the prosecution process.
For the reason for the lawsuit, Tesla officials have not responded, but a number of media reports said that the reason for the prosecution is that Tesla believes that Chen Zhengang (hereinafter referred to as Xiaogang Senior) falsified data in the test experiment, forged Tesla's brake failure, and thus used the network to carry out defamation behavior, violating Tesla's right to reputation.
In fact, the dispute between the two sides stemmed from a test of the braking system. The video of Xiao Gang's controversy was released on April 29, 2021, in two videos with the theme of "Take Two Cars to Test Emergency Braking", Xiao Gang tested the emergency braking function of Tesla Model 3 and Xiaopeng P7 respectively.
In the video, Xiao Gang said that two vehicles will be used to release the accelerator pedal during the driving process of 50km/h, and then do not step on the brake pedal, if the vehicle actively brakes through the automatic emergency braking system, it is considered a successful test without colliding with the obstacle, and the obstacle is an inflatable dummy and paper car used in the simulation scene.
But in the test video released by Xiao Gang, the Model 3 hit the obstacle twice. Among them, the paper car test did not brake, and the dummy test had brakes but did not brake. For the test results, Xiao Gang stood next to the fake paper car hit by the Model 3 and said helplessly: "It just can't be stopped." "On the side of Xiaopeng P7, whether it is a paper fake car or an inflatable dummy, it brakes the car before the collision occurs.
Senior Xiao Gang said in the video that he did not step on anyone or hold anyone, but just did a simple test. However, this test has been questioned by some netizens and other car review bloggers.
One of the bloggers, Xiao Li Feiche, questioned that Xiao Gang stepped on the electric door before tesla Model 3 crashed into a fake paper car. Some netizens found in the video that in the "test" stage that should have been sliding by the vehicle and waiting for the automatic emergency braking system to intervene, the "energy bar" on the central control screen of the Model 3 suddenly flashed, and before it was about to collide with the obstacle, the "energy bar" logo could also be seen.
In Tesla's system, there is an "energy bar" display on the central control screen in the car, which means that the car has a power output, and netizens suspect that Xiao Gang has stepped on the electric door pedal to accelerate in this process to intervene in the role of emergency braking, which is a deliberate "smear" Tesla.
Afterwards, Xiao Gang responded that tapping the electric door will not affect the emergency brake intervention, and the reason why he "clicked" the electric door is to increase the speed to 50km/h test standards. But he also admitted that he had some mistakes in the operation, so he conducted a second test, but the test results showed that the Model 3 still did not brake the car without stepping on the electric door.
In fact, in the user manual of the Tesla Model 3 model, it has been mentioned that 4 emergency brakes will not be implemented or stop braking, one of which is "violent acceleration when the emergency brake is applied", and Xiao Gang said that the foot he stepped on was not a violent acceleration.
The video spread widely on the Internet, receiving more than 160,000 likes. However, the doubts caused by the test results have also made many netizens ridicule Xiao gang for collecting "advertising fees".
In fact, in various car review videos, it is common for different test results to appear under tests in different environments.
Before the Xiaogang senior test, the car emperor had tested the emergency braking function of Tesla Model Y, WEILAI EC6, audi Q5L three models, in the test video, the car emperor said that Tesla performed best among the three cars. In May last year, the host of the EasyCar App, Chu Shaoba Car, also released the Tesla Model Y active braking system test. However, their test results were different from those obtained by Xiao Gang.
Tesla's "hard-core" car critic and rights protection owner
For the lawsuit, some netizens praised Tesla for using legal means to "protect rights", but some people also questioned that Tesla's move was "intimidating" negative voices.
In fact, the use of litigation and other tough ways to resolve public opinion disputes has become the norm for Tesla to deal with doubts, and in many lawsuits, Tesla seems to have reacted particularly fiercely to the questioning of brakes and brakes.
In September 2021, car internet celebrity Han Chao posted a Weibo update saying that he was sued by Tesla for infringing on the right to reputation. According to the indictment released by the owner, Tesla asked it to immediately delete all infringing content and replies on Weibo and claim 5.05 million yuan.
Earlier, Han Chao said that he was driving an officially certified second-hand Tesla sedan that he had just purchased for two months, and when driving on the highway, he had the problem of "the brakes and electric doors of the car suddenly paralyzed, and the acceleration and brake pedals could not be stepped on." Subsequently, Han Chao could not negotiate and filed a lawsuit, demanding "one refund and three losses", and after two rounds of trials, the court ordered Tesla to return the owner of the car, Han Mou, for a total of more than 1.51 million yuan.
Although Han Chao's claim for compensation was supported by the court, during the litigation, Han Chao repeatedly published remarks against Tesla, which Tesla believed had "long made low-level and derogatory remarks about the second plaintiff (Tesla Shanghai Co., Ltd.) in order to claim compensation from it.
In addition, the Tesla female owner who sat on the roof of the Shanghai Auto Show last April also posted at the end of September 2021 that she received a pre-litigation mediation opinion consultation letter from the Shanghai Qingpu District People's Court, and Tesla demanded that she apologize and compensate for the loss of the right to reputation of 5 million yuan, and the female owner had shouted "Tesla brake failure" on the roof.
Shortly after the auto show incident, a Tesla owner in Wenzhou drove a Model 3, due to some improper operation, causing the vehicle to accelerate out of control and collide with a number of parked vehicles and sidewalk guardrails and other facilities. Later, the owner repeatedly said in online platforms or media interviews that Tesla products "brake failure, automatic acceleration."
Tesla also requested the court to order the defendant to pay 500,000 yuan in damages for infringement, and the court's first-instance judgment required the owner to apologize to Tesla and compensate 50,000 yuan for 90 days on the douyin platform's use account.
In the eyes of the outside world, Tesla's positive response to external doubts is not surprising, the outside world's concern about "brake failure" has become an important problem plaguing Tesla. In the same month as the brakes failed, Tesla's sales in China in April 2021 decreased by nearly 10,000 units month-on-month.
It is worth noting that after a series of events in April last year, Tesla, which claimed to "not do public relations", opened a "Tesla Legal Department" Weibo account in May 2021, and since then, Tesla has begun to recruit legal personnel on a large scale.
At present, Tesla's legal department Weibo has not pushed relevant content, but some self-media bloggers have exposed that they have received a private message litigation warning from the "Tesla legal department".
On May 29, 2021, today's headline self-media blogger "Five Thousand Years of Rabbit" posted that Tesla's legal department sent a private message to itself, claiming that the company has filed a lawsuit in the Beijing court, and the blogger can contact the other party to communicate. The content of Tesla's private message is "continuously publishing infringing content involving our company". At the same time, Tesla's legal department also commented below the post that "the Internet is not an extralegal place."
After that, the official Weibo of "Tesla Customer Service Support" posted a number of apology letters from the self-media, which apologized for publishing untrue or negative remarks about Tesla.
Negative entanglement, sales are high, Tesla will always be "just" down?
On January 27, Tesla announced the fourth quarter of 2021 performance report, in 2021, Tesla achieved revenue of $53.823 billion, an increase of 71% year-on-year; net profit of $5.519 billion, an increase of 665% year-on-year. This is already the tenth consecutive quarter of Tesla's profitability.
"We really don't want to spend time and effort on marketing and PR. We want to put our resources to work on things that really make a difference in value. For example, R & D and manufacture of really excellent products, to provide customers with excellent products. Tesla vice president of external affairs Tao Lin said in an interview.
In the eyes of the outside world, Tesla China's style of treating public opinion has been influenced by its CEO Musk. Musk has said that other companies spend money on advertising and manipulating public opinion, while Tesla focuses on products. In October 2020, Tesla disbanded its core PR team at its headquarters in the U.S. and retained only the PR team responsible for parts of Europe and Asia.
After the Shanghai Auto Show rights protection incident, Tao Lin claimed that "Tesla will not spend a lot of advertising expenses to do public relations", in the eyes of the outside world, tesla then began to "hard bar" public opinion.
However, Tesla's tough approach is also being questioned. In previous cases, a large number of netizens questioned the unreasonableness of Tesla's lawsuit after losing the lawsuit. In addition, Tesla's response has not completely eliminated the outside world's doubts about its brakes.
The emotional reaction of users is also directly reflected in Tesla's sales and stock price, which fell briefly under the influence of a series of negative news last year, but returned to normal levels in the next few months.
According to the data released by the Association, Tesla's global delivery volume reached 936,200 units in 2021, an increase of 87.2% year-on-year, of which sales in China were 320,700 units. Among the new energy manufacturers, the ranking is second only to BYD and SAIC-GM-Wuling.
Musk said in the earnings report that it expects deliveries to easily grow to more than 50% in 2022, and fully autonomous driving will be achieved this year. He also said that no new models will be launched this year, and the problem of Tesla's chip restrictions will be alleviated next year.
In this way, Tesla's toughness has not brought a fatal blow to sales performance. However, with the rapid rise of new cars and independent brands in China, to some extent, it remains to be seen whether the tough style of Tesla's public relations will bring hidden dangers to public opinion.
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