Written by / Wang Daye
Edited / Mao Shiyang
Tesla entered an intensive period of rights protection, and some cases of rights protection that were rumored to be boiling began to "reverse".
On the evening of May 9, the owner of Wenzhou Tesla's "brake failure" issued an apology, admitting that in the case of knowing that it was his own operation error, he still maliciously released "Tesla automatic acceleration brake failure" and "cherish life away from Tesla" and other contents, which made Tesla deep into the whirlpool of public opinion.
It is worth noting that this is the first time that Tesla has ushered in a solemn apology from rights protection owners. However, after the verdict, another Tesla rights defender, Han Chao, exposed the news, saying that "the apology letter was written by Tesla itself", and his own lawsuit of 5 million yuan claimed by Tesla was also heard on May 10 and May 13.
"Finance and Economics" Weekly contacted Han Chao, as of press time has not received a reply. However, Tesla did not deny Tesla's participation in "ghostwriting" the text of the apology letter, but replied: "All the contents of the apology letter can stand up to scrutiny." ”
Image source/Visual China
Owner explosion "Tesla wrote a letter of apology to himself"
On May 9, U.S. stocks closed sharply lower. Large U.S. technology stocks fell across the board, with Apple down 3.3 percent, its market value evaporating $84.5 billion overnight, Tesla down more than 9 percent, and founder Musk's net worth evaporating $120 billion overnight.
In Wenzhou, China, on the other side of the ocean, Mr. Chen, a Tesla owner who had participated in the "brake out of control" rights protection, released a public apology through Weibo on May 9, saying that the accident that entered the community that year was due to his mistake to use the throttle as a brake, but he was "unwilling", so he repeatedly fabricated "Tesla automatic acceleration brake failure" and "cherish life away from Tesla" in interviews to denigrate Tesla.
"On the night of the accident, I drove home on the road inside the community and suddenly found that someone appeared in front of me, wanted to step on the brakes, but stepped on the wrong one, put the throttle as a brake, and the vehicle rushed into the parking lot, colliding with the parking lot barrier, multiple vehicles parked, and the barrier. After the accident, although I knew that I had stepped on the accelerator as a brake, I was unwilling..." The owner said that his fabricated remarks were widely disseminated, and many people were misled, causing irreparable and huge losses to Tesla and the reputation of Tesla Motors. Apologize to Tesla and the misguided people for this.
The Tesla Wenzhou "brake out of control" incident, which occurred in August 2020, has attracted much attention. At that time, a serious traffic accident occurred in the parking lot of a residential area in Wenzhou, and a domestic Model 3 hit the barrier bar at the entrance of the parking lot at high speed, and then seriously collided with the vehicles in the parking lot. After the accident, the owner of the car was seriously injured, he said in an interview with the media, at a distance of 100 meters from the parking lot, the Model 3 suddenly accelerated out of control and the brakes failed.
In mid-2021, the Lucheng District People's Court of Wenzhou City ruled that the owner of the car bears full responsibility for the accident, and other parties have no responsibility. The Tesla owner Chen was sentenced to apologize to Tesla and pay 50,000 yuan in compensation. After that, the owner appealed, and the second instance was rejected. On May 9 this year, the owner issued an apology statement, admitting that the accident was caused by his wrong pedal.
It is worth noting that this is the first case in which the owner of the rights protection car was sued and failed. Right now, Tesla is engaged in intensive litigation.
In the apology letter, Mr. Chen also admitted that "other self-proclaimed 'rights protection' car owners have also contacted him, including Shanghai car owner Mr. Feng, Henan Car Advocate and Tianjin car owner Mr. Han." ”
"Finance and Economics" Weekly learned that Mr. Han of Tianjin mentioned in the apology letter, whose real name is Han Chao, is a car owner who has successfully defended his rights and has been "refunded one and lost three" by Tesla.
Previously, Han Chao drove an officially certified second-hand Tesla sedan that he had just purchased for two months, and when driving on the highway, there was a problem of "the car brakes, electric doors suddenly paralyzed, acceleration and brake pedals could not be stepped on", so he directly sued Tesla in court, and Tesla was sentenced to "refund one for three", including a refund of 379,700 yuan of car purchase money, as well as compensation of 1.1391 million yuan.
"I heard that Tesla wrote a letter of apology to himself." On the evening of May 9, after Han Chao learned that he appeared in Mr. Chen's apology letter, he immediately posted chat records with Mr. Chen on social media, exposing Chen's admission that the apology letter was written by Tesla, and wrote on Weibo that he believed that Mr. Chen was "throwing dirty water on others in order to reduce the punishment or obtain forgiveness."
Image source/Han Chao Weibo
Han Chao also posted chat evidence that when the owner Chen Mou contacted him before, the second trial compensated Tesla 500,000 yuan.
In this regard, the weekly "Finance and Economics" weekly asked Tesla for verification, and the reply was that "the discussion of the content of the apology draft was formed under the witness of the judge, and finally Mr. Chen himself confirmed all the content and voluntarily and self-published." All the content of the apology letter can stand up to scrutiny, conform to the objective actual situation, the content is true, the procedure is proper, and the owner is voluntary. ”
"Tesla is innocent in this matter, at least the brakes did not fail. Single-pedal mode science is not scientific is another problem. The group of rights defenders does not necessarily speak the truth, and car companies are not always the strong side. A senior car person said, "The pictures circulated in the follow-up show that the Wenzhou car owner said that the apology letter was written by Tesla, and specifically ordered other rights protection owners, which tesla is familiar with reading the 'Art of War'." ”
In his view, Tesla's rights protection is not for compensation, but to play a demonstration effect.
Image source/Visual China
Tesla issued multiple "5 million" claim letters in a year
In fact, the use of litigation and other tough ways to resolve public opinion disputes has become Tesla's usual means of dealing with the "bad evaluation" of vehicles in recent years, and in many lawsuits, Tesla seems to have begun to have "zero tolerance" for questioning the brake and brake systems.
Since the establishment of Tesla's legal department in May last year, its legal department has sent lawyer letters or sued for high claims to multiple media, self-media or car owners, and the amount of claims in many civil litigation cases has even reached 5 million yuan.
According to Tianyan, as of May 10, Tesla had more than 30 court announcements, and the cause of the dispute involving the right to reputation was 8. The most recent of these cases will be heard on May 13.
On April 19 this year, The internet celebrity car critic Boss Cai said that he received tesla's complaint for the second time, Tesla asked it to apologize in writing, each platform was capped for no less than 90 days, compensation was 5 million yuan, and related litigation costs were borne.
It is reported that in 2021, "Boss Cai" released a video through a video platform with the theme of "a Tesla supplier friend exposed the relevant insider". The author said in the video that one of his friends is one of Tesla's suppliers, Tesla has adopted measures such as lowering prices, strict settlement methods or cycles for suppliers after localization, which may cause problems in the quality of suppliers' products, and Tesla's personnel in charge of inspection and supplier personnel have behaviors such as "eating and taking cards".
Since there is no evidence to support the authenticity of the above content, Tesla immediately complained about the above content, and "Boss Cai" insisted that the above content belonged to the friend's revelation, but it was impossible for him to ask this "friend" to testify for himself.
In January this year, Tesla sued the well-known car critic "Xiao Gang Senior", arguing that he had falsified data in the test experiment, forged Tesla's brake failure, and thus used the Internet to carry out defamation behavior, infringing Tesla's right to reputation.
In February this year, Tesla sued the driver for infringement of the right to reputation, because on April 20 last year, the driver of the Changsha Shenzhou substitute driving and micro-driving platform produced a large advertisement in the local area and declared that "due to Tesla's brake quality problems, in order to maintain the life safety of the substitute driver!" Refuse to provide a substitute driving service for Tesla brand cars. In the end, the defendant was sentenced to compensate Tesla for 20,000 yuan and publicly apologized.
In September last year, Tesla sued the owner of the "refund one compensation three case" against the owner of the car, Mr. Han, and the Henan rights protection female car claimed that the lady violated the right to reputation, claiming 5.05 million yuan and 5 million yuan respectively, and demanded a public apology; subsequently, Han Chao countersued Tesla for infringement of the right to reputation.
Ms. Zhang of Henan in Mr. Chen's apology letter in Wenzhou this time is the female owner of the Tesla roof rights protection team at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show. The WeChat chat records that were previously exposed pointed out that Han Chao had made trouble for the two women to defend their rights.
On May 10, Han Chao revealed that Han Chao's lawsuit against Tesla for infringement of the right to reputation was heard on the grounds that Tesla defamed Han Chao as a "planning participant in the Rights Protection Incident at the Shanghai Auto Show", and demanded an apology for asking Tesla's official Weibo to be put on the top for 30 days. As for the outcome of the trial, as of the deadline, caijing tianxia weekly has not received a response from the owner. Tesla's lawsuit against Han Chao will also be heard on May 13.
It is worth noting that after a series of events in April last year, Tesla, which has "no public relations", opened a "Tesla Legal Department" Weibo account in May 2021 and recruited legal personnel on a large scale. Since then, the official Weibo of "Tesla Customer Service Support" has posted a number of apology letters from the self-media, and the self-media has apologized for publishing untrue or negative remarks about Tesla.
After the Shanghai Auto Show rights protection incident, Tao Lin, Tesla's vice president of external affairs, said, "Tesla will not spend a lot of advertising money to do public relations." Subsequently, Tesla began to "harden" negative public opinion to save the brand image affected by negative news. In the month of the "brake failure" public opinion whirlpool, Tesla's sales in China in April 2021 decreased by nearly 10,000 units month-on-month.
According to the sales data released by the Association, Tesla sold 1512 vehicles in April this year, and all sales were domestic deliveries. Different from the traditional manufacturers' way of piling up a large number of inventory cars, Tesla's direct operation model allows vehicles to be delivered directly from the production line to the user's hands. Therefore, when Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory was hit by the epidemic in April, the production end directly affected the delivery end.
According to public information, Tesla has rolled off the production line of 10,000 vehicles as of April 30 without full recovery since the resumption of work and production on April 19. From January to April 2022, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory has delivered 184,000 vehicles, 1.7 times the delivery volume of the same period last year, surpassing the brand's annual deliveries in 2020.