autoevolution
 

French Tesla Web Domain Redirected Towards the Local BMW i3 Page

All is fair in war and love, the old saying goes, and people have been adding various other domains besides the two ever since it rose to popularity. Now, it would seem, the time for the automotive industry has come as well.
BMW i3 1 photo
Photo: BMW
The U.S. billboard war between Audi and BMW is very well known, but if that was an open confrontation, what happened yesterday with Tesla and the same BMW in France was the stuff of covert ops. This wasn't a war, it was sabotage.

It would appear that for an unknown period of time, the Tesla.fr domain was automatically redirecting traffic towards the French BMW website's i3 page. Now whoever is behind this scheme will surely realize that people who look for Tesla aren't 80-year-olds who can't tell the difference between a car or another as long as they both have four wheels, but know very well what they're looking for.

So we're pretty sure that no matter how long this had been going on, it brought BMW exactly zero new sales of its i3 electric city car. What it also didn't bring the German manufacturer is a lot of sympathies, as nobody likes a cheater.

The situation was reported by EV-specialized website Electrek, who also said it contacted the BMW representatives from the global press office and the French communications director, but didn't get a reply. It's hard to imagine this was orchestrated by somebody within the German company, and is most likely the work of a hardcore BMW fan who is sick with Tesla stealing all the spotlight.

Whatever the case, three hours after the brand's officials were informed, the Tesla.fr domain stopped routing its visitors to the BMW page, displaying instead a notice from web hosting company 1&1 stating that the domain had just been registered by one of its clients. We won't probably hear any more on the subject, even though it would have been interesting to know who was behind it. Oh, well, another unsolved mystery right there with Kennedy's assassination.
If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
About the author: Vlad Mitrache
Vlad Mitrache profile photo

"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
Full profile

 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories