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Tesla Wins Lawsuit Against Chinese Customer Who Bashed Them for Ignoring Him

If Tesla is being sued and investigated in the U.S. by government agencies, investors, customers, and employees, it is striking back – at least in China. The company recently won a defamation lawsuit against a client who claimed Tesla never got back to him after his Model X’s brakes failed.
Tesla won a defamation lawsuit against a customer in China who said it ignored him 26 photos
Photo: Tesla
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Identified simply as Wen, the man was driving on May 8, 2021, from Fuyang to his city, Zhengzhou, when the speed dropped from 100 kph (62 mph) to 60 kph (37 mph). He called the police and said his brakes had failed, probably relating his case to phantom braking. Wen also said on Chinese social media that Tesla never got in contact with him about the problem.

That was his main mistake: the People's Court of Guancheng Hui District decided he was lying. There was evidence that Tesla tried to reach him to ask him to drop his car at a Tesla Service Center for inspection, which Wen refused despite the company’s insistence on that. The EV maker then verified the vehicle’s system and said the episode was caused by the right front wheel speed sensor, not the brakes themselves. According to OfWeek, the car was out of warranty after running more than 175,000 kilometers (108,740 miles).

Wen wanted Tesla to refund what he paid for the car, which he called a “killing toy.” In fact, he went even further: he asked for compensation of three times what he paid for the Model X, applied when the company selling the vehicle committed fraud.

On June 6, a Weibo user identified only as Tesla_bot published a recording on that social media in which Wen said his car was fine. He also claimed that exposing the story on social media would force it to pay him three times what he disbursed in his Model X: RMB1.5 million ($211,599 at the current exchange rate). In other words, he wanted the equivalent of $211,599 plus $634,797, or $846,396. Wen said the recording was edited to make him look bad.

Whether it was or not, the Chinese court decided Wen should publicly apologize to Tesla at the Henan Legal News and pay RMB10,000 ($1,411) to Tesla. Curiously, there is no word about the Model X brakes or the phantom braking episode. It is not unlikely that the court did not ask about that.

This is the second case of a Tesla customer losing a defamation case to Tesla. CNEVPost reminded us of another one in which a Tesla Model 3 driver lost control of his car on August 12, 2020. He accused Tesla of selling him a vehicle with defective brakes. The truth is that he stepped on the wrong pedal but did not want to admit that. On October 2021, the Wenzhou court forced him to pay Tesla RMB50,000 ($7,053) and to publicly apologize to Tesla, which he did in a video published on Weibo.

Tesla also sued Zhang Yazhou, the lady that protested against defective brakes in her Model 3 by climbing on the roof of a similar vehicle at Auto Shanghai 2021. We have not heard about any verdict so far.
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About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
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Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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