A woman, who jumped on the top of a Tesla car at a Shanghai auto show in April while shouting “brake failure”, has claimed she is now being sued by the electric carmaker for 5 million yuan ($750,000).
The woman—who reportedly is surnamed Zhang—said she received a request for pre-litigation mediation from the People’s Court of Qingpu District of Shanghai city issued on Aug. 14, which says if no agreement is reached, the case will enter the trial procedure.
Zhang also posted a photo of Tesla’s civil complaint against her.
The alleged complaint listed Tesla’s three litigation requests with the first asking her to issue a statement of apology on her Weibo account, which should last no less than 30 days, and publicly apologize on national media.
The second request was that she should pay 5 million yuan ($750,000) to Tesla as compensation. The third request was that she shall bear all litigation costs.
The complaint is a result of Zhang’s April 19 protest when she stood on the roof of a Tesla car while shouting “brake failure” at the Shanghai International Auto Show. She was also wearing a T-shirt brazened with the same phrase.
She claimed that in February the brakes of her Tesla Model 3 failed as she was driving, which she said caused her to crash into two cars while nearly killing four of her family members.
Zhang demanded Tesla pay a huge amount of compensation.
Tesla responded twice that they “don’t compromise with unreasonable demands.”
Three days after the Shanghai auto show protest, Tesla published Zhang’s driving data that showed the car had been driven at a high speed before the accident. The company said that its automatic braking system significantly reduced the speed of the car.
Not long after, Tesla also issued a statement on its official Weibo account, revealing that on the day of the accident on Feb. 21, the driver was Zhang’s father, and Zhang was in the passenger seat.
Zhang also held numerous other protests about her claims.
During the dispute, China’s state media uniformly criticized Tesla while there have been opinions voiced that the Elon Musk-led company will eventually be forced out of the country.
“After another year or two, when Chinese domestic electric vehicles companies learn the technology from Tesla, the Chinese regime will find a way to kick Tesla out of China, or use various rogue tactics to force Musk to sell Tesla to a Chinese regime owned enterprises at a low price,” Ji said.
