The female car owner who climbed onto Tesla's roof at the Shanghai Auto Show has been sentenced to publicly apologize and compensate Tesla with over 1

On the afternoon of May 30th, the first instance judgment of the reputation dispute between Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Ms. Zhang was announced.

Pengpai News reporter learned from Tesla that the case number is (2021) Hu 0118 Min Chu 17510. The plaintiff is Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., and the defendant is Ms. Zhang. On the afternoon of May 30th, the People's Court of Qingpu District, Shanghai made a first instance judgment on this case: Ms. Zhang publicly issued an apology statement and compensated Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. with a total of 172275 yuan for various losses.

On April 19, 2021, at the Shanghai Auto Show, Ms. Zhang stood on the roof of Tesla to defend her rights (picture/New Beijing News)

Ms. Zhang is a Tesla owner and also a party involved in the Shanghai Auto Show incident on April 19, 2021. On the day of the incident, Ms. Zhang climbed onto the roof of the car while defending her rights at the Shanghai Auto Show, causing a public opinion uproar.

The judgment shows that the Shanghai Qingpu Court held that in the case, Ms. Zhang did not provide any evidence to prove that the vehicle in question did indeed have a brake failure. She also explicitly acknowledged in the trial that the brake failure claimed during the implementation of the behavior in question was her subjective judgment, and Tesla never acknowledged this fact. During the trial of the case, Ms. Zhang did not apply for a judicial appraisal of whether the vehicle in question had brake failure. Therefore, based on the principle of whoever claims the evidence, Ms. Zhang should bear the legal consequences of being unable to provide evidence. In addition, according to the determination of the public security organs, the cause of the traffic accident involved in the case is that an outsider did not maintain a safe distance from the preceding vehicle when driving the vehicle, which is sufficient to take emergency braking measures, and therefore bears full responsibility for the accident. Therefore, Ms. Zhang's reckless behavior in the case, without any objective evidence to prove that the vehicle in question had brake failure, constitutes defamation. Ms. Zhang's defense that her actions do not constitute defamation was not accepted by the court.

The court stated that, knowing that there was no conclusive evidence, Ms. Zhang not only failed to pay attention to the objective and relevant wording when making her remarks to the public, but also deliberately chose the Shanghai Auto Show Media Day to Tesla booth area, pre made and wearing a T-shirt with the words "brake failure" printed on it, climbed onto the roof of the exhibition car, shouting "Tesla brake failure", and deliberately used on-site media to quickly and widely spread the unfounded information. Her words and actions clearly have subjective intent and fault to defame Tesla Shanghai's reputation. Ms. Zhang's defense that she did not have subjective fault was not accepted by the court.

Therefore, the Shanghai Qingpu Court made the aforementioned first instance judgment.