SHANGHAI : Hundreds of Tesla owners gathered at the automaker's showrooms and distribution centres in China over the weekend, demanding rebates and credit after sudden price cuts they said meant they had overpaid for electric cars they bought earlier.
Videos posted on social media showed crowds at Tesla stores and delivery centres in other Chinese cities from Chengdu to Shenzhen, suggesting wider consumer backlash. "Price cuts are part of this EV cycle in a softer with competition increasing in China," Daniel Ives, an analyst who follows Tesla at Wedbush Morgan, said in a tweet on Friday.
He and the other Tesla owners, who said they had taken delivery in the final months of 2022, said they were frustrated with the abruptness of Friday's price cut and Tesla's lack of an explanation to recent buyers. Another, which appeared to be filmed in Beijing, showed police cars arriving to disperse crowds outside a Tesla store.Tesla does not plan to compensate buyers who took delivery before the most recent price cut, a spokesman for Tesla China told Reuters on Saturday.China accounted for about a third of Tesla's global sales in 2021 and its Shanghai factory, which employs about 20,000 workers, is its single most productive and profitable plant.