Have you ever seen the movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri? If so, then you may be all too aware of using billboards to get your point across. It seems as though this Chinese ride-hailing company also took inspiration from the movie when they put up billboards to demand refunds on their Teslas.
Buying A Lot Of Cars
Shenma Zhuanche is a Chinese ride-hailing company that decided they’d one-up Uber and Lyft by investing in Teslas. After all, everyone wants to ride around in a Tesla, don’t they? The company purchased a whopping 278 cars to bolster their offerings in China, but they encountered a problem. According to the company, more than 20% of all the cars they had purchased from Tesla had experienced “electro-mechanical failures.” That’s over 50 of their 278 cars with issues!
Costing Them Money
On their official Weibo account, Shenma Zhuanche explained that they were often waiting around 45 days for service on their vehicles, costing the company around 6.5 million yuan – just under a million dollars! They went on to explain on the Chinese social media site that the Tesla efficiency is low with delays in solving vehicle problems, that were costing them money. Instead of just posting on social media, however, Shenma Zhuanche decided to go one step further.
Billboards In Times Square
In order to air their grievances with Tesla, the Chinese company decided to pay for some billboards in Times Square to get their message across – loud and clear. With three billboards on the Reuters’ Times Square HQ, probably costing them a fair amount of money, they’ve certainly caused a stir. The billboards demanded that Tesla provided better customer service and even compensation for the problems they’ve encountered. Along with this, employees from Shenma took signs to a Tesla store in Chengdu and read out a statement, again echoing the sentiments on the billboards.
At this point in time, Tesla has refused to comment on what is happening. However, Shenma Zhuanche have certainly drawn attention to the issues. Tesla… The ball is in your court!