Tesla jacks up ties with China’s watchdogs
Electric carmaker Tesla, facing scrutiny in China over safety and customer service, is boosting its engagement with mainland regulators and beefing up its government relations team, industry sources said.
Tesla’s change of strategy leading to more behind-thescenes interaction with policymakers in Beijing from relatively little before shows the seriousness with which the US carmaker views the setbacks in its second-biggest market.
It also comes while China tries to regulate large and powerful private firms, especially in the technology sector, on concerns of market dominance.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, a public holiday in China.
As they do elsewhere, regulators in China, the world’s biggest car market, discuss industry policies and standards with global and local firms, industry associations and thinktanks.
Manufacturers typically join such meetings in China, but unlike rivals including Toyota Motor and General Motors, Tesla officials were largely absent from the closed-door gatherings, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Instead, Tesla officials regularly speak at high-profile industry conferences.
Outside China, Tesla’s outspoken CEO, Elon Musk, regularly takes to Twitter to comment on or criticise regulators or rules.
But in past weeks, Tesla executives had attended at least four policy discussions on topics such as car data storage, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication technologies, car recycling and carbon emissions, the sources said.
California-based Tesla, which makes electric Model 3 sedans and Model Y sport-utility vehicles at its own plant in Shanghai, had not made major commitments at the meetings, but participated in some discussions, they said.
Tesla was also expanding its government relationship team in China, one of the sources said.
According to two recruitment advertisements in April on its WeChat account, Tesla is hiring managers to update a policy database and maintain relationships with government and industry associations to “build a harmonious external environment to support Tesla’s business development in the regional market”.
It was not immediately clear how many managers Tesla is planning to hire for government relations.
Accounting for about 30% of Tesla’s global sales, China is the carmaker’s second-biggest market after the US and helped it post record first-quarter vehicle deliveries.
Pressure has been building over the past few months on Tesla’s mostly excellent relations with Beijing.
In February, Chinese regulators summoned it over consumer reports of battery fires, unexpected acceleration and failures in over-the-air software updates.
And in March, Tesla came under scrutiny when the military banned its cars from entering its complexes, citing security concerns over vehicle cameras.
Days later, Musk appeared by video at a high-level forum, saying that if Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, it would be shut down.
In April, Tesla was targeted by state media and regulators after a customer, angry over the handling of her complaint about malfunctioning brakes, climbed on top of a Tesla car in protest at the Shanghai car show.
Videos of the incident went viral.
On the complaints, Tesla said it would set up a China data centre, launch self-inspection to improve services and work with regulators.