Employees work at the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai, east China, Nov. 20, 2020. Photo:Xinhua

One of Tesla's subsidiaries in China was found guilty of deliberately concealing car details to a customer in East China's Zhejiang Province by a Chinese court. The company was asked by the court to pay 778,200 ($120,387) yuan to the customer for its fraudulent conduct. 

The customer,surnamed Li and from Zhejiang Province, said he had ordered a Model X 100D from Tesla Car Sales Services (Wenzhou) Co in January 2019. After Li made the payment, sales staff from Tesla (Wenzhou)told him that one of the car's two electric motors had a different model, not the type registered on the vehicle conformity certificate. He couldn't reach agreements with Tesla (Wenzhou) on a refund oradequate compensation from Telsa.

And, Li filed a lawsuit against Tesla (Wenzhou). 

The first-instance verdict by a court in Lishuicity showed that Tesla (Wenzhou)did notknow about the car's flaws when selling the car to Li, and therefore it didn't commit any deception. Li later lodged an appeal against the sentence to the Intermediate People's Court in Lishui of Zhejiang.

The court ruled that Tesla (Wenzhou) did conceal some information about its product during the selling process. It ordered the company to compensate 778,200 yuan to Li for his economic losses. 

This latest incident is yet another case of Tesla being sued by Chinese customers with consumer complaintsbecoming increasingly common. Earlier, Tesla China was sued by a Model 3 owner for faulty brake issues after she protested against the car company at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, attracting global media attention.

Other foreign car brands have also been hit with similar penalties in the past for business fraud. 

For example, a Mercedes-Benz 4S shop in East China's Hangzhou city, Zhejiang Province, was once found to have altered a car's configuration for a buyer without permission. The dealer was later ordered by a local court to refund the purchase price of the car as well as compensate the customer three times the price of the vehicle.

Global Times