A Shanghai court ordered Tesla Model 3 owner Zhang Yazhou to pay RMB 172,275 and apologize publicly over statements she made after a 2021 crash—not as a direct ruling that Tesla’s brakes were mechanically sound. Chinese media reported that the court upheld the decision on appeal in July 2025, and a June 2026 report says her application for a retrial was rejected.
What happened after the crash?
Zhang said her Tesla Model 3’s brakes failed in a February 2021 crash in Henan that injured her parents. Tesla disputed her account. Police attributed the crash to her father failing to keep a safe following distance, according to the Associated Press’s account of the case (AP, 2025).
After Zhang made public complaints, Tesla brought a reputation-rights and defamation action against her. The case that produced the payment order concerned her public statements and Tesla’s reputation claim, rather than a separate technical proceeding to test the Model 3’s brakes.
Why does she have to pay Tesla?
In a first-instance ruling reported in May 2024, a Shanghai court ordered Zhang to apologize publicly and pay RMB 172,275 in compensation and costs, according to CnEVPost (CnEVPost, 2024). The order followed Tesla’s claim over Zhang’s public statements. The primary judgment text was not available in the reporting cited here, so the ruling’s terms should be understood as reported by those outlets.
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The headline figure of $23,000 is an approximate conversion of the RMB award, not the amount the court stated. CnEVPost rendered the same RMB 172,275 as about US$23,810; exchange rates and rounding account for the difference between reported dollar equivalents. The renminbi figure is the precise amount reported for the order.
Did the court find that Tesla’s brakes did not fail?
Not on the basis of this reputation-rights ruling alone. Zhang’s brake-failure account remains her allegation; Tesla disputed it, and police attributed the crash to following distance. AP reported that Zhang could not prove brake failure in the reputation case, but that is not the same as an independent mechanical test establishing that no defect existed.
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That distinction matters: a court’s decision about whether public statements harmed a company’s reputation does not, by itself, settle every technical question about a vehicle’s braking system. The available reporting does not establish a standalone engineering finding on whether the brakes failed in this crash.
Did Zhang win her appeal?
No. Chinese reporting says the Shanghai Second Intermediate People’s Court upheld the result on July 11, 2025. A report in June 2026 says the Shanghai High People’s Court rejected Zhang’s retrial application (SCMP, 2025; Global Times, 2026). These are later procedural updates to the reputation-rights case; the reports describe an appeal and a retrial application, not a new mechanical examination.
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Is the vehicle-data dispute the same case?
No. Zhang’s claims about access to vehicle data are a separate legal matter. A late-2025 report said Tesla was ordered to provide 30 minutes of pre-crash driving data and had appealed. The reporting cited here does not establish the later outcome of that appeal (Reuters, 2025). The data dispute should not be treated as part of the defamation judgment or as evidence that the reputation case resolved the brake-failure allegation.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What does this case say about Tesla lawsuits in China?
AP reported that it reviewed 81 civil judgments in a Chinese government court database involving car owners suing Tesla over safety, quality, or contract disputes. Owners won in nine of those 81 cases, according to AP (AP, 2025). Those figures describe AP’s review of those judgments; they are not a win rate for brake claims, all Tesla disputes, or every Chinese court case.
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AP quoted Zhang as saying, “As a consumer, even if I said something wrong, I have the right to comment and criticize. I spoke about my feelings as a user of the car. It has nothing to do with damaging their reputation.” AP also reported the Shanghai High People’s Court’s statement that judgments are the result of a “fair trial” based on the “objective facts of the case.” Those statements reflect the opposing perspectives in a dispute involving both consumer criticism and a company’s reputation claim; they do not change the separate questions of what happened mechanically and what the court ordered.
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