BEIJING — For $104,000, Yu Hangmei expected a car that could, at the very least, be driven. What Ms. Yu said she got instead was a new electric Tesla Model S sedan and a malfunctioning charging station.
While driving through her town in coastal Zhejiang Province recently, Ms. Yu, 45, realized that even though she had plugged in the vehicle, the battery was almost dead. “I thought after a day of charging it was fully charged, but turns out it wasn’t charged at all,” said Ms. Yu, an artifact exporter. Tesla owners need an electric charger specifically calibrated to the vehicle’s voltage and current requirements, still something of a rarity near her home. “Luckily I bumped into a fellow Tesla owner online who let me charge at his place. It took three hours.”
Tesla owners in China are a well-connected bunch. Not only do they tend to be wealthy, but their avid use of social media means word of such car problems can spread in minutes. And finding charging stations is a regular complaint.
It is proving to be a major issue for Tesla’s grand designs in the world’s largest auto market.
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Still, most Tesla drivers appear to be forgiving of the company’s growing pains, particularly those among China’s equivalent of Silicon Valley. “We chose to be lab rats,” said Chen Zhong, 32, the chief marketing officer of an online media company in Beijing who bought a Tesla Model S last year. For these early adopters with money to spend, the car symbolizes the high-tech culture they adore. “The first time I drove it I thought I was driving an iPad.” Owning a Tesla, he added, “makes us Internet technology people feel superior.”
Wei Jianguo, 40, an angel investor in Hangzhou, owns a Tesla in addition to a Mercedes-Benz S350 and a BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo. He does not mind the headache of finding charging stations, a problem he expects will disappear as China expands its electric vehicle infrastructure.
“It’s just like when cars first came out and affected the businesses of horse rides,” he said.
Chen Jiehao contributed research.
