Beijing Tesla Customer Drops Off Bag Of Leeks For Salespeople Who Lied About Model 3 Pricing

All eyes last night were on Elon Musk’s bizarre dance moves at Tesla’s opening of its Chinese plant in Shanghai, where the CEO oversaw a ceremony that included handing over some of the first China-made Model 3s to customers. 

He also showed off some dance moves that made Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates’ dancing at the Windows 95 launch look like a well-choreographed Michael Jackson music video. 

Sober pic.twitter.com/dAlbhNsUeH

— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) January 7, 2020

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But not everybody in China is sharing in Musk’s enthusiasm.

Take for instance, one customer who bought a Model 3 at the company’s store in Beijing. The customer was told late last year that the price of the car would go up in 2020, so he rushed to purchase the vehicle before the new year, according to a translation of an article from Chinese media site NBD.com.cn. 

In mid December, Tesla sales staff was also telling reporters about the price hikes, which would be effective January 1.

But as of January 6, 2020, the price of the company’s Model 3 vehicles were still the same. And even worse, Tesla has come out and said they plan on now reducing the price of the Model 3 in China going forward. 

This news prompted the angry customer to walk back into the store with a bag of leeks and hand them to the sales staff. The customer had been rushed to buy a vehicle under the pretense that he was getting the best price, when it turns out that just the opposite was the case: had he waited a couple of days, he would have been getting his Model 3 at a discount. 

The symbolism of leeks comes from the Chinese expression to “cut leeks”, which is a term for walking away from a loss in the stock market. Like leeks, after cutting a crop, another one grows. It’s sybolism that “Tesla car owners deeply understand,” according to the report. The customer’s message was clear: the customer felt cheated and like he had taken a loss.  

“Is this a reasonable sales strategy?” asked one Model 3 owner.

Tao Lin, Tesla’s global vice president, responded: “We understand everyone’s mood, and everyone wants to buy the most cost-effective products. But [the tariff policy] was not determined until December 15, 2019. Customers who place[d] orders before this time, we do want to remind you that imported cars may increase in price.”