News
Tesla China launches new ‘Special Handling Team’ after Shanghai Auto protest
Tesla is launching a new “Special Handling Team” in China to “meet the demands of car owners and strive to satisfy car owners while complying with laws and regulations.”
The creation of the Special Handling Team could be in response to a recent protest at the Shanghai Auto Show.
Yesterday, Teslarati reported that a woman who was at the Shanghai Auto Show event in China climbed on top of a Model 3. The woman was wearing a shirt with the Tesla logo and a phrase that said “Tesla brake failed me,” after claiming that the automaker’s braking systems were not operating correctly in her vehicle. She screamed at the perhaps thousands of people in attendance and was eventually removed from the vehicle by security at the event. Tesla said it “acknowledges sensible criticism,” but “it will not compromise to meet unreasonable claims,” according to the Global Times.
The Tesla Model Y is leading China’s electric SUV segment by a wide margin
The woman is spending five days with the police for her actions.
Now, Tesla is responding to the accusations by setting up a new Special Handling Team. The automaker announced the creation of the team in a post on its official Weibo account, along with a message to “customers, netizens, and friends from the media.” Tesla wrote:
“We apologize for failing to solve the problem of the car owner in time.
Today we listen to all kinds of voices from the media and the Internet as seriously as before. Tesla is grateful to all car owners, netizens and media friends for their trust and tolerance, and actively listens to the opinions and suggestions of customers, netizens and media friends. And criticism. In order to make up for the discomfort of car owners to the greatest extent and the adverse effects on their car experience and life and many other aspects, we are always willing to do our best to actively communicate with car owners, seek solutions with the most sincere attitude, and firmly fulfill our commitment to responsibility to the end.
Tesla respects and firmly obeys the decisions of relevant government departments, respects consumers, abides by laws and regulations, and resolutely actively cooperates with all investigations of relevant government departments.
To this end, we have set up a special handling team, dedicated to special handling, and strive to meet the demands of car owners and strive to satisfy car owners while complying with laws and regulations.
At the same time, we still earnestly hope that car owners can give us the opportunity to find better solutions to the problem, strive to achieve a multi-satisfactory result, and truly protect the rights of consumers.
Based on this experience, we will try our best to learn from the lessons, carefully summarize, and carry out strict self-examination and self-correction while cooperating with the investigation of relevant government departments, and sort out our own unreasonable problems and service processes that do not meet the service standards. And rectify and reform, and strive to achieve immediate inspection and reform, immediate inspection and reform, so as to respect consumers and respect the market.
We will continue to listen to customer feedback, continue to optimize customer experience, and continue to serve every customer well.
I once again apologize to the owner and thank you for your tolerance and understanding.”
Tesla, like every car company in the world, experiences some quality issues from time to time. With Tesla being such a mainstream, current topic because of its CEO Elon Musk and the company’s influence on the global automotive market, mistakes or controversies that involve the company are often magnified by media. However, Tesla has improved significantly on its quality via refinements and manufacturing adjustments through the years, and the company recently was listed in China as the carmaker with the least number of complaints on its vehicles.
-
The creation of a new Special Handling Team could reduce or even eliminate some of the quality issues that come with mass-manufacturing vehicles.
Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.
Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990
Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.
However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.
Multi-Row Climate Control
Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
-
Better Rear Window Visibility
One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.
Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
PowerShare will be included
Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.
Wireless Charging Pad
There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.
-
Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit
Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.
Thermal Management Improvements
These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:
- Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
- +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
- 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
- 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
Demand
Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with
-
- 1 year of FSD Supervised
- 1 year of Supercharging
- 1 year of Premium Connectivity
- Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Thursday night to deny a ridiculous rumor regarding the sale of the company’s Chinese vehicle production plant, Gigafactory Shanghai.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, claimed in a scathing new report that Tesla was exploring a potential sale of the entire China business in an effort to help bolster a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla.
Musk immediately denied the rumor not once but twice, initially calling it “fake news,” and then calling it “absurdly fake news” in a separate post just a few moments later:
This is fake news
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The original poster of the Wall Street Journal article that Musk saw deleted the initial post sharing the headline and the rumored sale of Tesla’s China business.
This has never even come up in a discussion ever.
Absurdly fake news.
-People should assume news is fake until proven otherwise.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The report seemed absolutely and unequivocally false to begin with; Tesla’s business in China is among the most important pieces of the company’s business. Not only does the factory supply vehicles for the domestic market, but also for various other markets in Asia and Europe.
China is also one of the largest automotive markets in the world, and Tesla has performed well there despite the robust competition.
The speculation regarding a Tesla and SpaceX merger has started to gain steam this year as the space exploration company went public just a month ago. There has been speculation that Musk will bridge all of his companies under one “umbrella company,” and analysts believe this could happen before the end of the decade.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
-
This is the latest iteration of Musk’s very evident war on mainstream media. Reports regarding any of Musk’s companies are quick to get the dreaded “false” or “fake news” response from the CEO when they are unfounded.
Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
-
Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
