You left out a critical detail:
The police report said the cause of the accident was insufficient following distance. This was reported back in March by other media, so this is not Tesla's claim, and likely is true:
Tesla Responds to Braking System Failure Controversy in China Amid Social Media Frenzy - Pandaily
Tesla on 4/28 posted the following account that actually Tesla customer service called her immediately after getting an accident alert, and where she said the following
(bold emphasis mine):
"On February 21, 2021, Mr. Zhang, the father of Ms. Zhang, the “rights defender” at the Shanghai Auto Show, carried four of his family members and collided with other vehicles while driving along National Highway 341. Later, Tesla 400 customer service called Ms. Zhang. During the communication, Ms. Zhang reported that she was playing with a mobile phone in the passenger seat at the time. It was her father who was driving, and she felt that the speed of the car caused a crash. On the evening of the same day, the traffic police judged that Mr. Zhang was fully responsible for the accident because he did not maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front."
Link to article below (unfortunately Google translate link doesn't work, it keeps redirecting, those in USA like me would need to use your browser's Google Translate plug-in to translate or copy/paste the text into google translate):
头条文章
You may say this is all Tesla's own account, but at the very least we know the police report is likely fact, as it was reported by other media way back in March (and this can be verified by asking the police department). The customer service hotline may also have a recording of Ms. Zhang's conversation, although legally they may not be able to release it to the public.
My understanding is Ms. Zhang has refused
ANY inspection of her car. Not just Tesla's, but she is not agreeing to any inspection of her car, nor has she done an inspection herself! That is what raised red flags for me in the first place. If she wanted the truth, she should demand an inspection, if not by Tesla, a third party, or her own party, at least by the government (which can force a recall, just like they did for the suspension back in October last year).
I don't believe Tesla has said Ms. Zhang must use their designated third party, Tesla has publicly said they are willing to accept any third party's examination, including the government doing a full investigation into their braking system.
From the initial reports Tesla offered to repair the vehicle. That is what normally people do. Even if there really was a brake defect, after investigating the cause, the vehicle's brakes can be repaired and safely put back on the road. That is how lemon laws work in the USA also, the manufacturer is given a chance to repair the vehicle; if they can't, then the vehicle may be disposed of. Also when a recall happens, the manufacturer repairs the vehicle, they don't trash the old ones and give new ones to customers! Of course none of this can happen without inspecting the vehicle and finding if there is really a problem and what is the cause!
You left out that Ms. Zhang has long claimed that Tesla falsified their records, claiming that the 118.5 km/h speed is made up (claiming that her father was not speeding at the time, the road had a 80km/h limit). Tesla is wasting their time if all Ms. Zhang does is claim that Tesla changed their records after Tesla provided them. It's pretty clear Ms. Zhang will not accept any fact that goes against her argument.
Also the latest news is on 4/2 Tesla has provided all information they have on the car already from 30 minutes before the accident (from the same weibo post linked before):
"
On April 22, the staff of Tesla's special working group contacted Ms. Zhang's husband, Mr. Li, by phone and text messages many times, but there was no answer or reply. On the same day, Tesla’s customer support department sent the electronic stamped version of the vehicle data 30 minutes before the accident via company email to the personal mailbox registered by Ms. Zhang when buying the car, and sent the sealed paper stamped version of the vehicle data by express. Send it to the contact address registered when Ms. Zhang bought the car."
Another choice bit from that article, that calls into question the credibility of Ms. Zhang:
"
On April 19, Ms. Zhang conducted a radical “rights defense” at the Tesla booth at the Shanghai Auto Show. Claiming to be three months pregnant (it was later confirmed by the police that she was not pregnant)."
As for the EDR, that requires access to the vehicle to download from the "black box" with a special tool. If Ms. Zhang refuses any party to touch the vehicle, how is Tesla going to provide that?
In North America, actually you can download the EDR yourself with a tool you can buy from an authorized third party.
Event Data Recorder
Tesla no longer offers this tool nor the data translation service outside North America, however, because some people tried using the tool to hack/reverse engineer Tesla's system (even though this was never attempted on similar Bosch tools for Hyundai/Kia and Subaru):
"t
here have been some who have made an effort to reverse engineer the Tesla system - whether on the hardware or software side. While such behavior was never observed to such a degree with respect to the Bosch CDR Tool and doesn't seem to have been undertaken for other tools such as, for example, the Hyundai or Kia Tool or the Subaru Tool, for whatever reason, the Tesla tool seems to have been the first such attack on system integrity. My perspective on this might be summed this way: "play stupid games, win stupid prizes."
Tesla EDR- no data flow from RCM - CrashForum.info
Tesla hesitancy may be related to this (data may be sold to other third parties to reverse engineer Tesla's system, with Tesla knowing there have already previous attempts by actors outside North America).
Link to that incident? Was that done with that brand not even getting a chance to examine the vehicle? The fact is Ms. Zhang is requesting a full refund of the vehicle plus damages all on her word that the brakes were defective and with no examination of the vehicle. She had also already claimed that Tesla has falsified the data provide so far to her (including disputing the 118.5 km/h speed which is highly unfavorable to her case).
Sure, we can discuss the facts, but let's not leave out important details. While we can't say 100% that zero Model 3 in China have brake problems, from the facts so far for
Ms. Zhang's particular case the only evidence presented of a brake defect is
her word that the brakes are defective. There is zero other evidence and she has refused any examination of the vehicle. All the facts shown so far suggest this is a simply case of a typical rear end accident where the driver was going a bit too fast and not leaving enough stopping distance.
There really is not much Tesla can do at this point. Even assuming the brakes were defective, an examination of the vehicle is required to find the problem, as there are many possible causes of brake failure. China's government also appears to refuse to step in. If there really was serious braking system complaints with Teslas, here in the USA the NHTSA/NTSB would have long stepped in to investigate. As I linked before NHTSA already investigated SUA claims in the USA and found they were all caused by driver error, no evidence of defect with Tesla's system.