It is common for carmakers to put a warning sign of the cars aren’t parked as named by the plant. GM has three parking sectors, GM cars, non-GM cars, and Foreign vehicles. Despite Tesla parking in “non-GM cars”, it ticked for being a foreign car on June 4th. The incident happened at the General Motors Missouri plant. It was a mistake by the plant security.
Tesla Model 3 recently came out as the most “American-made” car in the year 2021. The car set standards for other EVs manufacturing in the country. And somehow Tesla was thought of as a foreign car. It could be possible because Tesla is known in the EV industry, not specifically highlighted as American, except until recently.
The GM’s spokesperson told TheDrive via email, “Wentzville, like many of our manufacturing sites, has a parking policy and designated parking locations for GM vehicles, non-GM domestic vehicles, and foreign nameplates”. He added, “Plant security inadvertently thought the Tesla was a foreign car and wrote a ticket accordingly.”
It is not really the first time such things happen in a particular car manufacturing plant. Car companies are at war in some ways, where you can see that even Ford’s Jim Farley can be seen to take a jab at Tesla. Meanwhile, fans or regular people tend to have their own opinions.
The above picture is the ticket on a Tesla vehicle parked in GM’s parking lot. Since it clearly was a mistake from the security, the vehicle wasn’t fined later on.
Parking rules
The GM’s parking directions clearly state that GM cars and other cars should be parking accordingly. If the directions to the customer were that clear, the ticketing security must have knowledge on cars too. It is unclear if this is a mistake or the security person who ticketed the car didn’t know that Tesla was domestically made.
In case that was to be true, Tesla might really need to work on a PR strategy. This is a harmless mistake and could have happened to any car brand. On multiple occasions, the Tesla Fermont factory and the upcoming Texas factory came into the news. Especially when Elon Musk hosted the SNL event. Most people are aware that cars are made locally.
When the post came out on a Facebook group, which is now deleted. Tesla fans were enraged up to some extent. In the end, possibly security people in car manufacturing plants will be more careful from now.