Tesla Discovers Name Already Trademarked in China

The worldwide expansion of Tesla Motors and its sole model, the Model S, is continuing with the company now officially opening sales in China!

In recent months, Tesla’s troubles of getting into the Chinese market have been well documented. As it turns out, ‘Tesla’ has already been trademarked in the booming Asian nation meaning the real Tesla Motors will have to fork out quite a bit of money to get the rights to the Tesla name in China.

The ‘Tesla’ name was originally trademarked in China by Zhan Baosheng back in 2009 for land, air and marine transportation vehicles of 12 different categories. This isn’t the first time the California-based electric car manufacturer has had troubles with trademarks in China, as ‘TESLA MOTORS’ was already trademarked there by Qiao Weiwei who recently sold the name to Tesla on May 6 this year. Additionally, both Tesla.com.cn and teslamotors.com were registered in China.

Often when automakers enter the Chinese market, they use a slightly more ‘Chinese’ name similar to the English one. As a result, there have been suggestions Tesla could adopt ‘Te Su Le’ for its Chinese sales. Nevertheless, despite these trademark troubles, the Californian automaker has started offering its sole model, the Model S in the booming Asian nation.

Tesla also recently opened a dealership in Beijing and has launched a Chinese website for the car. No local pricing for the Tesla Model S in China has been announced, but it will unquestionably be a lot cheaper than the $400k this early adopter spent for the EV!

[Via Reuters]

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