Tesla Owner Ticketed for Parking in Domestic-Only Lot at GM Factory

A Tesla owner was ticketed after parking in a 'domestic lot' at General Motors' Factory. In fact, Tesla, which is the most American car of 2021 received a ticket for parking in the domestic-only section.

The confrontation between the automakers themselves and the fans of Tesla cars has existed since the company began, and probably will exist for decades. While cars from legacy manufacturers—as well cars from small, nondescript companies—do not attract much attention, Tesla cars are almost always in the spotlight. The young company has become successful and popular in just a few years, and this evidently has evoked a lot of emotion.

An unpleasant incident happened to the owner of a Tesla in the parking lot at the General Motors Wentzville factory in Missouri. Like some other automakers, the factory has a division of parking spaces for cars depending on their brand and country of production. A Tesla owner who parked in a section for domestic cars was ticketed for being a "foreign in domestic lot."



The most remarkable thing about this situation is that Tesla cars are in the top American-Made Index (AMI) in 2021. The survey ranks new cars that contribute the most to the U.S. economy based on jobs in U.S. factories, manufacturing plants, and parts suppliers. Tesla Model 3 took first place in the ranking, and Tesla Model Y took third place. And this is not the first time that the cars of the Californian manufacturer were recognized as one of the most "American.” As Tesla strives to localize its supply chain, its vehicles claim to be 100% domestic, double the industry average. "It's worth noting that Tesla is the only major automaker to claim 100% domestic production for all cars it sells in the US, well above the industry's roughly 52% average for the 2021 model year," Kelsey Mays, assistant managing editor at Cars.com, told USA TODAY. Ironically, GM cars are ranked lower than Tesla cars.

We will not assume the worst, and say that the most likely reason for this situation was that the security officer was ignorant about Tesla and the fact that it is a purely American company. The good news is that there is no financial penalty for the citation, and this is just a warning, according to a GM spokesperson.

The Drive contacted GM for clarification on the company policy and a company spokesperson clarified some of the details of the situation and admitted that their employee was wrong when the Tesla vehicle was ticketed. "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. Plant security inadvertently thought the Tesla was a foreign car and wrote a ticket accordingly."

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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter

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