Tesla opens new store in Xinjiang, a hotbed for human rights violation allegations

• Tesla said that it had started operations in its first store in the city of Urumqi, Xinjiang

• This would be Tesla’s eleventh store in Northwest China and two hundred and eleventh in the Chinese mainland

Tesla announced the opening of its first store in Xinjiang, China, which has been described by the U.S. State Department as an area where abuse of Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities prevails along with “widespread, state-sponsored forced labor” and “mass detention.”

On December 31, the Austin, Texas-based electric car maker said that it had started operations in its first store in the city of Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China, in a post on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.