(Yicai Global) April 29 -- Iunicorn, a Chinese electric taxi firm, has taken its beef with Tesla to Times Square in New York, possibly inspired by the plot of crime-drama movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Iunicorn bought three billboard slots from Reuters to display messages such as "Whether to fix or not?" and "Whether to compensate or not?", the Guizhou province-based firm posted on its Weibo account. The last note asked whether to admit it or not. Tesla has not commented on the event.  

The Chinese company has been at odds with California-headquartered Tesla since it bought nearly 280 cars from the latter from 2016 to 2017, the largest purchase in the Asia-Pacific region at that time. These vehicles have been prone to defects and the process of getting them repaired has taken from one month to up to one year and seven months because of a shortage of Teslas' service stations in the region, as well as a lack of car parts.

In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Mildred Hayes, the protagonist of the film, rented roadside advertising slots to urge the local police to keep on investigating the murder and rape of her daughter.

Iunicorn's three messages that required Tesla to fix the defective cars and pay for incurred losses were taken down without Iunicorn's consent after 30 minutes, the Weibo post added. 

Editor: Emmi Laine