While some Tesla customers in Beijing and Shanghai are celebrating the delivery of their long-awaited Model S cars, some disgruntled Tesla customers in other cities have to put up with the fact that they need to wait longer for their Model S - even if they had placed orders earlier than the customers in Beijing and Shanghai.

A group of Tesla customers sent a letter through a lawyer to the luxury electric car maker earlier this month, media reports said, complaining that the deliveries are not being made in accordance with the booking order.

The complaint came just days before Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk's first official visit to China this week. Meanwhile, on Tuesday and Wednesday, Tesla delivered the first batch of Tesla Model S cars to some customers in Beijing and Shanghai.

The first batch of Tesla Model S owners in Beijing includes IT elites such as Sina CEO Cao Guowei and Autohome Inc President Li Xiang.

After the angry customers protested for nearly two weeks, Musk told media on Tuesday that Tesla has reached a consensus with some of the protesting customers.

He said that so far there is no plan to build a supercharging network outside of Beijing and Shanghai, but as long as the protesting customers are willing to charge their cars at home, their cars will still be delivered in a most timely manner, news portal tech.163.com reported.

However, a Tesla customer surnamed Zhou, who lives in East China's Zhejiang Province and whose delivery has been delayed to June or July, said that the unfair delivery schedule has more or less hurt the loyalty of some determined fans.

Delayed delivery

Zhou made his order on September 6, two weeks after Tesla starting taking reservations on the Chinese mainland. But earlier this month, he surprisingly found out that some Tesla customers in Beijing who made their orders in February were about to get their cars.

On April 14, a total of 23 non-Beijing and non-Shanghai Tesla customers sent a legal letter to Tesla China, protesting the delayed delivery. Later, the protesting group increased to 31 customers, according to Zhou.

Before Musk's visit to Beijing, the group of customers had been negotiating with Tesla but efforts went in vain - the discontent finally amounted to a public outcry.

During the media day of the ongoing Beijing auto show on April 20, several angry Tesla customers appeared at the event and protested that the company has been unfair in making deliveries.

Zhou said that their pleas to Tesla were simple: to make deliveries in order and to apologize.

Tesla spokesman Simon Sproule explained earlier this month that the company has delayed the deliveries to customers outside of Beijing and Shanghai until June because of a lack of service centers and charging facilities in those places.

But Zhou noted that the reason is not convincing as it requires little cutting-edge expertise to build charging facilities. "Even an ordinary electrician can do the job," he said.

Gao Jian, an industry analyst at Shanghai-based consultancy LMC Automotive, said that it is pretty easy to install such charging facilities. "It only costs several thousand yuan."

The persistence of the unsatisfied customers was finally answered by company CEO Musk on Tuesday, who promised delivery as soon as possible.

"Now that the company has promised to make deliveries as soon as possible and also apologized, I decided to let it go," Zhou told the Global Times Tuesday.

Management turmoil

The protest from some customers is not the only headache for Tesla. Kingston Chang, the company's general manager in China, announced earlier in April he would leave the company at the end of the same month, at a time when the company is gearing up in the world's largest auto market.

Chang joined Tesla from Volkswagen AG's Bentley only a year ago. News portal sina.com said he left the company due to personal reasons. But a report from IT news portal pingwest.com said on Monday that Chang left the company because his functions were severely streamlined.

Tesla Vice President Veronica Wu is now in charge of Tesla's China business, media reports said.

Speaking about the personnel change, Musk told media on Monday that Tesla has a great China team and the departure of one single person is not worth the attention of the media, tech.163.com reported.

Jia Xinguang, a senior expert at China Automobile Dealers Association, said that Tesla's products are still very attractive to Chinese consumers, and the recent unfavorable publicity is not likely to dent its sales.

"Tesla needs time to adapt to the Chinese market," said Gao of LMC Automotive, who is also upbeat about Tesla's future in China.

The electric era

During Musk's visit, Tesla announced a series of ambitious plans to further expand in China.

On Tuesday, Tesla inked a deal with wireless operator China Unicom for the latter to provide mobile Internet services to Tesla customers in the country.

Following the news, China Unicom's shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange surged 2.6 percent on Tuesday, compared with a gain of 0.34 percent on the Shanghai Composite Index the same day.

Musk also said that Tesla would build a supercharger network in Beijing and Shanghai, and cheaper electric cars will be also introduced to the Chinese market later.

In January, Musk told media that he would consider it a success if Tesla sold 5,000 or more vehicles in China this year.

Tesla has nailed down the location for its Shanghai store during Musk's visit, which will be the second Tesla store on the mainland. The company's supercharge network in the city also started to operate on Wednesday.

"The growing popularity of Tesla could contribute to the development of China's charging network," Gao said.

Gao further noted that the timing is good for Tesla as the market for new-energy cars is warming up. A total of 79 new-energy vehicles were displayed at the ongoing Beijing auto show. Leading companies like Volkswagen, Daimler and Toyota all announced initiatives to further invest in the new energy sector.

"The prospect of new-energy cars are getting brighter as more and more companies are investing in the sector," Gao said, noting that the Tesla Model S still does not have a direct rival in the luxury electric car segment.