On the same day that Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) had regulatory issues with Iowa, it announces HK expansion.
While you can certainly argue that Tesla’s share prices is highly-overvalued, you would have difficulty not calling the company a success nor its Model S sedan anything but a lovely car that has received rave reviews from most major publications.
Hong Kong ideal for Tesla
After coming to Hong Kong about four years ago, the company has a 50-member team in working out of office space that exceeds 10,000 square feet in the Tsuen Wan area of the island metropolis. That workforce is expected to more than double by the beginning of 2015 in a city that is near ideal for electric vehicles given its size and lack of range fears.
“We’re very much looking forward to further developing the Hong Kong market because it is unique and interesting,” Veronica Wu, vice president of Tesla’s Chinese operations, said in a statement. “Geographically, it is a very small city, so customers only need to recharge their cars once a week basically, and that makes our products especially appealing.”
Wu went on to write that the company also received “the first registration tax exemption for electric vehicles in the city, [which] allows us to set a very competitive price in the market.”
“The Norway of Asia”
“Hong Kong could potentially be the place to showcase the success of electric vehicles to the rest of Asia,” Wu said while also claiming that Hong Kong could become “the Norway of Asia.”
Wu was clearly referring to the fact that Norway is Tesla’s largest market outside of the United States. Norway heavily subsidizes electric vehicles and already affluent Norwegians can knock over half the price off the Model S given the country’ EV subsidies. Norway also has Tesla’s biggest fan a man who has bought seven of the company’s cars. Despite the country’s limited population, it counts for around 6% of the entire global electric vehicle market.
While Hong Kong is a perfect market for Tesla, making mainland China a massive market is certainly on Tesla’s agenda. This summer a Chinese businessman, Yi Zong, invested in an “electric vehicle charging road” between Beijing and Guangzhou, a distance of over 3,500 miles and also struck a deal that will see EV charging stations in 400 China Unicom stores in well over 100 cities.
Even earlier in the summer, China said that no less than 30% of new government vehicles would be sustainable by 2016 and that it would be installing charging stations at government buildings.
Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has suggested that he would like deliveries of Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s cars in China to match deliveries in the United States as early as the end of 2015.
