Tesla is expanding into Turkey, starts hiring

Tesla is expanding its electric vehicle business in Turkey, a market that has been asking for Tesla services for years now.

Despite the fact that Tesla is not officially in Turkey, there are many Tesla owners in the country who went to the trouble of importing the electric vehicles themselves and having them operate without access to services.

For years now, they have been asking Tesla to expand in the country with stores and service centers.

Back in May of 2018, CEO Elon Musk finally said that Tesla planned to launch in Turkey later that year. However, the plan was reportedly abandoned later in 2018 amid an escalating tariff war.

Now, four years later, Electrek learned that Tesla is finally launching in Turkey.

Ahead of a launch in a new market, Tesla generally does two things: plans the deployment of Supercharger stations and builds out a service network.

Tesla has already shared plans to build a Supercharger network in the country since 2020, and the map still shows upcoming Supercharger stations.

But now Electrek has found that Tesla has listed the first job openings in Turkey, and they are all for service employees in Istanbul.

More specifically, the jobs are going to be based in the Beşiktaş neighborhood of Istanbul – meaning that it’s likely going to be the location of Tesla’s first service center in Turkey.

Turkey is a country of 85 million people and has a significant automotive market, with over half a million passenger car sales to date in 2022.

However, the EV market is still small in the country, but Tesla developing a charging network and finally providing support to local owners should help it grow.

Electrek’s Take

With the process of hiring service people now in place, I’d expect Tesla to start taking orders in Turkey in the coming months, and the first deliveries should happen in 2023.

But while those will be the first direct deliveries in the country, there are apparently already hundreds (if not thousands) of Tesla owners in Turkey.

This is also going to be good for them since they will be able to access Tesla’s service locally instead of having to rely on the infrastructure in other countries.