China’s ever-growing electric vehicle industry is setting up shop in Hong Kong, but not to expand business in the minuscule Hong Kong market. Rather, they are looking to leverage the city’s financial system for global expansion, Bloomberg reports.
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As we previously reported, Tesla once dominated to booming electric vehicle market in Hong Kong with over 80% market share and thousands of vehicles delivered. That stopped last year after the government phased out the EV incentives and almost killed the market by doing so.
After almost a year of virtually no EV sales, Hong Kong is now bringing back some incentives in order to try to revive its EV market.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk once described Hong Kong as a “beacon city for electric vehicles” due to its extremely high rate of EV adoption. He might have as well called it a “beacon city for Tesla” since most of those vehicles were Tesla’s, which held over 80% market share in Hong Kong’s EV market.
But the government succumbed to pressure from other automakers last year and slashed EV incentives.
Electric car sales in the “beacon city” have now come to a crawl and Tesla is reportedly planning to downsize its 200-people workforce in the region if it continues.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk once described Hong Kong as a “beacon city for electric vehicles” due to its extremely high rate of EV adoption. He might have as well called it a “beacon city for Tesla” since most of those vehicles were Tesla’s, which held over 80% market share in Hong Kong’s EV market.
Now that EV market consisted of literally zero new registrations last month – hardly a “beacon city” anymore.
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Good news for all you weirdos driving on the wrong side of the road. Tesla started taking orders for the Right-Hand Drive (RHD) Model X in Hong Kong – hinting at the version of the vehicle getting closer to full production and therefore, new market introductions.
After the UK, Australia and now Hong Kong, Tesla has now opened its configuration system for the Model X in its main RHD markets. In most markets, Tesla is projecting delivery in “late 2016” while it is now starting deliveries in LHD markets in Europe and in China.
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After Tesla introduced its Autopilot update (7.0) with the ‘Autosteer’ and ‘Auto Lane Change’ features for Model S in October last year, the automaker had to quickly rollback and disable the features for owners in Hong Kong after a formal request from regulators at the Transport Department.
It took about 5 months for Tesla and the regulators to sort it out and reintroduce the features to Model S owners in Hong Kong. Now the Transport Department is at it again and in a very strange move, it forced Tesla to rollback its Calendar app in its vehicles.
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After Tesla introduced its Autopilot update (7.0) with the ‘Autosteer’ and ‘Auto Lane Change’ features for Model S in October last year, the automaker had to quickly rollback and disable the features for owners in Hong Kong after a formal request from regulators at the Transport Department.
Today, about 5 months later, Model S owners in Hong Kong are finally reporting having received a new update enabling the features following a greenlight from the government regulators.
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Tesla and CEO Elon Musk held a special event for Roadster and Model S owners in Hong Kong today. Musk revealed that he hopes to obtain approval to soon enable the ‘Autosteer’ feature of the company’s Autopilot system, which has been disabled in Hong Kong since November, just a few weeks after its release.
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A few weeks after Tesla Director of Global Communications Khobi Brooklyn confirmed that “Model 3 is on schedule” and that the company still plans to unveil the prototype in March, it’s now Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s turn to share his thoughts about the upcoming $35,000 sedan and he says he feels “pretty optimistic” about the vehicle.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk is currently in Hong Kong to participate in the StartmeupHK tech forum. While in the country, the CEO took some time to share a few new information about how Tesla is doing in Hong Kong and mainland China, as well as the automaker’s future plans in the country.
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Tesla is temporarily disabling the ‘Autosteer’ and ‘Auto Lane Change’ features of the Autopilot for Model S owners in Hong Kong after a formal request from regulators at the Transport Department . The features were recently introduced to the Model S with the version 7.0 software update.
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Tesla is having perception issues in regard to charging their cars in Asia. Today, to further develop their charging networks in the region, they announced a partnership with Hang Lung Properties, a Hong Kong based real estate developer, in order to install destination chargers at six shopping malls in mainland China.
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At Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Cruise Terminal earlier this week, Tesla handed eight owners the keys to the first right hand drive Model S’s in Asia. Jerome Guillen, Tesla’s Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Service, also unveiled Hong Kong’s first Superchargers, which allow Model S drivers to charge for free.
If you are in China and you want a Model S, you now have a website to use. Have at it. Wondering why Tesla is called Tuosule in China? Some local guy squatted on the name rights to Tesla and wants $30M for it. Tesla offered $3M but no dice. Good for them.
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