Tesla in Asia: Countries where Tesla is officially available

Mainland China

China is by far Tesla’s biggest market outside of the United States. Tesla’s success in China has been nothing short of phenomenal. It is a such a key market for the manufacturer that out of only three gigafactories in the world, one is located in Shanghai, China.

Sales of China-made Tesla’s are soaring. Tesla ended 2021 on a high with 70,847 vehicles sold in December 2021. These 70,847 units add up to now a total of 473,078 vehicles coming from China or sold in China for Tesla in 2021. This roughly equates to a whopping 50% of the 936,000 cars Tesla sold globally in 2021.

Taiwan

Tesla has now opened 40 supercharger locations across Taiwan and has built more than 230 supercharger stalls in total.

Tesla Model 3 has been dominating Taiwan’s electric car market, topping more than 5,500 units in sales for 2021. The Model 3 is also the only electric car model that sold more than 1,000 vehicles in the Taiwanese market.

Hong Kong & Macau

Hong Kong & Macau round up the list of territories in Greater China where Tesla’s are available. Vehicles sold in Hong Kong, and Macau, are all right-hand drive (RHD) vehicles. Vehicles drive on the left side of the road in these 2 territories, compared to the right side in China. Sales in Hong Kong have also been very encouraging for the automaker, making it a roaring success in the Greater Chinese market.

Meanwhile, the tiny Chinese territory of Macau boasts one of the cheapest selling prices for Tesla’s in the world. In fact, Macau is currently the cheapest place in the world to purchase a Model 3. 

Japan

Japan is the first country that Tesla ventured into when they started expanding into Asia-Pacific. Tesla Model S began selling in Japan as early as in September 2014.

However, till 2021, Tesla was not successful with being able to penetrate the Japanese market the way Elon Musk had envisioned. In fact, Nissan’s popular Leaf had consistently outperformed Tesla sales. 2020 saw Tesla selling around 1200 vehicles for the whole year, compared to Nissan selling an average of 1650 cars monthly.

2021 saw Tesla introducing price cuts of between 13% to 17% depending on the model type.  For example, Tesla cut the price of the long-range version of its Model 3 by 24% to nearly ¥5 million ($43,380). These price cuts have boosted demand and helping the manufacturer register much higher sales.

Singapore

Tesla officially started selling their cars in the city-state exactly a year (February 2021) ago.  They had to delay their launch by a couple of years due to disagreements with the Singaporean government on how emissions are calculated and excised to Tesla owners.

These issues have all been resolved and since launch, the manufacturer has made quick inroads in the country, topping EV sales in the country by a large margin. 

Official data released by Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) shows Tesla led 2021 EV car sales in Singapore by a mile, with 924 units sold. MG, Porsche, BMW and Hyundai trailed far behind in the bestsellers’ list. MG & Porsche sold 129 cars for the year, followed by BMW with 121 cars, and Hyundai 108 cars respectively. All other manufacturers didn’t have much to show for, all registering single or double digit sales. Clearly, Tesla has a lot of pent-up demand in Singapore, and its sales are expected to grow even more in 2022.

South Korea

In March 2017, Tesla opened its first store in South Korea, and as of 2022, that number has grown to 6 stores. In addition, there are a total of 378 Tesla superchargers are located around the country. Tesla’s sales surged 50.8% in 2021, selling 17,828 vehicles, making it the 4th best selling imported luxury brand in the market.

Thailand

Tesla officially launched in Thailand on 7th December 2022, making the kingdom the second nation in ASEAN to be an official market for Tesla