Tesla preps for China sales launch this month
Tesla Motors Inc., the electric-car maker, plans to start selling its luxury sedans in China this month and said the company's co-founder, billionaire Elon Musk, will be there to kick off the effort.
"We're going to be doing our first customer deliveries later this month. Elon is going to be doing that personally," said Simon Sproule, Tesla's vice president of marketing and communications, in a Bloomberg Television interview Wednesday. "It's got huge potential."
China may become Tesla's biggest market, with sales matching the company's U.S. volume as early as next year, Musk, 42, said earlier this year. The Palo Alto, Calif., carmaker's push into China is part of a strategy to boost production of the Model S sedan 56 percent this year as Tesla expands in Europe.
Tesla hasn't set a date for the first deliveries in China, said Sproule, who joined Tesla this month from the Renault-Nissan Alliance.
The company's China entry is being watched closely by other carmakers that have tried to persuade local consumers to buy electric cars. The nation lags behind its target to have 5 million alternative energy-powered vehicles by 2020, due to a lack of charging stations and high costs, even as public concerns over worsening air pollution are mounting.
'Positive commentary'
Tesla should draw "positive commentary on the order book in China, with initial China deliveries this month leading to a media buzz," Brian Johnson, a Barclays equity analyst in New York, wrote in a research report this week.
"While we expect strong initial interest from early adopters in China (drawn from the tech and finance sectors, as in the United States), we see challenges to broader luxury market adoption," Johnson wrote in the report.
Recent quarterly results also suggest U.S. demand for the Model S has "plateaued," Johnson wrote.
"We don't believe that's the case," Tesla's Sproule said. "We have a different kind of business model where we have orders and deliveries, and we're also now building for export overseas."
In addition to its China entry, the company is preparing right-hand drive versions of the Model S for sales in markets such as the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, he said.
Lemon Law suit
In the United States, Tesla is fighting with car dealer groups across the country to let the company sell directly to consumers from its own stores. The carmaker is also contending with its first so-called Lemon Law suit.
Tesla buyer Robert Montgomery of Franklin, Wis., sued the automaker this week in a state court in Milwaukee, claiming numerous breakdowns kept his sedan off the road for weeks, and demanding that Tesla at least refund the more than $95,000 he paid for the car.
Montgomery said Wisconsin's defective-car Lemon Law made him eligible for that money because Tesla failed to repair the vehicle adequately.
The suit contains "factual inaccuracies," including how many times Montgomery asked Tesla to repurchase the vehicle, the company said on its Web site.
"We have been trying to work with the customer to work through the problem," Sproule said Wednesday. "We have been unable to do so. We have been trying to fix and replace things."
China may become Tesla's biggest market, with sales matching the company's U.S. volume as early as next year, Musk, 42, said earlier this year. The Palo Alto, Calif., carmaker's push into China is part of a strategy to boost production of the Model S sedan 56 percent this year as Tesla expands in Europe.
Tesla hasn't set a date for the first deliveries in China, said Sproule, who joined Tesla this month from the Renault-Nissan Alliance.
The company's China entry is being watched closely by other carmakers that have tried to persuade local consumers to buy electric cars. The nation lags behind its target to have 5 million alternative energy-powered vehicles by 2020, due to a lack of charging stations and high costs, even as public concerns over worsening air pollution are mounting.
'Positive commentary'
Tesla should draw "positive commentary on the order book in China, with initial China deliveries this month leading to a media buzz," Brian Johnson, a Barclays equity analyst in New York, wrote in a research report this week.
"While we expect strong initial interest from early adopters in China (drawn from the tech and finance sectors, as in the United States), we see challenges to broader luxury market adoption," Johnson wrote in the report.
Recent quarterly results also suggest U.S. demand for the Model S has "plateaued," Johnson wrote.
"We don't believe that's the case," Tesla's Sproule said. "We have a different kind of business model where we have orders and deliveries, and we're also now building for export overseas."
In addition to its China entry, the company is preparing right-hand drive versions of the Model S for sales in markets such as the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, he said.
Lemon Law suit
In the United States, Tesla is fighting with car dealer groups across the country to let the company sell directly to consumers from its own stores. The carmaker is also contending with its first so-called Lemon Law suit.
Tesla buyer Robert Montgomery of Franklin, Wis., sued the automaker this week in a state court in Milwaukee, claiming numerous breakdowns kept his sedan off the road for weeks, and demanding that Tesla at least refund the more than $95,000 he paid for the car.
Montgomery said Wisconsin's defective-car Lemon Law made him eligible for that money because Tesla failed to repair the vehicle adequately.
The suit contains "factual inaccuracies," including how many times Montgomery asked Tesla to repurchase the vehicle, the company said on its Web site.
"We have been trying to work with the customer to work through the problem," Sproule said Wednesday. "We have been unable to do so. We have been trying to fix and replace things."
