Tesla once seemed poised for a South African debut, taking deposits for its Model 3. However, eight years later, there’s no launch in sight. CEO Elon Musk cites high import duties as a major hurdle. South African buyers struggle for refunds, while rival BYD has entered the market. Despite this, Tesla remains popular among South African EV enthusiasts, second only to Toyota in a recent poll.
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By Hanno Labuschagne
Electric vehicle (EV) giant Tesla once seemed serious about a launch in South Africa. It even took interested buyers’ money for a spot in the line to be among the first owners of the Model 3.
However, the company has been quiet on any tangible local launch plans in the past eight years, aside from three brief remarks by its CEO, Elon Musk, on Twitter/X.
On 31 March 2016, a day before the official global unveiling of the Model 3, the South African-born billionaire himself announced that Tesla had added South Africa alongside six other countries to the EV’s official reservation page.
Electric vehicle (EV) giant Tesla once seemed serious about a launch in South Africa. It even took interested buyers’ money for a spot in the line to be among the first owners of the Model 3.
However, the company has been quiet on any tangible local launch plans in the past eight years, aside from three brief remarks by its CEO, Elon Musk, on Twitter/X.
On 31 March 2016, a day before the official global unveiling of the Model 3, the South African-born billionaire himself announced that Tesla had added South Africa alongside six other countries to the EV’s official reservation page.
The reservations were opened on 1 April, with interested buyers having to put down a $1,000 deposit to secure their place in the queue for what was Tesla’s most affordable EV yet. For South African reservations, the amount was fixed at R15,000.
Tesla said that the first Model 3 deliveries would begin in North America, followed by Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, and then other right-hand drive markets. South Africa was initially supposed to get its first cars sometime in 2018.
There were no further updates on a local launch until late 2018.
In response to a question on Twitter, Musk said that a Tesla store would “probably” open in South Africa at the end of 2019. He did not reveal any details about car launches.
Less than a year later, Musk said although he would love to bring Tesla to the country, import duties were “extremely high” in response to another Twitter user.
He repeated this stance early in 2024 in another response on X.
“Import duties are super high in South Africa to protect the domestic industry. Doesn’t make sense for Tesla, given that electric cars are not locally made,” Musk said.
Several South Africans who had forked out the R15,000 to help secure their place in the Model 3 queue have complained that they cannot get hold of Tesla for a refund.
The reservation agreement said that the deposit was fully refundable up to the point where the customer had signed a purchase agreement.
One of these reservation holders was a MyBroadband reader whose experience with driving a Tesla overseas had sold him on the car. However, he got tired of waiting and bought a Volvo EX30 earlier this year.
He is one of many reservation holders in multiple countries that are now struggling with refunds for their deposits.
South Africa is not the only country from Musk’s list that has yet to see Tesla’s entry.
Two of the other six countries for which Tesla opened reservations in April 2016 — Brazil and India — are still awaiting local launches.
GoQii founder and CEO Vishal Gondal told Rest of World that it took six months of emailing Tesla’s India executive to get a refund.
Several other Indian buyers had a similar experience — including YouTuber and PhoneRadar founder Amit Bhawani, who only had his deposit refunded after posting a video complaining about how difficult a refund was.
He alleged that Tesla only refunded influencers or people with a blue tick on Twitter/X, while others were getting skipped over.
In April 2023, one MyBroadband forum member said a major issue was that the email address originally used for refund requests appeared to no longer be monitored.
Tesla has never formally announced that it scrapped its plans to launch in South Africa.
Musk’s comments regarding high import taxes could be a justification for a delay or cancellation — but it raises more questions.
There is a common misconception that South Africa charges additional taxes for EVs, which is not the case.
The regular import duty on all cars entering the country — including internal combustion engine (ICE) models and EVs — is 25%.
Only ICE models imported from Europe have a lower 18% import duty due to a preferential trade agreement between the European Union and South Africa.
Changing the current agreement to include EVs will have no impact on the import duties of EV models coming from elsewhere — including vehicle manufacturing hubs like China and India.
The key issue is that South Africa’s car import taxes have not changed since Tesla opened the Model 3 reservations.
That suggests it was either unaware of the impact the taxes would have on its ability to sell cars in the country or became aware that it had underestimated the influence on setting locally competitive pricing.
Regardless, the company’s failure to provide reservation holders in South Africa with official updates on its launch plans is poor customer support.
Official launch could still be many years away
A source familiar with Tesla’s rollout plans has suggested the company would come to South Africa once annual EV sales reached a certain level.
Fully electric car sales have surged in South Africa in the past few years, with a near-doubling between 2022 and 2023.
Even so, the annual sales figure would need to grow several times more for Tesla to consider a South African launch.
Even if sales doubled annually, a launch would be years away.
While Musk lamented South Africa’s high import taxes for EVs, Tesla’s main rival — Chinese automotive giant BYD — has entered the country.
BYD has launched two models — including the most affordable passenger EV.
While many South Africans may remain apprehensive about Chinese vehicles, sales numbers show that brands like Chery, GWM, and Haval are making major inroads in the country.
Tesla’s brand affinity could still see it quickly catching up in South Africa.
MyBroadband has conducted several polls over the past few months, which have shown that Tesla is highly reputed as an EV maker.
Most recently, we asked readers from what car brand they were most likely to buy an EV.
Out of 2,836 voters, Tesla was second only to the country’s top car seller Toyota, and with the slimmest of margins.
Where Toyota racked up 534 votes — 18.8% of the total — Tesla recorded 515 votes — a respectable share of 18.2%.
Tesla also beat well-established brands like BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz by a fair stretch, as shown in the chart below.
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This article was first published by MyBroadband and is republished with permission
