Tesla prepares to bring its electric cars to South America
SAN FRANCISCO -
Tesla is preparing to bring its electric cars to South America, according to a new job posting in Chile.
It has been just over a decade since Tesla launched the Model S and significantly accelerated the deployment of electric vehicles around the world.
The automaker has expanded its efforts across North America, and most countries in Europe, and it is still gradually expanding in Asia.
But there’s one continent that Tesla hasn’t touched yet: South America.
It sounds like it is about to change.
Tesla has started to promote a job posting on LinkedIn for a country manager in Chile.
The country manager is generally the first person hired when Tesla expands in a new market.
The job is going to be based in Santiago, the capital of Chile, where the company is also looking for some Tesla advisors and service technicians.
Chile is an interesting choice for a first entry into the South American market. The Chilean auto market consists of only about 234,000 vehicles sold year-to-date and that’s down 29% versus the previous year.
That’s roughly the number of vehicles sold in Brazil every month.
While the size of the auto market in the country is small, there’s a strong interest for electric vehicles there, which might explain Tesla’s foray.
The country is rich in lithium, a critical material for EV batteries, which has helped create interest for electric vehicles in the country. The government also announced an initiative to allow for only new sales of electric vehicles in the country starting in 2035.
Tesla’s Chinese competitor BYD has set its sight on the South American market by bringing its cheaper China-made EVs to the market, but now it looks like Tesla is willing to test the market on the higher-end.
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