With strong sales, Tesla defines Israel as priority market

Israel has become one of Tesla's strongest export markets and the electric vehicle manufacturer has consequently defined the country as a priority market in terms of allocating new vehicles, a source in the company has told "Globes." Tesla has not only seen strong sales since launching operations at the start of the year but also a higher than average proportion of the sales have been in more expensive performance and long-range models.

So far this year, 2,900 Tesla 3 cars have been delivered to Israel and only 55% of them have been the basic models. On average 70% of the Tesla electric vehicles bought in Europe are the basic model. In absolute numbers too, the Israeli car market has become one of the strongest for Tesla in the European standards sector.

Next week, an additional consignment of 1,700 Tesla 3 cars, which were manufactured in China, will reach Israel, with almost all of them already sold. This will bring to 4,600 the number of Tesla cars delivered to Israel, with an additional consignment expected to arrive in November.

For the sake of comparison, Tesla has sold about 50,000 Tesla 3 cars in the first half of 2020, in all the 12 markets in the EU in which it sells cars. In the Netherlands, for example, it sold just 969 cars and in Spain 1,322 cars and in the UK 7,164 cars.

One of the reasons that Tesla sales have been so strong in Israel has been the lack of rivals, while in the EU Tesla faces fierce competition from Volkswagen, Hyundai and others.

Market sources believe that almost all future Tesla consignments to Israel and the EU will be manufactured in China due to strong demand in the US.