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Tesla Sales in Hong Kong Dry Up After Gov't Drops Tax Break (axios.com)
Tesla couldn't sell a single car in Hong Kong in April after the government dropped a tax break for electric cars on April 1, the Wall St Journal reports citing government data. From the report: "as a result of the new policy, the cost of a basic Tesla Model S four-door car in Hong Konghas effectively risen to around $130,000 from less than $75,000." There were 2,939 Tesla's registered in Hong Kong as of April. Further reading: Nobody in Hong Kong wants a Tesla anymore.
Everyone who wanted one in the short term snapped them up right before the tax went into effect.
Need RANGE for HK. Big place!
Most Hong Kong residents would not buy a car unless it can go completely across the entire country at least five times in one full charge or full tank of gas. No way Tesla could do it. Tesla might sell in a small place like USA but on a large country like Hong Kong, no way it would sell.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Doh! Nobody wants to pay $130k for a $75k car! ...and that's a shock to anyone how?
Sounds more like an issue of people going on a buying spree before the tax break expires. I'm sure sales will pick up again in a couple month
Fully electric cars with tolerable range (my made up bs threshold: 200+ mi) don't seem to be cheap enough to compete on their own merits yet... will probably be a few more years, but it's coming.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
The base price for a Model S in the US is $69,500 before any local or federal incentives. At nearly twice that price now I can see why people in Hong Kong might be less interested than before. Would be be cheaper to buy one in the US and ship it to Hong Kong, or would the import duties kill any savings?
So now them there fancy new technology thingums = the left?
To me this is related tightly to why Elon Musk has publicly broken up with Trump over "climate". If, as Trump thinks, climate is not really a big concern and the government will stop paying scientists to say, that it is, Tesla becomes just another car — and an expensive one at that...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This is a YUGE win for the left. How could it not be?
Did the WSJ really publish a story based on just a single month of data showing a fall in sales?? That is ridiculous.
From the article
"There were 2,939 first-time Tesla registrations in March just before the new tax rules kicked in, around five times that of the number in February."
everybody remotely considering buying one, just bought them before the price went up. Check back in six months to a year to see what the real effect is.
It's as if nobody wants an electric rocket.
The failure is the 50% import tax being imposed on an imported car. Using import taxes to create a barrier to international trade is more of a Republican/Trump/xenophobic-they-took-our-jobs move.
Then again, the right has pushing insanely legislation and then blaming the left when it doesn't work, so you blaming the left is in line with how the party works.
So Hong Kong is China huh? Then why are Hong Kong product is imports in China? Why is there a border? And hong Kong have its own money and passport and visa and law and police and education and freedoms. Yes, freedom to go to dangerous site like Facebook and Google that is blocked in China. Fucking commies suck on my Hong Kong dick all day long. We will never be a part of you corrupt CCP. Hong Konger for life.
When the hell did people start writing things in the "To Y from X"?
It makes more sense to write "From X to Y".
#DeleteFacebook
Good luck to you. CCP seem to be eroding freedoms and democracy in HK starting at the top. The citizens there deserve praise for their efforts to resist.
When I buy things on eBay, I always pick Hong Kong sellers if I can, even if it means paying a bit more. I get my items much faster, sometimes a week or two earlier than ordering from China.
#DeleteFacebook
Thank you for your help. Please have sympathy for the people on Hong Kong and help us fight off the corrupt CCP :)
This type of comment always bring to mind the fourth image on this page http://maddox.xmission.com/hat...
Thanks for the kind words, but we can't do it alone. We need help from the west to keep us going. Please support our efforts and do what you can to spread words and support our efforts. Thank you for your help in saving democracy and freedoms.
So Hong Kong is China huh?
Basically, yes.
You really have just proved your ignorance. As someone who has lived in both HK and China, I can tell you that you are dead wrong.
We need to de-fund all climate science for at least 20 years (to try the opposite of the funding of it during the past 20 years) and then watch to see how many people go into that field and produce the same rants about the planet coming to an end without a massive increase in government spending and control.
Any bets on the results?
Any time somebody disagrees with the AGW alarmism, the climate alarmists scream that the person might have gotten some funding from, or in some other way been tied to, the fossil fuels industry and is thus biased and untrustworthy. These very same accusers however then rage against the very idea the BILLIONS of dollars flowing from governments (which desire justifications for higher taxes and more regulatory power) to climate researchers who then produce reports that say the world is doomed if those goverments are not given higher taxes and more regulatory power is in any way tainting. Pot: meet kettle.
When governments fund research, and make it plain that there is a desired result that will get all the funding, then you can guarantee the researchers will get the desired results (becuase, like everybody else, they have families to feed, medical bills, college loans, house and car payments to make, careers on the line, etc). Denying this is denying human nature and lots of human history. All the ranting by researchers about climate can be put on a graph with levels of government funding for "global warming" studies and there's an excellent correlation. Any pretense that climate scientists are honest, unbiased men of science went into the ash heap with the "climategate" e-mails leaks that exposed them rigging the paper publishing and peer review processes so that no contrary opinions were allowed (something religious cults do, not something honest researchers do).
What Tesla did to soften the blow, was to register around 500 cars as owned by Tesla HK.
So you can still buy a "used" Tesla with less than 20 miles on the clock, the 'one previous owner' being Tesla itself.
Obviously this took quite a bit of investment, and won't last long, but it's managed to keep down the price of used Teslas for now.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
When most US readers read "Tax Break" they think that someone bought a car that was priced "X" and instead, paid "X-Y" where Y is some subsidy the Government offers...or alternatively they imagine that ALL cars cost "X+Y" where Y is a uniform tax. That's not the case in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, a car that is imported from overseas is subject to a First Registration tax, that tax STARTS at 40% of the car's value and goes up from there "X+0.4X". This is a tax only on imported vehicles and previously all EV were exempt from it which put Tesla (and other imported EV) on level playing field with domestic Hong Kong vehicles. But that exemption has been removed for EV over a certain threshold, of which Tesla lands above. So now Tesla costs "X+Y" where Y is a tax that no domestic vehicles have to pay. So yes, Tesla is on an even playing field with other imports, but not with all other cars.
So the folks saying "Ha! See, Tesla can't compete with other cars without a special exemption!" are ignoring that Tesla is now working at a handicap, not a level playing field.
As others have pointed out, it's also likely that anyone who had the spare cash laying around who was planning on buying a Tesla, just did so prior to this phase out. People with lots of money aren't COMPLETELY oblivious to price fluctuations...especially when announced in advance.
Who cares? They are just a hair metal band who are well past their prime.
Huh?
The introduction of taxes on electric vehicles - 20% - has effectively halted sales
FYI I currently live in HK.
Taxes are very high on new cars, at least 40%. The government previously wanted to boost electrical vehicles and thus gave the tax break for EVs.
In fact EVs are ideal for HK. Never a range problem, and people in general are very positive about there being no emissions.
Personally I think it is a pity that they stopped this tax break, it gave a great signal to the community. They could have reduced the tax to 20%, still a difference. Eventually Tesla and otther EV sales will pickup again of course but HK could have been at the spearhead of the move to zero emission cars countries.
Hydro power is already 100% spoken for in the western world. The extra electricity to power electric vehicles will come from any of nuclear, gas-burning, or coal-burning generators. A few percent of the demand *MIGHT* come from wind and solar.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Wait a second here, $140k for a Model S? From what I can gather it costs around $70k for one here in the US (that might include some incentives). It sounds like there are "some" extra costs being added on top (import, registration, etc) in Hong Kong that would obviously (and artificially) limit the market for them.
people stop buying. It happens everywhere.
Take out all the subsidies out of renewable energy in the US and see what happens. EV sales would absolutely plummet, new installs of solar panels would be minimal, etc.
Most people will say they care about the environment but w/o a financial incentive they quickly stop giving a shit.