Less than a week after Elon Musk's visit to Israel, the management of Tesla's Israel office is undergoing a major shakeup. A source close to the matter has told "Globes" that these organizational and management changes will see the Israeli market controlled from abroad by Tesla's headquarters in Europe, at the expense of the local management's autonomy.
Among other changes, Tesla's service department in Israel will become part of Tesla's service department in the Netherlands and new managers will be hired in Israel for the sales and deliveries department. It is possible that after the replacement of Tesla Israel operations manager Paz Gantovski, who assumed the post at the start of the year, Tesla won't have an active operations manager in Israel.
Sources in Israel's car industry believe that the change stems from Tesla's low sales in Israel over the past year, while the move was decided a short time after Musk's recent visit to Israel.
Between January and November 2023, 6,334 new Tesla cars were delivered to Israel, only 13.5% of the new electric vehicles sold in Israel, compared with 22% in 2022 and 60% when Tesla cars first entered Israel's market.
The fall in Tesla's market share has taken place despite a significant cut in the prices of the basic Tesla 3 model by tens of percentage points to NIS 225,000.
Tesla has also failed to realize its plans to develop a national service network including a central service garage in Netanya, which has yet to be built. Tesla's trade-in activities have also failed to get off the ground and the company has yet to establish a central showroom.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 4, 2023.
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