Contrary To Some Reports Tesla Is Probably Not Coming To South Africa Next Year

After tweeting about the opening of several more Tesla dealerships in the United States, Tesla’s founder and CEO Elon Musk was asked by Riccardo Spagni , a South African, cryptocurrency “expert”, when Tesla was coming to open an official dealership in South Africa. Elon Musk replied  that Tesla could probably make that happen as early as next year.

Probably end of next year

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2018

There are two things to note here. Elon Musk, if you didn’t know, is actually a South African citizen by birth. The United States in typical fashion stole him in the same way they steal all talented Indians and Chinese  students and yet somehow find a way to talk about building a wall to keep out immigrants. The second thing to note is that Elon was probably being polite and optimistic here.

A lot of publications took this to mean Tesla was actually going to open a dealership down in Mzansi. In fact some excited Zimbabweans are already talking about how this is going to be a boon to the Zimbabwean economy. Like we haven’t heard all such euphoric talk before! Remember how the 2010 World Cup was going to bring about an economic boom and that never happened. Then came the diamonds and recently oil in Mzarabani.

The logic goes that once Tesla is in South Africa they will also open a battery plant too since these cars run on battery power. Ergo they would need Lithium which is “bountiful in certain parts of Zimbabwe”, so bountiful in fact people are using it as “vim” to wash their plates the legend goes. Conclusion we are all gonna be rich and all our troubles will end.

The truth is while its possible that Tesla plants will be coming to SA in the future, it is highly unlikely it will be in 2019. Why? Well Tesla still has to fulfil demand in markets in the developed world before it bothers with the low income markets where Teslas are a mere bling bling. We have powercuts in the SADC for Christsake!  We already have a demand for power which outstrips our power generating capacity without Elon’s juice suckers ruining our lives with more power cuts.

In anycase the response in the tweet feels very much non-committal in its tone. So  no Tesla is probably not going to build a plant in South Africa in 2019 and Zimbabweans are certainly not going to get rich selling Lithium. Our government and its elitist polices and laws will see to it that such delusions are nipped in the bud.