Oh and it dates back centuries, most are right handed and kept the sword and scabbard on the left hip and allows the swordsman to slash with the right hand at oncoming riders, Napoleon decided to keep to the right to avoid congestion on the roads, more fool him
India - Tata Motors have 81.4% market share Japan - the top 5 market leaders are Daihatsu, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, listed alphebetically UK - the market leader is the Tesla Y, but only just. Nissa hold 2nd and third place with two models. (Off the top of my head) A seemingly strange decision to effectively pull out of somewhat lucrative markets at first glance, is, with those figures, not so bizarre at all. Any future developement can be concentrated on left hand drive models, negating the need to consider how you fit everything into left and right hand drive. And one assembly process.
Tesla sold 25,000 cars in the U.K. last year, even little Hong Kong has over 10,000 Tesla’s. Japan hasn’t bought in to EV’s yet, they only account for 2% of car sales, but even there they sold 5,000 cars last year. Still seems an odd thing to do.
Had a look at that, the deal is for access to Tesla Superchargers. I thought it would be in relation to manufacturing. Not access to another company's charging network. 7% up for a plug???? Wow.
It's an idiotic decision. You're denying massive, lucrative markets to yourself in order to save next to nothing. The tooling already exists to make LHD and RHD vehicles. Even on new concepts it's established practice which designers are used to working with and presents little or no problems. Madness.
Is it not just the lower margin, higher priced X and y models that RhD production will cease? All focus on the 3 and future cheap models seems to be where the electric wars are being fought, and I'm assuming production of RhD will continue... I could be wrong.
He is effectively saying he can’t compete in these markets? Tesla are still a newish company with huge expansion to come. They have just damaged that expansion potential. Doesn’t matter what the current market share is in the longer scheme of things. The aim is to take market share. He still will but not in so many countries. Short term decision long term damage.