Tesla Opens Up Model 3 Sales to Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia

I live in Romania. Earlier this year, I’ve contacted the Tesla shop in Vienna to ask about options regarding the purchase of a Model 3. At the time, they said Tesla would not sell any Model 3 in Romania nor in countries that don’t have an authorized service center.

Back then, I thought this was discriminatory, since in the EU anyone should have the right to buy anything, no matter where he lives.

I even went for a test drive of a Model 3 in May, and the Tesla employee said the same thing, but that it happens because it would be a bad user experience if the car has issues and you have to take it all the way to Vienna. Now, that was a valid point I understood, despite the fact that they didn’t let us film anything inside the car (?)

However, there were some people here in Romania who bought second-hand Model 3s from a 3rd party dealership in Germany. That dealership was actually among the first to pre-order a number of them, put on some mileage so that they can be declared used cars, legally, and sold them as new.

Now, Tesla tweeted that they will be selling in Eastern European countries

Hint: starts with P and ends with oland, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia.

Model 3 orders are open today in 🇵🇱 🇭🇺 🇷🇴 🇸🇮

— Tesla (@Tesla) August 23, 2019

Judging by the wording, it might just have been Elon Musk behind the tweet.

I’m not sure how they’re going to actually service the cars in these countries, but by delivery time (Early 2020, as their site says) I think they’ll already have something set up. If not, the next one is planned to open in Budapest.

In 2014, I had the privilege to talk to the man himself. Back in the day, he had plans to upgrade the supercharger network by adding stations in Romania and Bulgaria. But they didn’t materialize yet, in 2019. Now, in 2019, he’s not only going to install those chargers, but also accept orders from these countries that were once considered too poor to be able to buy a Tesla.

Mind you, Elon, with all due respect, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and all the other countries you guys consider poor by California standards, have some of the most wacky racers on the planet. And they emit a lot of smoke and NOx and CO2. We need Teslas to be able to overtake other cars easier, since our highway infrastructure here is struggling to make ends meet. Literally.

And last but not least, we need them to race douches with smoky BMWs, Porsches and Audis at the stoplight, just to prove electric has it.

These may be illicit and unsafe behaviors and we don’t encourage anyone doing that, but they’re actually the ones that made Tesla a thing in the US, too. There are people with lots of money here, and there are also leasing schemes that do sell comparably-priced cars very well. So with a Supercharger network spread all over the country you WILL have some big sales.

Elon: We will certainly sell cars throughout Europe long term, including in Romania and Bulgaria. Default plan is Tesla owned dealers and superchargers enabling travel anywhere in Europe, from Turkey to Norway!

You do that, man! It’s already been too long. We’ve come a long way inhaling diesel smoke here in Eastern Europe.