Tesla Israel will lose its management autonomy and be controlled from Europe.
Less than a week after Elon Musk’s visit to Israel, the management of Tesla’s Israeli office is undergoing a major shake-up. According to a source close to the matter, these organisational 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 sales and delivery managers will be hired in Israel. It’s possible that after the replacement of Tesla Israel operations manager Paz Gantovski, who took up the post at the beginning of the year, Tesla will no longer have an active operations manager in Israel.
Sources in the Israeli auto industry believe that the change is due to Tesla’s low sales in Israel last year, while the move was decided shortly after Musk’s recent visit to Israel.
Between January and November 2023, 6,334 new Tesla cars were delivered to Israel, representing just 13.5% of new electric cars sold in Israel, compared to 22% in 2022 and 60% when Tesla cars first entered the Israeli market.
The decline in Tesla’s market share has occurred despite a significant reduction in the price of the basic Tesla 3 model by tens of percentage points to NIS 225,000.
Tesla has also failed to realise 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 take off, and the company has yet to establish a central showroom.
