KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 — Future owners of Tesla Model Y in Malaysia may have to make additional arrangements once Tesla is ready to hand over the EV to them early next year. This is based on our conversations with several sources close to the matter.
At the moment, Tesla has yet to reveal their delivery process in Malaysia. From what we can tell, Model Y customers will have to pick their spanking new Model Y at a designated Tesla facility.
While there is nothing out of the ordinary about picking up your new vehicle from a dealership but Tesla is not an ordinary car maker. Instead of distributing its EV through franchise or third-party dealers, Tesla sells them directly to consumers.
Hence, all Tesla Stores, Experience Centres, and Service Centres are being operated by the company itself even in markets outside of the United States. With this operational structure, don’t expect the company to establish as many touchpoints as other incumbent automotive brands.
While the company has committed to opening Tesla Experience Centres in major cities, they have yet to provide a definitive timeline or target. As a comparison, BYD during its launch in Malaysia has committed to establishing a nationwide dealer and service network. It aims to have 21 dealership locations in Malaysia by next year.
Case in point: Tesla officially entered Thailand last December and has already begun delivering its vehicles since February but only launched the first-ever Tesla Centre in the country last week.
Hence, it seems rather plausible that early adopters of Model Y in Malaysia may have to pick up their new Tesla EV at just one particular location when delivery began early next year. If we have to guess, that location would be in Cyberjaya since Tesla has officially confirmed its intention to open a service centre there.
So what happens if you’re not within the Klang Valley or reside in other states such as the East Coast or East Malaysia? If it isn’t convenient for you to pick up your brand-new Tesla, additional arrangements will be required to ship your new vehicle to your location.
Well, this is where the “additional arrangements” that we mentioned earlier come into the picture. Our sources claimed that Tesla Malaysia can arrange for the car to be delivered directly to customers’ preferred location if they are not able to personally pick it up at Tesla’s facility.
The extra shipping arrangements will be performed by an authorised partner for an additional fee and we are told that customers will also be able to make their own pick-up arrangements. The extra markup for buyers in Sabah and Sarawak shouldn’t come as a surprise as existing car prices from various carmakers do cost more in Sarawak and Sabah than in Peninsular Malaysia.
Having just one delivery centre for the whole country may sound a little bit absurd but this is exactly what happened in Thailand even though the country is much larger than Malaysia. The same policy was implemented in Singapore too but given the size of the country, this is not exactly an issue there.
If you’ve already placed your RM1,000 booking for the Tesla Model Y, Tesla will contact you for the final price, registration and handling arrangements closer to your delivery date. Hopefully, Tesla will set up more delivery centres throughout the country to make it easier for customers to pick up their new vehicles. — SoyaCincau
