Electric-car company Tesla is expected to announce its launch in the UAE while its co-founder and chief executive Elon Musk is in Dubai next week.
The announcement on Monday (February 13) at the Armani Hotel, within the Burj Khalifa, comes after eagle-eyed browsers spotted job advertisements for a service adviser, manager and technician in Dubai posted on the Tesla website. Tesla currently employs 13,000 people across four continents.
Musk, who is also in Dubai for the World Government Summit, has spearheaded the development of electric cars globally in the past eight years since the launch of Tesla’s first model, the Roadster. However, until now, the brand’s cars have only been available on import in the UAE, with no official presence here.
The low cost of petrol in the region, as well as a lack of charging stations and concerns about batteries overheating in the desert climate, have long been cited as reasons that have delayed the widespread use of electric cars in the UAE and wider GCC.
The profile of such cars in the UAE has already been raised in recent weeks by the Emirates EVRT, a road trip across the seven emirates that featured a variety of carmakers’ battery-powered vehicles, including a number of Teslas.
While there are currently no official charging stations listed on the Tesla website, based on its entry into previous markets, the company is expected to provide a network of charging and Supercharger stations in the UAE.
aworkman@thenational.ae
