Musk: Fuel prices hitting EV sales

Tesla founder Elon Musk has said current low-worldwide fuel prices are likely to hit the market for electric vehicles hard.

That came as part of an interview with CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout this week, where he also noted plans to build Teslas in China.

“[The] industry as a whole, I think, will definitely suffer from lower oil prices,” Musk said. “It just makes economic sense.”

Musk said that with his vehicles being at the higher end of the market, they were likely to be more insulated compared to cheaper rivals.

“It probably affects us a little less because we have quite significant product differentiation,” he told CNN.

Tesla is preparing to launch a cheaper vehicle, the Tesla Model 3, expected to launch with a price tag of around US$34,000.

He said Tesla intends to produce vehicles in China, but was still figuring out how to do so. With high taxes for imported models, sales to date have been disappointing.

“Right now our cars in China are coming in with quite high import duty and we’re not eligible for local incentives,” he said “All our sales in China are effectively at quite a high penalty but that will be alleviated when we move to local production.”