[EuratCarCar] Tesla Loses Ground to BYD, Places Its Big Bet on Korea Instead of China

Tesla Opens Nowon Center: "Expanding into Northern Seoul"
Continuous Expansion of Service Centers, Charging Stations, and Showrooms
Launch of Standard Model... Lower Prices Announced

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Tesla Korea is making an all-out effort to increase its domestic sales volume, following its aggressive pricing strategy with continued expansion of service centers and showrooms.

Tesla Korea opened a new store in Incheon at the end of December last year, securing a total of eight showrooms, and plans to expand its offline stores and service centers to about twice the current size by 2027. Photo by AFP Yonhap News

According to the automobile industry on January 31, Tesla Korea recently opened a new service center in Nowon-gu, Seoul. As a result, a total of 16 Tesla service centers are now in operation nationwide. In particular, since there had previously been no dedicated service center in the northern part of Seoul, accessibility and convenience for owners living in that area are expected to improve significantly.

Not only service centers but also customer touchpoints such as showrooms and the dedicated charging network are rapidly expanding. By opening a new store in Incheon at the end of December 2025, the company has secured a total of eight showrooms, and it plans to expand its offline stores and service centers to about twice their current scale by 2027.

The company is also strengthening its dedicated electric vehicle charging infrastructure, known as "Superchargers." Currently, more than 1,100 Superchargers have been installed nationwide, with an operating rate reaching 99.5%. Tesla Korea plans to continue expanding the network by identifying demand through user surveys, while also moving in earnest to introduce V4 Superchargers, which support faster charging speeds than the existing V3 units.

Tesla Korea's moves are intertwined with a crisis in which sales are continuing to decline in global markets, including China. The strategy is seen as an attempt to offset the slump in global markets with aggressive tactics in Korea and to further solidify its influence in the domestic market.

In fact, starting in 2024, Tesla's global sales recorded negative growth for two consecutive years, ceding its position as the world's top electric vehicle manufacturer to China's BYD. In contrast, in the Korean market, the company achieved remarkable results by more than doubling its sales during the same period. Tesla Korea sold 29,750 units domestically in 2024, followed by 59,916 units last year, approaching the 60,000 mark.

This upward trend is highly likely to continue this year. After launching the Model 3 Standard, whose actual purchase price drops to the 39 million won range when subsidies are applied, the company has also maintained an aggressive discount policy for the Long Range rear-wheel-drive and Performance models.

On top of this, Tesla Korea recently introduced a "supervised FSD (Full Self-Driving)" service for certain models, and owners' expectations are growing that the service will soon be expanded to all models.

Lee Hanggu, a research fellow at the Korea Automotive Technology Institute, analyzed, "At a time when demand is slowing worldwide, demand in Korea is actually increasing, so expanding the domestic sales network is a natural step," adding, "Tesla's aggressive strategy is made possible primarily by its price competitiveness, which is supported by low labor costs at its factory in China and the mass-production capabilities of its Gigafactories."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.