Will Tesla lose its cool in Hong Kong? Axa triples insurance premiums
An Axa spokeswoman says the rate hike was ‘based on a commercial decision’ and that electric cars are expensive to insure
When Jardine Matheson’s former Hong Kong executive Geoffrey Jones was shopping for a new car two years ago, a special package by Axa on Tesla’s four-door sedan caught his eye.
The French insurer offered three years of coverage in a special programme called InsureMyTesla, for HK$12,300 (US$1,569) in total, about a third of the nearest competitor’s price to insure all-electric vehicles, at a rate that’s even cheaper than policies for non-electric cars.
The HK$875,000 Model S also enjoyed a tax waiver, saving Jones another HK$625,000 on registration. Topping off the incentives, Tesla threw in an agreement to buy back the car after three years for HK$587,000.
The Model S, which boasts of going from standstill to 60 miles per hour (almost 100 kilometres per hour) in 2.5 seconds, “is a beautiful car, powerful and comfortable”, Jones said, adding that he was persuaded by the incentives package to trade his Mercedes-Benz E Class for the fully electric car, in solid black with grey leather interior.
Hong Kong has been one of the world’s fastest adopters of electric vehicles, as both government and owners have eschewed internal combustion engines to help reduce tailpipe emission in the city’s urban landscape. Helped by a tax waiver on registrations from 1994 until March 2017, sales of electric cars surged in Hong Kong to 11,247 units at the end of August, from a mere 69 vehicles in April 2011, with Tesla claiming almost 90 per cent of that market share since entering the city in 2010.
Recognising the sales boom, insurers like Axa, Liberty Mutual Group and Target Insurance piled on to offer package deals to make electric cars more attractive. Axa, based in Paris, first tied up with Tesla in 2015.
