Which all makes the company’s latest foray into Brisbane a little ill-timed at best.
Residents near Red Hill’s Normanby Hotel have started to receive notices in their letterboxes alerting them to some upcoming out-of-hours construction work for a new Tesla showroom and service centre on Musgrave Road.
Plans for the Red Hill Tesla dealership submitted to Brisbane City Council.Credit: Brisbane City Council DA
It’s a development that has been more than two years in the making, since the plans were initially lodged with Brisbane City Council in 2022.
Located in the former Queensland Egg Board building, the 370-square-metre showroom would be built on level two – fronting Musgrave Road – with the service centre located in the two levels below.
It’s an ambitious expansion for the EV giant, but how will the company fare at its new location?
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On the face of it, Brisbane’s well-heeled inner-west is a prime location for EVs. It has a progressive population – Red Hill has Greens representation at both the federal and council level – and almost half of all registered electric vehicles in Queensland are in the capital.
That shows a ready-made market.
But it’s that very market that would find Musk’s recent antics the most abhorrent.
Tesla remains the dominant EV in Queensland – in December 2024, the company commanded a 49 per cent share in the state.
An impressive statistic, to be sure, but compare that to December 2023, when Teslas accounted for 52 per cent, or January 2021, when 60 per cent of all EVs in Queensland were Teslas.
Tesla still has a dominant share, but it’s a shrinking one – and with Elon Musk at the helm, it’s hard to imagine that trend being reversed.
As for my automotive future, an EV remains a certainty. Just as certain, it won’t be bought in Red Hill.
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