Tesla’s Dubai service centre to open in July
Work starts at facility on slip road between Al Mazaya Centre and Burj Khalifa metro station
The new home of Tesla’s first service centre in the Middle East is under construction in Dubai and will be open sometime in July to host a fleet of the head-turning vehicles said to be arriving this summer.
The opening will make the UAE only the 22nd country in the world to host a certified Tesla service centre needed to support what car enthusiasts believe may mushroom into a small but dedicated fleet of electric super cars in Dubai and other emirates.
Located on the slip road off Shaikh Zayed Road between the Burj Khalifa metro station and Al Mazaya Centre, the Tesla location was the focus of curious onlookers yesterday who gazed at a large billboard that covers the front of the former highperformance auto showroom facing Business Bay.
Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk told recently Tesla manufactures a very small portion of the world’s total of 2.6 billion conventional cars.
If you’re one of the lucky ones to have ordered a Tesla electric car after the company announced it was taking UAE orders starting February 13, you won’t have to worry about shipping it back to the US for servicing.
Construction crews are hard at work creating a new Tesla Motors service centre in Dubai, a first in the Middle East, on the slip road northwest of Shaikh Zayed Road between Burj Khalifa metro station and Al Mazaya Centre.
When it opens in July, it will make the UAE only the 22nd country in the world to have service centres able to service the new electric cars that are taking the world by storm.
Following confirmation by Elon Musk, co-founder and CEO of Tesla, at the World Government Summit last week that Tesla was setting up shop in the UAE, car enthusiasts are welcoming news the first cars will be shipped to Dubai by summer.
For now, the front of the Tesla service centre site is covered, with a large hoarding encouraging the curious to test drive the cars.
During a Dubai press conference, Musk told reporters that in addition to the arrival of new cars and the opening of the new service centre, the firm has already opened two supercharging stations in the UAE — at the last Jebel Ali exit on Shaikh Zayed Road en route to Abu Dhabi and in Masdar City in Abu Dhabi.
“By the end of the year, Tesla will open five additional Supercharger locations, enabling long distance travel across every route into and out of the country. The UAE is already home to a number of Tesla’s Destination chargers, which are available at 26 locations across the UAE, including hotels and shopping malls. Tesla will add more than 50 additional Destination charging locations by the end of the year,” Tesla officials said in a statement.
The company said customers looking to explore the new lines of Model S and Model X can log on to www.tesla.com/en_AE for details.
“Customers in the UAE can now visit the online design studio to customise and order the Tesla vehicle that best suits their lifestyle. First orders of Model S and Model X vehicles are expected to be delivered in Dubai this summer,” the company said. The launch of the UAE’s dedicated online platform is supported by a pop-up store in The Dubai Mall.
26 locations across the UAE will have Tesla’s Destination chargers.