TESLA Incentive Launched With $38 Million Hong Kong Apartments

Buyers of homes at a new Hong Kong development will get an extra treat with their four-bedroom apartment – a free Tesla.

The Victoria Skye development, an upmarket project in Kai Tak - the site of Hong Kong’s former airport - includes 44 one-bedroom to four-bedroom apartments of around 1,270 square feet each. They will be sold via a bidding process that is expected to set buyers back at least HK$38 million a piece.

In a bid to make the city greener, K&K Property announced it will offer Tesla vouchers worth HK$620,900 - the starting price for a Tesla Model S - to the first five buyers of four-bedroom apartments.

“The promotion is to encourage our future residents to use environmental-friendly electric cars,” says development’s investment manager Tong Cheung. “All the 143 parking spaces at Victoria Skye have charger systems for electric cars.”

This offer could be particularly attractive to electric cars enthusiasts because of the recent tax waiver change in Hong Kong, which has caused prices for the cars to jump.

The government announced earlier this year that the full waiver of First Registration Tax for e-cars—a measure that has been in place for more than 20 years—would end on March 31, with the tax discount capped at HK$97,500 (US$12,498).

After the waiver was scrapped, the prices of electric vehicles (like Tesla) shot up by 80%. A Tesla Model S, for example, which cost HK$800,000 (US$102,550) under the previous full tax waiver, now costs about HK$1.5 million ($192,279).

Buyers can also opt for a HK$500,000 (US$64,092) cash rebate on the property instead.

As Hong Kong and China rapidly churn out billionaires, super-luxury homes are coveted in the city-state, which is ranked Asia’s—and arguably the world’s - most expensive property market. Hong Kong remained the least affordable city for the seventh consecutive year in 2016.