Tesla Is Back on the Offensive: The USA’s EV Giant Has Just Entered Colombia’s Market Looking for Blood

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I hope our readers will pardon my hyperbolic language, but believe that nobody, nobody, expected to see what’s now unraveling in the Colombian market.

I knew Tesla was going to (finally) arrive on our shores at Bogota’s 19^th International Automobile Hall, but to be completely frank, I had sort of waived that information away. Tesla is an upscale brand of sorts, and with so many Chinese brands coming with ever more competitive options, I felt it would be an important player but far from the most relevant, well behind BYD, Geely, and probably even Kia.

Well, I could not have been more wrong.

Tesla’s morning surprise

I woke up today to the news that Tesla had decided to enter Colombia with a bang, bringing its models at prices that nobody dreamed of. The price is competitive enough to make BYD shiver in fear, to disrupt the strategy from other Chinese brands, and to lay waste to Legacy Auto’s plan to sustain market share based upon Chinese-made models:

• The Tesla Model 3 arrived at a price of COP$109’990.000, or $29,684.
• The Tesla Model Y arrived at a price of COP$119’990.000, or $32,382.

In both cases, all taxes are included, though the charger is not.

The prices are impressive enough as-is, but let’s make some comparisons:

• The Model 3 arrived at a mere 10% more than the recently discounted BYD Yuan Up and the Baojun Yep Plus Chevrolet Spark EUV, both much smaller, much less equipped vehicles.
• The Model 3 is 20% cheaper than the entry-level ICEV Kia K4 sedan and 7% cheaper than the VW Jetta.
• More impressively, the Model 3 is literally half the price of the Chevrolet Equinox EV and 35% more affordable than the entry-level Volvo EX30.
• The Model Y has arrived at a 30% lower price than the Kia EV5, which was supposed to be Kia’s response to that model. It’s also cheaper than the newly arrived GAC Aion V and Deepal S05, and equal in price to the Chery I-Car 03 and the Geely EX5.
• The Model Y is only 9% more expensive than Colombia’s cheapest SUV with an automatic transmission (the Renault Duster). The Duster is a no-frills SUV that recently presented an additional hybrid version (Duster E-Tech), which, you guessed right, is more expensive than the Model Y.
• The Model Y is also slightly more affordable than the recently arrived, smaller, less powerful ICEV VW Taos.

Being a Western brand, Tesla has a massive advantage over Chinese brands which are all but unknown and need to build customer trust. Normally, you would expect a company to leverage this brand awareness in higher prices (and profits), but it seems Tesla is planning to use it to gain market share in the coming months.

Tesla’s new offensive

It was just yesterday that I read Zach’s article on Elon Musk’s warning for short sellers, where he said that:

Perhaps Elon Musk just got irritated and sent out a threatening tweet, as he’s been known to do in recent years, or perhaps Tesla is finally on the verge of Elon Musk’s expectations and timeline lining up with reality again.

Zach was talking about the possibility that Tesla is close to an AI or self-driving milestone, but I have another idea. What if this is a new strategy? What if Tesla is about to take the Developing World by storm? [Editor’s note: As soon as I saw Juan’s comments to a writer group of ours and his article headline, the same thought crossed my mind. —Zach]

Colombia’s most sold car in 2025 so far has been the Toyota Corolla Cross. The second most sold: the Mazda CX-30. In third place is the Renault Duster. The Model 3 is cheaper than two of those three cars. The Model Y is cheaper than one and roughly on par with another. Both Teslas have a price competitive enough to put them at the top of Colombia’s most sold vehicles.

Multiply this by Latin America’s 6 million or so market, and you can easily find half a million new sales, if Tesla plays its cards right. Add to that other developing markets and the numbers can rapidly add up to a million extra sales, enough to overcome its current issues in China and Europe, and to make full use of its installed capacity, which should in turn provide better economies of scale.

What comes next?

I am struggling to think how the Chinese and legacy auto industries will respond to this. Tesla has basically upended the entire market and the solid strategies of yesterday could be useless today.

Prices will have to come down. Those who have a presence in the sub-$25,000 hatchback and the sub-$20,000 city car market may yet have some space to breathe, but many brands have bet a lot on the +$28,000 SUV market, and that one has suddenly become a bloodbath. Can BYD sustain sales for its Yuan Plus at 20 million COP ($5,400) more than the larger, more powerful Model Y? Can Kia sell even a handful of its formerly popular Kia EV5 with the Model Y being 50 million COP ($13,450) cheaper? What about Volvo and the EX30? Will the Chevrolet Spark EUV sustain momentum as buyers mull that from a mere $2,700 more, they can get a Model 3?

My heart goes out to those Chinese brands that have so far not built a significant following. JAC, GAC, Faw-Bestune, Dongfeng, Karry, JMEV, even Chery, all could be in danger. If nobody knows your brand, you’ll need quite a steep differential to convince possible clients to select you over Tesla (and BYD), and these brands, for now, just don’t have it.

Final thoughts

I’m an extremely politically driven person. I will not be buying a Tesla anytime soon. But I’m well aware this is not a common position.

And in this sense, I’m very happy that Tesla seems to be back from its detour through AI and humanoid robots to the mission it held for years: to promote EV adoption throughout the world and to drive the transition to a more sustainable means of transportation.

It’s hard to overstate the impact Tesla’s move could have on Colombia’s EV transition. By bringing forth such a solid value proposition, Tesla will force the hand of Chinese brands that are currently focusing on profits, probably bringing prices lower through most segments. Likewise, it remains to be seen if Legacy Auto will try to resist Tesla’s offensive, or if it will yield and simply focus on the ICEV technology of yore.

Yet that technology may not survive too long. For a while, my perspective on Colombia’s EV adoption rates has been “at least 50% by 2030,” but with Tesla’s offensive, I sincerely think my timeline went down two years: now my forecast is 50%, at worst, by late 2028.

We will have to wait and see. Tesla may yet increase its prices, or costumers may not have as much interest as I presume (though, social media has absolutely exploded with the news). Deliveries start in February, so the impact in EV market share will not be immediate.

But in a market already rapidly pivoting towards electrification, Tesla’s announcement is like a gallon of gasoline being poured over an already increasing fire: even if the results aren’t exactly easy to predict, an explosion is not only possible but also likely. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Tesla on the podium in Colombia next year (for all powertrains) and the Model 3 as the most sold car.

Multiply this by other countries: Tesla may well enter Argentina, Peru, or Ecuador soon under similar circumstances. It may well launch an offensive in Brazil, which, despite a protected market, has a significant market for the imported Volvo EX30. It may gain a foothold in Mexico and increase its footprint in Chile if it lowers prices. After all, the Model 3 and Model Y have been in production for years yet prices have barely bulged down, meaning the company is likely to have significant margin to cut them without losing profitability.

What I do know is that Tesla is back in the game, and it could well find its new playground in the Global South.