American electric vehicle giant Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) updated its Australian website Wednesday night to reflect that the company is no longer accepting orders for either the Model S or Model X from customers in the country. Prospective buyers will only be able to receive updates and not place orders for Tesla's flagship vehicles.
The $400 refundable pre-order option and Design Studio are inaccessible. These have been replaced by a button that says “Get Updates,” which puts customers on a mailing list.
According to Australian media outlet “The Drive,” the Model S and Model X vehicles are still being made available for other Right-Hand-Drive markets.
Interestingly, Tesla said in its press release that announced its nearly 423,000 vehicle deliveries for the first quarter that it had transitioned to a “more even regional mix of vehicle builds, including Model S/X vehicles in transit to EMEA and APAC.”
It remains unclear if Tesla is planning to completely eliminate the Model S and Model X from this market. As of now, nobody in Australia has been told by the company that they will be issued a refund for their existing order, so it appears there may be too much of a backlog for the vehicles in the country.
Tesla builds the Model S and Model X in only one factory, the Fremont plant, which is located in Northern California. The cars are both low-volume and contribute to less than 5 percent of the company’s total quarterly volume on average.
Shares of TSLA are up 3.85% near end of day trading on Thursday.