Even with the recent price decrease in fuel (which we shouldn’t be all that excited about anyway), we are still paying a hefty price for the likes of petrol and diesel.

Perhaps that is why people are so excited about Elon Musk’s tweet from earlier today, when he said that he hoped to open a Tesla store in South Africa at some point in 2019.

We might want to cool it a bit, given that he has a habit of odd tweets, but here’s how this one unfolded:

We should unpack a few things here.

Firstly, who is Riccardo Spagni? This below from MyBroadband:

Riccardo Spagni – better known as “fluffypony” in the world of cryptocurrency – is the lead maintainer of the Monero blockchain project, and lives in Plettenberg Bay.

Spagni has been involved in various endeavours and startups across traditional and cryptocurrency-related industries, and recently launched a new blockchain protocol called Tari.

Secondly, I feel like Elon doesn’t really consider South Africa “home” any longer, and there are many stories of how he didn’t really enjoy growing up here.

Thirdly, “boet”. That is all.

Whilst details are scarce (as in Elon’s tweet only), here’s what MyBroadband had to say in their story from earlier today:

Musk provided no additional information regarding the availability of Tesla vehicles in South Africa.

While South Africa’s electric vehicle infrastructure is relatively sparse compared to Europe and the United States, major carmakers have begun to invest in EV charging networks to improve the proposition of buying an electric car in the country.

For example, Jaguar recently announced the installation of public charging stations at every one of its retailers in South Africa.

We are delighted for the 0,0001% of South Africans who stand to benefit from Jaguar’s decision.

I guess we just wait and see whether this gets filed under ‘Elon’s Odd Tweets’ or actually comes to fruition.

[sources:mybb&mybb]