This year didn’t really get off to a great start for Tesla in China. In fact, the company’s sales were reportedly so poor that it was driven to start offering free services, and ultimately forced to lay off about 30% of its domestic staff. But all that could be about to change. At least in Beijing, where Tesla is reportedly about to catch a big break.

Winning the lottery

To understand that break, you need to understand a bit about how buying a car in Beijing works. Because the city’s traffic is already horribly congested and because of its horrific air pollution issues, you can’t just run out and buy a sedan. If you want to drive a personal car with five seats or less in Beijing, you need to register for the license plate lottery. Once a month, the Traffic Management Bureau picks a few numbers from the pool of people currently waiting, and those people get license plates. Everyone else gets to keep waiting. And your chances of winning are ridiculously slim – in August, just 0.52% of the people in the lottery were granted license plates.

There is a way around this, though – if you’re buying one of a specific set of electric cars, you’re given priority positioning in the lottery, because Beijing wants to encourage the development of the electric vehicle segment. Buying one of these cars doesn’t automatically grant you a license, but your chances of “winning” one goes way up. As of now, Tesla isn’t on that list. But the company reportedly will be added to it this month.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here