B U S I N E S S
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Edited by
James E. Ellis and
David RocksSuccess on the Continent could turn on its ability to
break into the $360 billion corporate car marketTesla’s
European Headache
Bloomberg Businessweek March 8, 2021Car buyers are showing increasing interest in
Tesla models, and the employees at German soft-
ware maker SAP are no exception. Europe’s larg-
est tech company, like major corporations across
the Continent, provides cars for company and per-
sonal use as an employee perk. And SAP lately has
been getting dozens of requests for Teslas each
month. But the company won’t buy them, saying
Tesla Inc.’s lack of servicing centers near its Walldorf
headquarters and other SAP SE facilities has fueled
concerns that employees would take time off to dealwith repairs if they were given the coveted electric
vehicle. BMW AG and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz—
longtime fixtures on the company’s approved list—
offer same-day fixes nearby, making their hybrid
models the most popular plug-ins SAP provides.
Servicing teams “need to be there at short notice,
and Tesla still has some work to do,” says Steffen
Krautwasser, who manages SAP’s 17,000 cars in
Germany. “The interest in Teslas is extremely high,
but we simply can’t offer them at this point.”
While consumers and investors have turned