Tesla Model S Sales Low In Germany

October 24th, 2013 by James Ayre

Originally published on EV Obsession.

The Tesla Model S’s great success — high sales, great reviews, near universal acclaim, etc — apparently doesn’t extend everywhere. Recent reports from the International Business Times indicate that sales have been rather underwhelming in a number of important European markets, especially the very important market of Germany.

The response in most parts of Europe has been quite enthusiastic, though, so it’s certainly not a wash-out for Tesla — the Model S was actually even the best-selling vehicle, of any type, in Norway for a period of a couple of weeks. That’s quite an impressive feat for any vehicle, much less an EV — and from a relatively new company at that. It certainly speaks to the quality of the Model S, in spite of the poor showing in Germany to date.

Image Credit: Tesla Motors

Autoblog Green provides more info:

The numbers from IBT indicate that Tesla’s sales in Norway hit 801 in the first two months of availability. In Holland, Denmark and Germany it was just 531 – for all three. There were 348 sold in Holland and 85 in Denmark those first two months.

That leaves 98 sold in Germany in those two months, quite a ways behind the country’s best-selling EVs. The Smart ED sold 146 units in Germany just in September, and even the Renault Zoe and the Nissan Leaf outsold the Model S that month. Those two EVs sold 57 and 55 units, respectively.

When you consider the fact that Germany is a much, much larger market than Norway, those sales figures just aren’t that good. Of course, Norway does have an advantage in that the government there has very attractive incentives in place to spur EV adoption. Tesla is set to release its third-quarter quarterly earnings report on November 5 — it’ll be interesting to see what effect, if any, the low sales have had on the company’s financials and projections.

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Tags: Germany, Model S, norway, Tesla, Tesla Germany, Tesla Model S, Tesla Model S Germany, Tesla Model S Norway, Tesla Model S sales Europe, Tesla Model S sales Germany, Tesla Model S sales Iceland

About the Author

James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.

Buldurdir

What you forgot is that Tesla model s top speed is too low. Only 212 km . Ypu do not buy a car like that and not hitting 250 Km/t / 155 mph
- Blastergamer
  
  That speed is pretty normal to average cars, and except on the Autobahn, you would not drive at that top speed anyway.
Jouni Valkonen

This is article is rubbish. Tesla sold in Germany 98 Model S because it chose to deliver 98 Model S into Germany. Instead Tesla delivered its scarce cars into Norway. The sales of Tesla are production limited, not demand limited. The average queue for Model S is several months long.

And Panasonic recently announced that it will expand the production capacity of 18650 cells to match the demand of 1200–1500 cars per week.

Tesla is investing heavily on 135 kW superchargers and service centers in Germany — there will be more superchargers per capita than in United States. And Tesla is planning to sell in Germany 200 cars per week.
eject

I don’t know how it works in other countries. In Germany cars in this price region are normally not bought by Individuals. They are leased by the companies they work for. If you work in a bigger company at a certain income stage the right to a car in a appropriate price/status range is pretty much part of your salary. This has arisen due to favorable tax situations that had this practice differently taxed than a higher income, although this tax advantage is revoked (around the time of an income tax cut) the practice continued widely. The advantages are favorable finance and insurance deals.
You can not just request any car, they have lists of cars the leasing companies offer and you choose one that is in your allowance and sometimes you top up the allowance out of your own pocket.

This accounts for the majority of higher priced cars and after 2 years this cars enter the actual car market as used cars where people like me without such a favorable contract buy one of these as a bargain. They are pretty much new. A lot of them haven’t really been driven in that period but had all the checks and so on.

Know Tesla faces the same problem as probably Lexus does. There is market outside of this lease as business car for 2 years schemes. Individuals do buy new cars. Those Individuals tend either two pretty well of and change their car as they change their clothes or they are people that buy a car and drive it for a decade.

Since Tesla has some ties with Daimler it remains to be seen if they can enter the cycle. But I somehow doubt it. After all I like about Tesla and electric cars in general I can understand that you don’t want to be the guy who asked your German industrial boss for a foreign car.
Shiggity

The German government artificially lowers the prices of BMW, Porsche, Audi, Mercedes for their citizens and has massive import duties on foreign cars. A Model S costs about double what an S class costs.
- eject
  
  Rubbish. Go to the German Tesla website and check (that can be done without any knowledge of the German languages) it works the same as the American one.
  
  What is true is that there is no incentive for electric cars. No tax return as in the US and no price cut as in the UK. Only the road tax will be nil for a couple of years. That is a massive saving of around 400€ a year compared to a 5l engine (give or take 100€). Obviously nothing a new car buyer gives a shit about as he loses 20-30% of the cars value just by bolting on the first set of number plates.
  - Shiggity
    
    Are you sure? I read BMWs and other german made cars were a lot cheaper in Germany compared to other countries.
    - eject
      
      Well in reality you get people importing them back into Germany from other EU countries. The only thing that is true is that some lower spec and smaller engine sizes are not for overseas export. This obviously changes the base price but not like for like.
      And don’t forget in Germany (as in most EU countries) the state gets a 20% tax on top of everything (that is not on a exclusion list, which cars are not).
      
      Tbh, I don’t think there are many products around that are not cheapest in the US. Sometime I do have the impression they simply swap the $ into €
    - Matt
      
      I don’t know about now but about 15-18 years ago when the software firm I worked for was trying to sell software to BMW. I spent a month there, sell the idea and teaching them to write their applications on our API. They made a point of showing me, that it was so much cheaper to buy the car there and ship it yourself to US, that they had a whole biz going where people, visited the plant, got their car, came spent a week in Germany, then bring the car back to be shipped (BMW had a deal on that). They had a building near the plant just for this, all very much a party.
      - eject
        
        If you move the car out of the country within 3 Months no tax applies
      - eject
        
        Outside the EU that is
- Bjoern Rauhut
  
  That information is completely wrong. The government is not (and not allowed to) subsidizing any car maker. Furthermore the import duties are EU standard – and on the same level as the US (and thereby by far lower than what Japan, S.Korea and such have on our cars).
  Aaannnd German cars are 20-40% more expensive in Germany compared to e.g. the US. Do some research, its kinda depressing – for us Europeans