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2024 Shipping Movements

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I thought I would start a new thread for 2024 on European bound ships carrying Teslas.
The first logical question is why on earth would anyone on a Tesla forum be interested in shipping?

The answer is because once you have ordered your revolutionary expensive new car you enter the Tesla blackout zone - a frustrating period of non-communication from Tesla when you have no idea of what is happening with your order. If you call them, they just say they 'are waiting for a match'. What does that mean? Tesla don't build Model 3/Ys to order - they build whatever they want and then match what has been ordered to what has been produced. This 'matching' usually happens around the time the car is loaded on to a ship. Aha! Shipping has suddenly become interesting!

All Model 3s for Europe are currently made in the Shanghai Gigafactory and are shipped to Zeebrugge in Belgium, Koper in Slovenia or Barcelona in Spain through the Suez Canal in a journey taking about 30 days At the time of writing the Suez Canal is being avoided by most carriers and are routing via the Cape of Good Hope adding about 10 days to the voyage from Shanghai. It also adds about $200-250 to the shipping cost of each vehicle. All Model 3s and Y's for the UK are currently shipped from Shanghai direct to Southampton. UPDATE From Jun 24 MY for the UK will be supplied from Berlin!
Normally Tesla fully charter ships to transport their cars but during 2022/3 they supplemented the charters by using available space on scheduled services too. In 2024 I think we may see a return to whole charters in an effort to keep costs down and keep control of itineraries.


If you are in Auz/NZ, shipments are from Shanghai.
If you are in Dubai, your Model 3 will be loaded on to a ship that heads to Jebel Ali. Currently there is about one shipment per quarter.
If you are in Israel, your Model 3 will be shipped to Ashdod from Shanghai and again currently there is one shipment per quarter. Model Y will come from Berlin but is harder to track. Currently there are no services to Israel.
If you are in Ireland your car is shipped to Dublin via Zeebrugge.

Model S/X are shipped from Baltimore to Zeebrugge.

I mentioned Q1 earlier- this is because Tesla work in quarters with Q1 running from Jan to Mar. The Tesla business model requires as many cars as possible produced in a quarter to be paid for (delivered) in that same quarter.
This means that in Q1 the last ship will leave for Europe no later than around 8 Feb in order to allow for a 36/37 day transit to Southampton/Zeebrugge and then a (hectic) delivery push in the last 10 days or so of March. (A couple of days later if shipping to Barcelona) It is logical then to expect to see a large number of export models for the UK/EU market to be clogging the Chinese production lines in January and early February. This explains the feast or famine nature of Tesla logistics. Elon has promised his staff that he will try to suppress the end of quarter wave. To an extent he has already succeeded in this - by moving all export production to China, the US domestic supply is now much more evenly spread throughout the quarter. Production in Berlin is currently interrupted by delays in components as a result of container ships avoiding Suez, however this should only be a short-term issue.

You may wonder why we in the UK should be interested in shipments to Zeebrugge, Koper and Barcelona? Often it may be difficult to determine whether a ship is heading to Southampton, Zeebrugge, Barcelona or Koper and so it's just as easy to track all the ships to Europe. Often the ship may call at Southampton and then head to Zeebrugge and so it makes sense keep track of everything heading to Europe anyway. It's useful for me if our European readers advise their expected delivery dates and when VINs are allocated as that can help identify where a ship is going.

There is an pretty good spreadsheet populated with the latest (and historical) confirmed shipping information from a variety of sources - Tesla Carriers. It may be more of interest to you later as you become more engrossed in this subject! Did I mention it can become addictive?

Anyway, I think we can expect to see about 13 boatloads to Europe in Q1.
That begs the next question - how big are the boats? The standard ocean going vehicle carrier is 200 metres long and 32 metres wide and can fit about 5000 - 5500 cars onboard. A Tesla is larger and significantly heavier than a standard car and so a maximum of about 4500 cars are in each shipment. There are larger vessels that can transport more and I will make a point of mentioning it if a larger vessel is being used.

Anyway the plan is to post details of the latest Tesla shipping news for 2024 to this thread.

I will keep and eye on Pier 80 San Francisco for Model S/X exports to Far East and Baltimore for S/X to Europe.

There are a number of ship trackers you can use to follow the ships and www.marinetraffic.com is one with perhaps the best free coverage but there are plenty of others. The ships transmit a signal which is picked up by shore based receivers (mostly hosted by amateurs) and forwarded to the website. The trouble is that the signal is a VHF signal meaning the receiver has to be within line-of-sight and once the ship goes over the horizon to the receiver that's it, unless you pay for satellite coverage which is not cheap. With the aid of satellite tracking I will provide a daily update on exactly where each 'Tesla' ship is and provide an estimated time of arrival to Zeebrugge and Southampton (the UK port of entry for Tesla). A talented reader of the thread @Frizzy, has created an excellent webpage where you can track 'Tesla' ships.
I'll also try and add some background info which you may find interesting.

Correctly identifying Tesla ships from Shanghai is not easy and quite often a 'suspect' ship turns out to be a false alarm. There are other sites that claim to track Tesla ships but actually just track every possible ship that departs Shanghai, which is not particularly helpful. I at least try and rule out the improbable ones based on my experience. It's also free! It helps enormously if when you 'chat' to Tesla about your order that you ask what ship your car is on or if they won't tell you the name, at least ask when it will arrive in Zeebrugge/Southampton. Please post your info to the thread or PM me!

You can help me and others by keeping any posts on this thread strictly to shipping related matters - questions about when to expect delivery, VINs and panel gaps have their own threads, which I have been known to visit and contribute to also.
 
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Ordered a M3SR Black white interior to Stockholm, Sweden and i think my car is on Asian Empire as well. EDD May 31 - June 14 and had this date for a long time now. Asked a Tesla rep and he said that it's on a ship and that it will probably be delivered in the second week of June.

VIN and licence number visible in the app since about a week ago. Does anybody know if this date is realistic? Ordered in February so the wait has been long now..
 
Nice! Where do you pick up, what car and what ship is it on? Do you know which port in Denmark/Sweeden the ship will arrive to?
Hello,

M3LR, regarding ship, I am wondering the same because I never saw any ship that was on or anything like that, seems like the danish app is just different :).

Regarding port, as well, have no clue! I just had 10-24th of june since the beginning when I first ordered it online (23rd of april), vin assigned 26th of april and then quietness since then until 2 days ago.

Pick-up: Tesla delivery center Køge, Denmark.

Now it's that last bit of wait which kills the joy :).

That's why I am not in a rush with payment hence that is the last thing to be done in the app.

Cheers!
 
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Sorry for probably asking a question that might already have been answered. When does the VIN appear in the app(for EU customers) Is it connected ex amount of data before delivery, when the ship departs/arrives?

I have my licenseplate number and the VIN is visible in the final invoice. Curious about when it appears in the app page.

Like most of you i am tracking the different ships and refreshing the app.

M3P
Ultra red
Black interior

Edd 18/6-30/6
Sweden
 
Sorry for probably asking a question that might already have been answered. When does the VIN appear in the app(for EU customers) Is it connected ex amount of data before delivery, when the ship departs/arrives?

I have my licenseplate number and the VIN is visible in the final invoice. Curious about when it appears in the app page.

Like most of you i am tracking the different ships and refreshing the app.

M3P
Ultra red
Black interior

Edd 18/6-30/6
Sweden
I got my VIN number showing in the app about 5-6 days after the license plate number was showing. Although I knew the VIN number before it showing in the app by searching the licence plate number on Transportstyrelsens website.
 
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I got my VIN number showing in the app about 5-6 days after the license plate number was showing. Although I knew the VIN number before it showing in the app by searching the licence plate number on Transportstyrelsens website.
Nice that the license plate is shown earlier. It seems that in DK it's done a 1-2 days before the pick up which delays in providing it for insurance :)
 
Guys, what do you mean by licence plate? Is that the number on the licence plate on the car? Does Tesla provide that in your country? Here in Poland you need to register your car yourself to get the licence plates... and I cannot do that because Tesla does not want to provide original documents which are required until the car is ofloaded in EU and pases customs. Despite that, I have a VIN and an Invoice with (already settled) however the VIN is not visible in the app (as well as delivery date - is says may - june) despite estimated delivery on invoice is 19 june.
 
Sorry for probably asking a question that might already have been answered. When does the VIN appear in the app(for EU customers) Is it connected ex amount of data before delivery, when the ship departs/arrives?

I have my licenseplate number and the VIN is visible in the final invoice. Curious about when it appears in the app page.

Like most of you i am tracking the different ships and refreshing the app.

M3P
Ultra red
Black interior

Edd 18/6-30/6
Sweden
The earliest time you get the VIN is around the time the ship is loaded with the car, in Shanghai. Many get the VIN within few days, a week after Shanghai, but you can get it much later to, as I seemed to get it when the ship was in Barcelona. I guess they tried to see how many cars was assigned to costumers in Southern Europe first, and before going towards Zeebrugge, they had an overview of the leftovers. My theory is that my car is one of those. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Guys, what do you mean by licence plate? Is that the number on the licence plate on the car? Does Tesla provide that in your country? Here in Poland you need to register your car yourself to get the licence plates... and I cannot do that because Tesla does not want to provide original documents which are required until the car is ofloaded in EU and pases customs. Despite that, I have a VIN and an Invoice with (already settled) however the VIN is not visible in the app (as well as delivery date - is says may - june) despite estimated delivery on invoice is 19 june.
In Sweden the Car gets registered by Tesla. After that the license plate number appears on the app. The VIN, for me, is only visible on the final invoice but We can aquire the VIN by searching the license plate number in the swedish DMVs website(transportstyrelsen)
 
Guys, what do you mean by licence plate? Is that the number on the licence plate on the car? Does Tesla provide that in your country? Here in Poland you need to register your car yourself to get the licence plates... and I cannot do that because Tesla does not want to provide original documents which are required until the car is ofloaded in EU and pases customs. Despite that, I have a VIN and an Invoice with (already settled) however the VIN is not visible in the app (as well as delivery date - is says may - june) despite estimated delivery on invoice is 19 june.
Hello,

Same for Denmark, Tesla makes sure you have the license plate on the pickup day. The only thing you need to do is make sure you have an insurance, funny thing is that for having insurance you need the license plate number :D.

Not sure if you can search for the plates somewhere online with the help of vin like in Sweden.

Cheers
 
I believe it was a guesstimate. Anyway it seems to be a bit of a mute point now. I have the same collection day as you and I'm almost 500 miles north, so I'm glad I reverted back to Glasgow as I'm saving myself a flight and a 500 mile journey north :rolleyes: .

Marco Silva just posted his collection date in Kent is 14th June. So we now have larger spread of collection points over the UK all within a couple of days of each other.

12th Southampton
12th Glasgow
13th Manchester
14th Kent

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason.
Of course these dates all might change with 2 day slippage of the Morning Post
Glad you get to save yourself the trouble 👍🏻

Fingers crossed there will be no delay in deliveries, I’m hoping they’d built in a little buffer. No change so far…
 
Hello,

Same for Denmark, Tesla makes sure you have the license plate on the pickup day. The only thing you need to do is make sure you have an insurance, funny thing is that for having insurance you need the license plate number :D.

Not sure if you can search for the plates somewhere online with the help of vin like in Sweden.

Cheers
Interesting. In Poland you are responsible for the registration (or the lease company) and you need to bring the plates to collect the car together with insurance certificate.

And one more question to you guys, as I know US is different. In Poland, I was forced to make the paymen (in my case my leasor) within 5 days from VIN assignment, with the information that if the payment is not made on time the VIN will get detached. Is it same in other EU states? Normally, the paymend is made on collection day or at best a couple days earlier. With tesla procedure, I am forced to pay interest on financing despite not owning the car yet...:/
 
Interesting. In Poland you are responsible for the registration (or the lease company) and you need to bring the plates to collect the car together with insurance certificate.

And one more question to you guys, as I know US is different. In Poland, I was forced to make the paymen (in my case my leasor) within 5 days from VIN assignment, with the information that if the payment is not made on time the VIN will get detached. Is it same in other EU states? Normally, the paymend is made on collection day or at best a couple days earlier. With tesla procedure, I am forced to pay interest on financing despite not owning the car yet...:/
That sounds crazy that you should do all that yourself. I lease the new Tesla (also had business leasing on my previous Model 3) and it was as easy as me letting the leasing management what car I want, and they assigned everything for me. The car appeared in my Tesla app automatically and the only thing I need to do is to pay the first lease amount (in my case 5% of the total amount of the car's price). I only have to have my ID to pick up the car. License plates, insurance or anything other like that is handled by Tesla or the leasing company.
 
Also, the easy no-human pickup is not available for me due to me having to show my ID and I need to sign physical papers at the pickup location. This is what I was told when I ordered my new car. I remember when I picked up my Model 3 , 4 years ago, it was the same thing.
 
Oh no! I have the VIN, reg number, delivery date and time, but the car I am part exchanging has just had a recall and I can’t get it in before delivery on the 6th June. I have waited patiently for nearly 3 months and I may have been scuppered at the very end. I will need to text my TA but I’m not confident. I doubt Tesla will PX a car with a recall. 🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️