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.
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.
Last edited:
