EU finalize and deliveries

[DonPedro]

Norwegian P566 got Finalize button today (reported on Norwegian forum).

My speculation:
* Elon Musk stated 40% of manuf. capacity will be for Europe = 200 cars a week
* Roundtrip time LA-EU for a delivery vessel sailling at 16 knots is 40-42 days - make it 7 weeks including loading/unloading etc.
* Taken together, I speculate that each delivery to EU will be around 1400 cars
* It could make sense to only call at one port each time, to avoid double paperwork and extra sailing
* So: 1400 cars delivered in Drammen, Norway in first batch. Seven weeks later, 1400 cars delivered in Rotterdam. Thereafter, alternating between the two according to demand.

Disclaimer: I have no other basis for this speculation than the reasoning above (and sea-distances.com)

EDIT: A person on Norwegian forum refers to quotes from Tesla representatives in Norway who have said that the cars will be shipped in containers, 4 at a time. A bit surprising, but I have no reaon to doubt this info.

 

[cdabel]

Any way you can adjust your math so that it's 2518 cars to Norway in the first batch?

 

[DonPedro]

Any way you can adjust your math so that it's 2518 cars to Norway in the first batch?

LOL no. But if you have P2518, that is as far as I understand your European number. So the number of Norwegians ahead of you is significantly lower. So you have to deduct the number of Europeans from other countries in the P1 - P2517 range. On the other hand, you have to add in the number of Norwegians who have Signature orders (200?) and the number of Norwegians who have R-numbers (100?). Then again you have to deduct the numbers that won't get a car, either because they upgraded to a Signature, or because they cancelled. Hard to know how many Norwegians ahead of you. Maybe 1500?

 

[Volker.Berlin]

Hard to know how many Norwegians ahead of you. Maybe 1500?

Make it 1399 and he'll be happy!

 

[LuckyLuke]

Last info I heard was Norway had well over 1000 (probably around 1200), Netherlands about 1000.

@ DonPedro: Maybe they ship by rail to east coast first, and then by boat.
1400 seems a lot for a single shipment, but Norway will have fully assembled cars so they might do like 1000 on the first boat to fill most of the Norway deliveries. The rest of EU cars have to go through Tilburg (NL) where the battery pack will be assembled and final testing done, so that will probably be a few 100's each shipment because else you will flood the assembly facility.

 

[Z1970]

Norwegian P566 got Finalize button today (reported on Norwegian forum).

My speculation:
* Elon Musk stated 40% of manuf. capacity will be for Europe = 200 cars a week
* Roundtrip time LA-EU for a delivery vessel sailling at 16 knots is 40-42 days - make it 7 weeks including loading/unloading etc.
* Taken together, I speculate that each delivery to EU will be around 1400 cars
* It could make sense to only call at one port each time, to avoid double paperwork and extra sailing
* So: 1400 cars delivered in Drammen, Norway in first batch. Seven weeks later, 1400 cars delivered in Rotterdam. Thereafter, alternating between the two according to demand.

Disclaimer: I have no other basis for this speculation than the reasoning above (and sea-distances.com)

Are there 1400 reservations in Norway alone? Or do you think they will deliver Denmark as well from Drammen? After the first 1400 in Norway, how much potential is there left for the next vessel 14 weeks later? Another 1400 ? Seems unlikely. But I hope you're right, my car could be on the second vessel to Rotterdam....

 

[DonPedro]

Are there 1400 reservations in Norway alone? Or do you think they will deliver Denmark as well from Drammen? After the first 1400 in Norway, how much potential is there left for the next vessel 14 weeks later? Another 1400 ? Seems unlikely. But I hope you're right, my car could be on the second vessel to Rotterdam....

I do not know the total number of reservations in Norway. As LuckyLuke pointed out above, the shipping will be different to the rest of Europe, because of final assembly. In that case, a roro vessel may not make any sense and my speculation is totally thrown off.

The thing that remains is the fact that Elon Musk has said that 40% of manufacturing capacity will be used for European deliveries. As they are doing >500/week, this means 200/week for Europe. We are now around P3300, pluss 500 sigs and 400 roadster-owners. Let's call that 4000 orders (after cancellations and upgrades). This means that all currently ordered EU cars could be produced within 20 weeks of the start of production for Europe. The order of delivery (Norway vs. EU) is unknown.

PS: Note that 7 weeks is the roundtrip time for a vessel from California to Europe and back. One way is three weeks and some.

@LuckyLuke: I think going by vessel all the way is much less expensive than rail + ship. But I'm no expert.

 

[ebullio]

I don't understand why the first shipment for Norway wouldn't go through Tilburg, if that's the place where final assembly will be done.
I can't see why this first shipment would be fully assembled already, what will the state of the battery be after more then 3 weeks on a ship?
One would alse think setting up an assembly facility for one shipment in Norway would make no economic sense.

 

[LuckyLuke]

My guess is they will disconnect the battery or put the vehicle in deep sleep mode, 4 weeks on a boat should not be a problem then.
It was confirmed by Tesla that Norway gets the first boat of fully assembled cars by the way, so it is pretty certain they won't go through Tilburg first.

 

[markwj]

A 'boat load' of Teslas. Something about this makes me very happy, and much more satisfied than the one-by-one deliveries in USA.

 

[widodh]

PS: Note that 7 weeks is the roundtrip time for a vessel from California to Europe and back. One way is three weeks and some.

@LuckyLuke: I think going by vessel all the way is much less expensive than rail + ship. But I'm no expert.

Who says they are going to use the same vessel?

They might pay for a single-trip and take a new vessel for the second load of cars.

 

[linaser]

A person on Norwegian forum refers to quotes from Tesla representatives in Norway who have said that the cars will be shipped in containers, 4 at a time. A bit surprising, but I have no reaon to doubt this info.

Thats, what a Tesla Rep told me, when I visited the Factory in Fremont,CA and the Melo Park Store, about a month ago.

The reason for that seems to be, that the batteries and the car are going to be shipped separately because of safety regulations in the shipping industry.

And obviously you can't drive a Model S onto a RoRo-Ship without the battery.

 

[ohh]

Thats, what a Tesla Rep told me, when I visited the Factory in Fremont,CA and the Melo Park Store, about a month ago.

The reason for that seems to be, that the batteries and the car are going to be shipped separately because of safety regulations in the shipping industry.

And obviously you can't drive a Model S onto a RoRo-Ship without the battery.

The main reason for this, given by Tesla, is to avoid tax in EU. This tax does not apply in Norway, so unless there are other (technical?) reasons for shipping this way, a RoRo would be fine for Norway shipments. Consistent with the info mentioned above about Norwegian shipments of fully assembled cars.

 

[DonPedro]

Who says they are going to use the same vessel?

They might pay for a single-trip and take a new vessel for the second load of cars.

I have been trying to think out loud about how I would do it if I were Tesla. Shipping so many cars is very expensive, and there is a big money difference between doing it efficiently and not.

My original thinking was based on the following reasoning:
* Fact: Tesla has made statements that make it reasonable to assume that they will produce about 200 cars/week for the EU
* Consequence: If you ship every 2 weeks, the max. size of the shipment is 400 cars. If you ship every 4 weeks, the max. size is 800 cars.
* Fact: A roundtrip for a vessel at 16 knots (typical roro speed) is approx. 7 weeks
* Consequence: One vessel making constant round trips means a shipment size of 1400 cars
* Fact (according to my web searches): The smallest car carrying roro vessels take 4000 cars in one go, whereas the typical capacity is 6000-8000
* Consequence: 1400 per shipment is already on the small side to utilize the big roro vessels. Moving the cars even more frequently in this way means either sailing with mostly empty vessels (assuming dedicated vessels).
* Fact: Shipping cars in bulk in big roro vessels is less expensive than shipping them in containers (assuming the roro vessel being sufficiently filled up, having an efficient schedule etc.)
* Fact: At least one roro vessel is periodically making the roundtrip between Long Beach, CA and Bremerhaven, Germany.
* Assumption: The roro vessel will have a fuller load going from Bremerhaven to Long Beach than back
* Consequence: The most cost-efficient way to ship to Europe would seem to be to utilise spare capacity on that roro vessel, and drop off cars in Norway and/or the Netherlands on the way back

However, information that was new to me came along and shot a hole in these speculations:
* Fact: Cars will be shipped to the Netherlands in not-fully-assembled condition
* Consequence: A roro is probably not suitable for the EU shipments. One could still envisage roro shipments to Norway, but not then as part of a streamlined all-Europe logistical operation
* Fact: Several forum members from Norway report that Tesla reps have stated clearly that the cars will be shipped in 4-car containers also to Norway
* Consequence: Seems like this settles the case, also for Norway

 

[ManuVince]

* Fact: Tesla has made statements that make it reasonable to assume that they will produce about 200 cars/week for the EU

Assuming 200 cars for EU a week. A week worth of EU production can be shipped in 50 containers weighing approximatively 10 tons each (2 tons per car + the container itself), that's 500 tons of goods that will not occupy a lot of capacity on a typical freighter (handymax size, or in that case I would say panamax) that can usually transport 50000 tons or more in one go. So Tesla isn't going to rent a entire boat, they will just book some capacity on a freighter that will transport many other things to many other ports in Europe. And then they can do that every week, because they will not need to wait for each boat to make its way back to california. First few batches will go straight to Norway, then next ones to Rotterdam.

But I'm no transport expert. If we have a logistic expert reading me, and thinking that I'm talking nonsens, may he or she chime in ;-)

 

[ohh]

* Fact: Several forum members from Norway report that Tesla reps have stated clearly that the cars will be shipped in 4-car containers also to Norway
* Consequence: Seems like this settles the case, also for Norway

Assumption, not a fact. Email from George B late March stated that this had not been decided yet.

 

[DonPedro]

Assuming 200 cars for EU a week. A week worth of EU production can be shipped in 50 containers weighing approximatively 10 tons each (2 tons per car + the container itself), that's 500 tons of goods that will not occupy a lot of capacity on a typical freighter (handymax size, or in that case I would say panamax) that can usually transport 50000 tons or more in one go. So Tesla isn't going to rent a entire boat, they will just book some capacity on a freighter that will transport many other things to many other ports in Europe. And then they can do that every week, because they will not need to wait for each boat to make its way back to california. First few batches will go straight to Norway, then next ones to Rotterdam.

But I'm no transport expert. If we have a logistic expert reading me, and thinking that I'm talking nonsens, may he or she chime in ;-)

I agree that this is feasible and won't be extremely expensive, but it is still more expensive than roro (otherwise this would how cars were transported in general). Note that the cost is not just the freight itself, but also the work of securing each car in the container and unfastening it in the other end.

Clearly there are advantages to the container approach. For instance, they get paid faster for the cars because they get delivered faster (on average). Also, the shipping arrangement is more flexible, for instance in case of production delays (or overperformance), or in case Tesla need to reprioritise their delivery plans. Someone also mentioned the risk of putting too many cars in one vessel - the argument being that liquidity could kill the company while waiting for the insurance payout (I don't buy that this is a big concern, but it is clearly a valid factor). For customers, there is also a benefit in somewhat faster deliveries. Another point that was raised on the Norwegian forum was the operational challenge for a small company to receive 1400 cars at one location at the same time.

 

[Johan]

Just don't do like Fisker: Leave car sitting at port. Hurricane Sandy destroyed them and the insurance company didn't seem pleased with this "storage solution".

 

[ffylling]

Even though Bergen is not the coldest city in Norway, I really think the Cold-weather package will increase the second-hand price when the time comes...

Does anyone consider the Performance + package?

I will order all the other "new" extras, but not sure if i will spend over NOK 37000,- for the +. Though i have to admit that is is VERY attempting..

 

[nikwest]

Does anyone consider the Performance + package?

I will order all the other "new" extras, but not sure if i will spend over NOK 37000,- for the +. Though i have to admit that is is VERY attempting..

I really would like to get Perf+. But I'm waiting until the wheel issue gets gets resolved. The US design studio clearly suggests that 21" wheels are included. EU delivery says it's not, which does not make sense. I still have time until Monday.