EU Market Situation and Outlook

[dc_h]

Tesla plans to resume production in Fremont on May 4 per email leaked to electrek: Tesla announces pay cuts, furloughs, and aims to get back to production by May 4 - Electrek

This would mean 6 weeks downtime for Fremont. That would be the time when usually cars for Europe would be produced and shipped. But if I remember correctly shipping takes about two weeks SFO to Zeebrugge (need to add some time for production and distribution) so they have a small time window of a few weeks left plus the cars they were not able to deliver in March due to corona. @Troy

If they shift to 40-50% Model Y/3 mix and only send 2 ships to Europe and maybe one of those directly to the UK, they should be production constrained, in spite of the general demand cliff for the rest of the industry. If all the govt support programs work well, the stock market is likely to bounce back to new highs by June and spur demand. Q2 is hopefully the toughest quarter, but the Model Y, combined with growing Shanghai production, seem like major risk off options for Tesla. It seems like they could still build 100,000 cars in Q2 and should have cleared out all their Q1 inventory.

 

[hobbes]

Tesla plans to resume production in Fremont on May 4 per email leaked to electrek: Tesla announces pay cuts, furloughs, and aims to get back to production by May 4 - Electrek

This would mean 6 weeks downtime for Fremont. That would be the time when usually cars for Europe would be produced and shipped. But if I remember correctly shipping takes about two weeks SFO to Zeebrugge (need to add some time for production and distribution) so they have a small time window of a few weeks left plus the cars they were not able to deliver in March due to corona. @Troy

@schonelucht wrote me a privat message replying to this which I find relevant:

Just saw your post on the EU thread. Shipping from SFO to Zeebrugge is actually 3 weeks (pretty consistent). Loading takes another 3 days, unloading 2. Add transport from Fremont to Pier 80 and from Zeebrugge to the nearest delivery center and it's easily 4 weeks for Belgian deliveries. Best case scenario for Germany, the Netherlands and France is 5 weeks. The window of opportunity to produce EU cars for Q2 is therefore too small imho. Together with pent up US demand for a factory that is retooled to more efficiently produce the model Y, I don't see any European Model 3 arrivals happening in Q2. Tesla will just sell out existing stock here and refill the pipeline in Q3.

On another thread someone said that the shipping SFO to Zeebrugge can be accelerated if they ship on land to east coast first and from there by ship to Zeebrugge. Anyway, very few weeks left for production of cars to be delivered in Q2 in Europe.

 

[Troy]

We are close to completing Q1 data. There are only 2 entries pending approval.

 

[Troy]

The official UK registration numbers for Q4 2019 have been released here. Q4 total was 5,577 units. Our estimate was 5,677 which is 98.2% accurate. Tesla's market share was 5,577/458,409= 1.2%. I have now updated the 2019 table here.

Here is how the data looks like:

The UK only publishes quarterly numbers but not monthly. Therefore we calculate the monthly split using the method explained here. Here is how that looks like for Q4 2019:

Model 3 was the 24th best selling car in the UK in Q4 2019. The monthly rank for the last month of the quarter will be higher but that's a bit misleading. However, 24th in such a short time is still pretty good. Q1 numbers will be released in June.

 

[Troy]

Correction: Model 3 was the 17th best selling car in the UK in Q4 2019. The monthly rank for the last month of the quarter will be higher but that's a bit misleading. However, 17th in such a short time is still pretty good. Q1 numbers will be released in June.

The car list starts in row 8 as you can see in the last image.

 

[mrco]

Correction: Model 3 was the 17th best selling car in the UK in Q4 2019. The monthly rank for the last month of the quarter will be higher but that's a bit misleading. However, 17th in such a short time is still pretty good. Q1 numbers will be released in June.

The car list starts in row 8 as you can see in the last image.

M3 was the best selling car in the UK in April, and EVs at 1/3rd of new sales. The new normal
Record -97.3% fall for UK new car market in April as coronavirus shuts showrooms - SMMT

 

[heltok]

Checking inventory levels on Tesla.com website, it looks like a lot fewer cars than a few weeks ago. When I bought my inventory X two weeks ago there was like 15 Model X to choose from, now theres two(both P). Checked some other countries, Norway, Germany etc and inventory levels seem very low. No demand problem and people know that it might be a while until Freemont starts shipping new orders to Europe so best get a Tesla before they become the new toilet paper.

 

[Watts_Up]

I'm kind of surprised about the registration numbers for the Land Rover-Range Rover.
This car costs about twice as much as a Ford Fiesta or Volkswagen Golf.
Does the LR-RR is a favorite leased company car or is it mostly bought for personal usage?

 

[Doggydogworld]

Checking inventory levels on Tesla.com website, it looks like a lot fewer cars than a few weeks ago. When I bought my inventory X two weeks ago there was like 15 Model X to choose from, now theres two(both P). Checked some other countries, Norway, Germany etc and inventory levels seem very low. No demand problem and people know that it might be a while until Freemont starts shipping new orders to Europe so best get a Tesla before they become the new toilet paper.

I bet they ship GF3 Model 3s to Europe this quarter and focus Fremont on Model Y.

 

[heltok]

I bet they ship GF3 Model 3s to Europe this quarter and focus Fremont on Model Y.

I have a feeling Model 3 produced in Q2 might not reach Europe in Q2, making Q2 numbers look terrible if they decide to ship them to Europe. Thus I fear they will wait until start of Q3 to start shipping Model 3 to Europe and Q3 will be insane for Europe.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

I have a feeling Model 3 produced in Q2 might not reach Europe in Q2, making Q2 numbers look terrible if they decide to ship them to Europe. Thus I fear they will wait until start of Q3 to start shipping Model 3 to Europe and Q3 will be insane for Europe.

I bet they ship GF3 Model 3s to Europe this quarter and focus Fremont on Model Y.

Penny-wise and pound foolish. The GF3 model 3's have the GB/T charging port, with zero parts for Type 2 menneke's port the euro model 3.

Also, revising GF3 to produce model 3's now, instead of waiting a few weeks for Fremont to open, might not save any time at all AND could potentially starve china in the process. It'd make more sense for Tesla to use the supply shortage as leverage to push past the red tape in Germany and trigger local support for the factory to be built faster.

 

[Troy]

I think that's a question for @Troy . He is tracking every shipment and calculates volumes by load times.

@LN1_Casey, @mrdoubleb,

I'm calculating the following:

28,073 units shipped to Europe in Q1, plus
3,061 units they had left from Q4, minus
23,721 units sold in Q1 would mean,
7,413 units in inventory in Europe at the end of Q1 2020.

Btw, I think the last production date for Europe can be 20 May 2020 and I estimate they need to ship 13,287 units to cover demand. Also, it looks like GA4 (aka the tent) now makes Model Y. Therefore S/X/3 prod capacity dropped to 945/day which means 14 days at 100% is needed but they are not going to get back to 100% immediately, not to mention it's going to be less than 14 days even if production starts in the next few days.

I will update my Q2 delivery estimate in a few days on twitter. I'm waiting for China Q1 production numbers.

 

[MC3OZ]

@LN1_Casey, @mrdoubleb,

I'm calculating the following:

28,073 units shipped to Europe in Q1, plus
3,061 units they had left from Q4, minus
23,721 units sold in Q1 would mean,
7,413 units in inventory in Europe at the end of Q1 2020.

Btw, I think the last production date for Europe can be 20 May 2020 and I estimate they need to ship 13,287 units to cover demand. Also, it looks like GA4 (aka the tent) now makes Model Y. Therefore S/X/3 prod capacity dropped to 945/day which means 14 days at 100% is needed but they are not going to get back to 100% immediately, not to mention it's going to be less than 14 days even if production starts in the next few days.

I will update my Q2 delivery estimate in a few days on twitter. I'm waiting for China Q1 production numbers.

Do you think they might ship to Europe/UK from the US East Coast as a one off in Q2?
That might push the date to something like May 27-30?
Obviously higher shipping costs, and I'm not sure how much time that saves.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Penny-wise and pound foolish. The GF3 model 3's have the GB/T charging port, with zero parts for Type 2 menneke's port the euro model 3.

Also, revising GF3 to produce model 3's now, instead of waiting a few weeks for Fremont to open, might not save any time at all AND could potentially starve china in the process. It'd make more sense for Tesla to use the supply shortage as leverage to push past the red tape in Germany and trigger local support for the factory to be built faster.

Charging ports are trivial -- Fremont did all three. I see GF3 supplying Model 3s to Europe for years, so it's easily worth the minimal effort. But GF3 isn't making anything at the moment, so we'll see what happens.

 

[sweter]

I just had a look through configurator for Model 3 and it looks like all European countries (incl. UK and Norway) have August as estimated delivery. So yea, this would mean no ships in Q2.

 

[ggr]

I just had a look through configurator for Model 3 and it looks like all European countries (incl. UK and Norway) have August as estimated delivery. So yea, this would mean no ships in Q2.

Not necessarily, it just means that anything on ships in Q2 is already spoken for.

 

[mrco]

M3 was the best selling car in the UK in April, and EVs at 1/3rd of new sales. The new normal
Record -97.3% fall for UK new car market in April as coronavirus shuts showrooms - SMMT

M3 biggest selling vehicle in UK again in May, definitely the new normal
UK new car sales down -89.0% in May as ‘click and collect’ sparks hope ahead of showroom re-opening - SMMT

 

[Chocochip]

M3 biggest selling vehicle in UK again in May, definitely the new normal
UK new car sales down -89.0% in May as ‘click and collect’ sparks hope ahead of showroom re-opening - SMMT

Unless someone has some extra info, it makes sense that all cars delivered in Europe this quarter (at least so far) have been produced in Fremont in Jan. and Feb. and were held as inventory over the past 2-3 months. It doesn't seem likely that Fremont production (incl. the necessary spool-up for a couple weeks after reopening) would be for Europe, but rather Tesla would focus on producing for the US (and maybe Canada) and on ramping up the Y production, again for the US. And so, while they may still have some cars in inventory for June due to softer-than-normal demand over the past 2 months, I expect the June numbers to look worse (relative to other brands, not necessarily in absolute values) than April & May. I just had a look at the inventory on the UK site, there are only 6 variants (combinations of P/non-P, colours, FSD) available, so probably not much in stock.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Unless someone has some extra info, it makes sense that all cars delivered in Europe this quarter (at least so far) have been produced in Fremont in Jan. and Feb. and were held as inventory over the past 2-3 months. It doesn't seem likely that Fremont production (incl. the necessary spool-up for a couple weeks after reopening) would be for Europe, but rather Tesla would focus on producing for the US (and maybe Canada) and on ramping up the Y production, again for the US. And so, while they may still have some cars in inventory for June due to softer-than-normal demand over the past 2 months, I expect the June numbers to look worse (relative to other brands, not necessarily in absolute values) than April & May. I just had a look at the inventory on the UK site, there are only 6 variants (combinations of P/non-P, colours, FSD) available, so probably not much in stock.

Tesla only sent one ship from Pier 80 to Europe this quarter, it should arrive around June 19th with 3.0-3.5k cars. They also sent a ship to Korea and one to Shanghai. Figure ~10k cars total. They also use container ships, e.g. to AUS/NZ and S/X CKDs to Tilburg, but these locations may already have ample inventory.

New inventory popped up on their web site in Europe a week or two ago, about the time they were loading the Grand Venus at Pier 80. Tesla never shows all their inventory at once and they sometimes include cars which are still on ships. I haven't seen anyone dig into the VINs and figure out how much of the new inventory was Q1 vs. Q2 production.

 

[Troy]

Hi everybody. We have the official registration numbers for the UK for Q1 2020. You can download the data HERE. This is the smaller file that shows the table you see below. If you want to see the trim levels too, you can download the larger file HERE.

• 5,367 Model 3 (I assumed the 2 car listed as 'model missing' are Model 3)
• 155 Model S
• 178 Model X
• 5,700 in total

Because the official numbers are released late, we use estimates in the meantime. The estimate we were using for Q1 2020 was 5,722 units. That's only 22 units off.

The UK releases only quarterly numbers instead of monthly. Therefore we use SMMT numbers (the same source we use for estimates) to split the quarterly numbers into monthly. This method is explained HERE in case you are interested. The numbers in orange show the monthly split that was calculated from the official quarterly numbers.