EU Market Situation and Outlook

[TSLAopt]

And we have lots of data about driving at 75mph from the US. In fair, temperate conditions, I get close to rated range at 75mph (with A/C off, windows up). Maybe a 10% hit (330 wh/mile).

I wonder if they had all the windows down and pano roof wide open? Those add a lot of drag, especially at high speeds.

even with windows down, pano wide open, music blasting, and heat or air conditioning on high it shouldn't make such a significant impact...possibly an extra 10-15% at most but not 50% like they are claiming...and I doubt they had the heat blasting (could be the biggest contributor to a decrease by 10-20%. In range in very very very cold weather and driving fast)

- - - Updated - - -

Hmm. We must have read different articles then. The one I read did a really good job showing some of the challenges that I experience with my Model S. And it should help avoid incorrect expectations about performance when got or cold.
Can you point out factual errors?

He he just did point out the factual errors, how did you not see that?

 

[dirkhh]

He he just did point out the factual errors, how did you not see that?

I was wondering about that one, but without more data on how and what exactly they tested I can't tell one way or the other. I certainly see a significant increase of Wh/mile at 75mph. But not 2x.

So I assumed that something was badly edited there... earlier the article said "Doch das Model S hat Schwierigkeiten, diese Performance auch bei Kälte und Hitze zu halten. Die Reichweiten brechen stark ein (bei konstant 120 km/h um die Hälfte)" - roughly translated "But the Model S has problems to keep this performance in the presence of cold and heat. The range drops dramatically (by half at a constant 120km/h)." I read this to mean that they tested at very low or very high temperatures and at 120km/h the range dropped by 50% compared to 23°C.
And having driven my car at -5°C I find that reasonably believable.

But frankly, that's one of many points made in the article. And the majority of what's said rings true to me.

 

[Newb]

But frankly, that's one of many points made in the article. And the majority of what's said rings true to me.

Fair enough, but not to my ears. Here's a couple of other strange/doubtful results from the test:

Tesla P85+:
- 342 km (212 miles) of range in the test cycle (again ~74 degrees Fahrenheit outside temperature; a/c on; other consumers (radio) on; average speed: 37 mph; with some braking and (normal) accelerating) ...
- 0-60 mph: 4.7 seconds ...

And, surprise surprise, the VW e-Golf is being praised for its "highly reliable range numbers".

With regards to the 115 miles range with a constant 75 mph, here is the original quote from the magazine:
"342 km erreicht das Model S so bei 23° C auf dem TÜV-Prüfstand. Ebenso wichtig ist die Reichweitenkonstanz, hier bricht der Tesla auf der Autobahn um die Hälfte auf 184 km bei konstant 120 km/h ein."

EDIT:

I'm not saying all claims are untrue. Of course, Model S (as any other EV btw) suffers from substantial energy consumption in the winter, mainly due to heating. But what I sincerely oppose is unfair and unbalanced testing, untrue claims, ignorance towars owner's experience, original data from the real cars on the road or other test results, plus the negative tone.

 

[Gerardf]

I did leave a comment (in German) about that last statement being wrong a few hours ago.
Still not showing up on the page.

 

[RobStark]

But frankly, that's one of many points made in the article. And the majority of what's said rings true to me.

The tested range numbers plus the kind worlds for VW electric efforts rings closer to Deutschland über alles than the criticisms of Tesla fanboyism.

 

[Talkredius]

okay I try to translate as best as possible the key points


the ams didn't drive the car until empty.
a) They let the car sit in hot humid weather (30C°) for some time. Then they let the car cool down to 20 C° and drove 31 km@constant speed of 120 km/h on a test high speed track.
b) Then they charged the car at 230 V, 13 Amp single phase until it was full and calculated the losses during charging.
keep in mind : usual charging in Germany is 3phase@16 A or 32 A
c) Then they reduced the shown range by the charging loss.
Example : if the charging loss was 50 km rated range then they would say, the max range of the Model S is 452 km instead of 502 km (usual range of a new car according to NEDC)
d) With the reduced rated range they calculated based on the energy consumption during the 31 km test drive a range of 184 km for a full battery
e) they printed a graphic which says that you can drive only 184 km@120km/h on a the Autobahn. (Keep in mind, they never drove the car on the Autobahn )
They did this in the same manner with VW eGolf, Twizzy, BMWi3 and Nissan Leaf

So Eberhard President of TFF e.V. ( Tesla Fahrer und Freunde / Tesla Drivers and Friends) and me , Vicepresident of TFF e.V. decided to invite German press and TV to a crowd organized test drive of private EV drivers on 23.8.2014 in Hilden. We did drive on the Autobahn, the average driven was 360km@120km/h on the Autobahn for the Model S.
The record holder on this day had driven 554 km with 10 km rated range left, of course with a lower speed but still on the Autobahn.
We had a excellent news coverage, even German TV at prime time. Now the Model S is known as the EV which can drive more than 500 km with a single charge on the Autobahn:biggrin:

 

[Talkredius]

I was wondering about that one, but without more data on how and what exactly they tested I can't tell one way or the other. I certainly see a significant increase of Wh/mile at 75mph. But not 2x.

So I assumed that something was badly edited there... earlier the article said "Doch das Model S hat Schwierigkeiten, diese Performance auch bei Kälte und Hitze zu halten. Die Reichweiten brechen stark ein (bei konstant 120 km/h um die Hälfte)" - roughly translated "But the Model S has problems to keep this performance in the presence of cold and heat. The range drops dramatically (by half at a constant 120km/h)." I read this to mean that they tested at very low or very high temperatures and at 120km/h the range dropped by 50% compared to 23°C.
And having driven my car at -5°C I find that reasonably believable.

But frankly, that's one of many points made in the article. And the majority of what's said rings true to me.

To make this absolute clear : there were two tests

a) the TueV Sued test which was done independently from ams but paid by ams.
Results : 350 km range at 23C° and 248 km @-7C° with the special test conditions defined by TueV Sued

b) the "test" of the ams described in the above post

In the printed ams it looks, as if there was only one test, done and supported by the TueV Sued, but the TueV Sued didn't support the ams "test"

 

[Newb]

okay I try to translate as best as possible the key points


the ams didn't drive the car until empty.
a) They let the car sit in hot humid weather (30C°) for some time. Then they let the car cool down to 20 C° and drove 31 km@constant speed of 120 km/h on a test high speed track.
:biggrin:

Geez, I reckoned their methods were unsound, but this is even worse, also given that they claim 23C degrees outside temperature.

So, this is clearly part of some FUD (as Americans would call it, I guess) .

a big thank you to you and the TFF community for the real-world tests you made. I also applaude German TV for haveing picked this up.

 

[Talkredius]

The tested range numbers plus the kind worlds for VW electric efforts rings closer to Deutschland über alles than the criticisms of Tesla fanboyism.

guess who is placing the most ads in this paper...:wink:

 

[Mario Kadastik]

I hear President Obama is heading to Estonia today to assure them that if Russia attacked they would be defended. I heard this on US Public Radio I was curious if this was getting much airtime on the TVs in radio in Estonia and in the greater EU area.

Oh the TV and radio may have talked about something other than Obama during the day, but I didn't hear/see that part But the public speech he gave here is one for the history books. It's totally off-topic, but for anyone interested here's the speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNVKspJfebk it couldn't have stoked national pride more even if it had tried to. And I think most Estonians are satisfied that our big ally would indeed come to our aid if push came to shove.

 

[hobbes]

48 Models S in Germany in August:

http://www.kba.de/SharedDocs/Publikationen/DE/Statistik/Fahrzeuge/FZ/2014_monatlich/FZ10/fz10_2014_08_pdf.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2

 

[schonelucht]

For the UK, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders releases monthly data. Unfortunately, Tesla is lumped in the 'Other imports' category. When comparing 2013 to 2014 in the months before Tesla started importing into the UK, growth in that category was between 5 and 10%. This is inline with the general market evolution and, I feel, a credible assumption. Let's assume the same trend holds for the months of June, July and August then the difference between the 2014 number and the 2013 number restated for a 5% growth in the general market should give us a fairly accurate view on the number of Teslas registered in the UK.

	2013	2013+5%	2014	Difference (= +- Tesla S)
June	98	103	273	170
July	89	93	180	87
August	30	32	150	118
Total	217	228	603	375

The number in the 2014 column is the hard upper limit, but the number in the last column is far more likely. It also better fits the typical Tesla pattern of having a low number of imports in the first month of a quarter.

 

[hobbes]

Nice calculation. In Germany Tesla numbers used to be in the others category, too, now they are reported indivually, maybe they´ll do that in the UK soon, too.

Just do validate your model, maybe you could expand the table to start a few months before Tesla started deliveries. There the Difference column should show values around zero. If it doesn´t maybe its better to use the 2013+10% instead of 2013+5%.

For the UK, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders releases monthly data. Unfortunately, Tesla is lumped in the 'Other imports' category. When comparing 2013 to 2014 in the months before Tesla started importing into the UK, growth in that category was between 5 and 10%. This is inline with the general market evolution and, I feel, a credible assumption. Let's assume the same trend holds for the months of June, July and August then the difference between the 2014 number and the 2013 number restated for a 5% growth in the general market should give us a fairly accurate view on the number of Teslas registered in the UK.

	2013	2013+5%	2014	Difference (= +- Tesla S)
June	98	103	273	170
July	89	93	180	87
August	30	32	150	118
Total	217	228	603	375

The number in the 2014 column is the hard upper limit, but the number in the last column is far more likely. It also better fits the typical Tesla pattern of having a low number of imports in the first month of a quarter.

 

[schonelucht]

Well, good thing you enticed me to do so. Because it seems the months before June show a big variation in the numbers and I happened to sample the one month that goes against the grain. Here's the full table

	2013	2014
January	63	54
February	14	9
March	138	146
April	94	76
May	106	65

So Other imports may actually be on a downward trend for 2014 in the UK which would allow for some upside (by 5-15 cars/month) in the numbers of Teslas delivered I posted earlier. This brings the June number very close to 200, a number from a completely different source, another indicator that this methodology may be accurate.

 

[mostapasta]

I like that UK estimate schonelucht. I tried contacting SMMT UK, but they refused to break out Tesla at this point.

So far:

 

[hobbes]

Prepared a plot of your numbers, showing difference in monthly sales 2014 - 2013. The horizontal lines are the averages Jan-May and Jun-Aug, the difference between those two is 129 cars, which would be my best guess for Model S sales average Jun-Aug, so 390 total rounded, always assuming all the extra cars are Teslas. And for June, this really looks like 200.

Actually, the lower number in "other EV sales" could be people who had ordered their Model S and didn´t buy another EV because of that.

 

[Newb]

Lately, I was thinking about the prospective EU market situation for the upcoming Model X, and I would like to share some thoughts on the potential sales numbers of the Model X over here in Germany.

1. Tesla Model S has a market segment share of 2.6% in Germany ("Oberklasse", i.e. S-Class/CLS-Class, Audi A7/8, BMW 6/7, etc.). Given that this share won't change and total sales in the segment stay on course, we will have about 800 new Model S registrations in 2014 in Germany. (Total Oberklasse segment: estimated 30.500 cars in 2014)

2. Tesla Model X will (most probably) join the "Geländewagen" segment (Audi Q5/Q7, BMW X5/X6, Mercedes ML-Class, Porsche Cayenne/Macan) which is much larger here in Germany. We are well on track to have 240.000 cars registered in this segment in 2014. If Tesla Model X is at least as popular as the Model S (2.6% of the segment), that would sum up to a potential of 6240 Model X registrations in 2015 (given that segment size remains the same more or less). But, of course, since deliveries to the EU will only start in (late) summer 2015, actual registrations will be much much lower, probably won't even hit the 1.000 mark, I'd guess.

But at least those numbers point to the much higher potential for Tesla Model X sales in Germany, compared to the Model S. SUVs are simply much more popular than luxury class / premium sedans. To be fair, the 240k cars in this segment mentioned above, also involves less expensive small SUVs like the Audi Q3 and VW Tiguan, which both account for more than one third of the whole segment. In any case, and this is the bottom line, I think, market potential for Model X is significantly bigger than for the Model S over here.

 

[Rebel44]

It would be nice if in response to current crisis in Ukraine, EU pushed people and companies to decrease consumption of oil and natural gas by promoting efficiency and alternatives - scrapping VAT on EVs would be good way to help with that.

 

[matbl]

Lately, I was thinking about the prospective EU market situation for the upcoming Model X, and I would like to share some thoughts on the potential sales numbers of the Model X over here in Germany.

1. Tesla Model S has a market segment share of 2.6% in Germany ("Oberklasse", i.e. S-Class/CLS-Class, Audi A7/8, BMW 6/7, etc.). Given that this share won't change and total sales in the segment stay on course, we will have about 800 new Model S registrations in 2014 in Germany. (Total Oberklasse segment: estimated 30.500 cars in 2014)

2. Tesla Model X will (most probably) join the "Geländewagen" segment (Audi Q5/Q7, BMW X5/X6, Mercedes ML-Class, Porsche Cayenne/Macan) which is much larger here in Germany. We are well on track to have 240.000 cars registered in this segment in 2014. If Tesla Model X is at least as popular as the Model S (2.6% of the segment), that would sum up to a potential of 6240 Model X registrations in 2015 (given that segment size remains the same more or less). But, of course, since deliveries to the EU will only start in (late) summer 2015, actual registrations will be much much lower, probably won't even hit the 1.000 mark, I'd guess.

But at least those numbers point to the much higher potential for Tesla Model X sales in Germany, compared to the Model S. SUVs are simply much more popular than luxury class / premium sedans. To be fair, the 240k cars in this segment mentioned above, also involves less expensive small SUVs like the Audi Q3 and VW Tiguan, which both account for more than one third of the whole segment. In any case, and this is the bottom line, I think, market potential for Model X is significantly bigger than for the Model S over here.

I kind of disagree with your numbers but not necessarily with your conclusion in your last sentence. For the numbers to be relevant, I think you need to place Model S in the same class as BMW 5, Audi A6 and Mercedes E-class in point 1 and then recalculate. And I say that currently driving a Model S and my two previous cars were BMW 5'ers.

 

[Newb]

I kind of disagree with your numbers but not necessarily with your conclusion in your last sentence. For the numbers to be relevant, I think you need to place Model S in the same class as BMW 5, Audi A6 and Mercedes E-class in point 1 and then recalculate. And I say that currently driving a Model S and my two previous cars were BMW 5'ers.

Well, it is not a matter of me putting the Model S in a class with BMW 7, Audi 7/8, S-Class, etc.. It's the German Federal Office for Motor Vehicles which assigns cars into segments/classes, based on some specific aspects. Model S is in the so called Oberklasse-Segment, and there it has a 2.6% market share in Germany. And the numbers I have posted, are official registration numbers from that very federal office with some basic math (extrapolation for the whole year).

Source, if you want to check yourself: Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt - Startseite