EU Market Situation and Outlook

[Yggdrasill]

Thanks for the update YGGdrasill!

As it happens Paulos Santos choose today to try to spin FUD about Norway VAT exemption ending this year.

Tesla Is Having A Bumper March In Norway But That Just Brings The Ugliness Closer - Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) | Seeking Alpha

I don't think the article is that bad. It considers more the effect of people *thinking* the incentives will end more than the incentives actually ending.

But it exaggerates the degree to which damand is pulled forward, because the incentives aren't just about VAT. The uncertainty that the review of the incentives has generated has more than one effect. Exemption from road tolls and ferry tolls, significantly lower annual registration fee, access to bus lanes, free charging, free parking, etc - all these are benefits that you receive *after* buying an EV, slowly over time. Prospective buyers who until recently have been cautious in assessing the value of these incentives, seeing that they might possibly all be gone 1. January 2016, will now be reassured that the incentives will last at least until 1. January 2018. This definitely matters to the prospective buyer. Two years of these incentives will for some people amount to more than 10k USD. (For most people it will amount to a few thousand USD.)

So, while some of the demand has probably been pulled forward due to the uncertainty surrounding exemption from VAT, this is more than offset by the continuation of the other incentives. Tesla should be fine, demand-wise. (And the cheaper EVs should do even better, as the incentives matter a lot more in the lower priced segments.)

Edit: Also, it's true we're probably seeing an initial burst of S85D and P85D, and then the sustained demand/deliveries will settle at a lower level. But by the end of the year, Model X deliveries will start, which will again increase demand. 2016 will in all probability be Tesla's best year yet in Norway.

 

[Johan]

It's actually one of Santos' less appalling articles, even if it's bearishly skewed.

The incentives going away eventually does matter for demand, and will put a damper on demand. But this negative effect will be dwarfed by one or several orders of magnitude by the positive effect of a rapidly growing potential customer base. What I mean by this is that the total number of Norwegians even considering buying a BEV is going to be SIGNIFICANTLY higher in say 2016 than in 2014, or fir that matter 2018 compared to 2016. This is because awareness of EV technology is growing rapidly, infrastructure is being built out. Don't underestimate the effect of "my neighbor has one and he loves it". Only a smaller proportion of the population are early adopters. Next come the masses, the people who want to wait a bit to feel safe that the new technology is dependable, works for regular people with regular lives etc. in Norway I'd say that in 2015/2016 we're moving past the early adopter stage. More than 10% of new cars registered so far in 2015 are BEVs.

 

[Gerardf]

It's actually one of Santos' less appalling articles, even if it's bearishly skewed. .

Well, everything is relative. I find it hard to believe SA accepts these very biased anti-TSLA articles from Mr. Santos.

Seems to me Mr. Santos has a very clear agenda, and my impression was he wanted to make an effort in proactively spreading FUD in order to counteract good news from strong delivery figures in Norway. Actually two significant parts of his 'analysis' were proven wrong within hours of him publishing it on S.A. ("China where things look ugly" and his references to the Norwegian incentives . )

However, I have not seen any corrections or even amendments to his 'article'.

 

[Robert.Boston]

SA accepts almost anything that generates lots of site traffic. It has no ​editorial integrity; I don't think even they pretend to. Santos generates clicks, so Santos is welcome on SA.

 

[hobbes]

1111 Model Ss registered in Norway in March as of this (Tue) morning: elbilforum.no
The post also mentions that Model S is only 12 cars behind Volkswagen eGolf+eUp, we might catch up today!

THX to Amoss and his script .

 

[SteveG3]

I can understand what you guys are saying about Santos' SA "article." Honestly, I'd only skimmed it, as I saw it in the context of what I believe to be a connection to FUD from the week before (not to mention the context of Santos' multi-year FUD habit).

On March 20th, Anton Wahlman, (he and Santos being among the 3 or 4 most prolific individuals at pushing rubbish on Seeking Alpha) came out with an "article" saying that Tesla had only about 300 deliveries in Norway to date in March, and then tried to portray March 2015 deliveries vs. last year's as some widely agreed upon critical litmus test of demand that Tesla was looking destined to woefully fail and thus miss Q1 and likely Q2 guidance. Now, that Tesla has more than tripled the March total in about a week, I read Santos "article" as an attempt to do "damage control" to Wahlman's misguided failed attempt at FUD, and create a new FUD talking point.

fwiw, nearly all of Wahlman's stuff is now on Seeking Alpha, but the piece I mentioned had been on the Street.com, which has just about completely cut off putting out anything from Wahlman.

Sorry, the page you requested could not be found - TheStreet

Update: I believe link works despite what it reads. Title of Wahlman piece was "These Numbers Could Mean Another Quarterly Guide Down for Tesla"

 

[dalalsid]

Does a site exist that shows you financial news and you can blacklist authors? I'd like to remove Anton W., Paulo S., Ben Levishon (or however you spell the guys name), Shuli Ren and some others who constantly pump out random garbage or write one line articles taking things out of context or highlighting random flaws.

 

[mrdoubleb]

Can one of you smart people make a table with the totals for Europe Q1 like we used to do for previous quarters? Seems to me Europe looks pretty strong this quarter, but the info is here and there over the thread. If the China estimate of 1400-1500 over the other thread holds true, that 9500 target seems all but a sure bet as the floor.

 

[hobbes]

Q1 2015 Sales: Wiki Table

Can one of you smart people make a table with the totals for Europe Q1 like we used to do for previous quarters?

I´ll do anything if you call me smart .

My first try at a wiki post - added data from mostapasta´s table as of Feb and current Norway numbers.
As new March numbers come in in the next days you can put them in the table:
Europe Q1 2015 Model S sales

Is there a way to automatically compute sums in a wiki table?

 

[mrdoubleb]

I´ll do anything if you call me smart .

My first try at a wiki post - added data from mostapasta´s table as of Feb and current Norway numbers.
As new March numbers come in in the next days you can put them in the table:
Europe Q1 2015 Model S sales

Is there a way to automatically compute sums in a wiki table?

Yesss! He took the bait! :tongue: Seriously though, thank you, hobbes!

So looking at the data, Norway was responsible for 40% of the sales in January & February, with the rest of Europe doing 60%. Now I don't expect that to hold in March as that would be unrealistic, but even if the other counties only "pulled a January", we could add 400 to the total and that's probably lowballing it, given that the last month of the quarter is historically the strongest. So 2500 for Q1 Europe looks like the bare minimum we'll have, 2700 may be a reasonable bet.

If you add to that the roughly 1300 the China thread estimates, you are at 4000. Completely out of the blue, say 500 for the rest fo the globe outside the US (Canada, Hong Kong -unless already part of the China guesstimate, etc) and we are at 4500. I am pretty sure the US can pull off 5000, especialy if you consider the 1400 P85Ds that slipped to Q1 - assuming that was all US deliveries as no others were officially scheduled for Q4.

There is no way Q1 is not a beat! Tell me I'm crazy!

 

[FredTMC]

Yesss! He took the bait! :tongue: Seriously though, thank you, hobbes!

So looking at the data, Norway was responsible for 40% of the sales in January & February, with the rest of Europe doing 60%. Now I don't expect that to hold in March as that would be unrealistic, but even if the other counties only "pulled a January", we could add 400 to the total and that's probably lowballing it, given that the last month of the quarter is historically the strongest. So 2500 for Q1 Europe looks like the bare minimum we'll have, 2700 may be a reasonable bet.

If you add to that the roughly 1300 the China thread estimates, you are at 4000. Completely out of the blue, say 500 for the rest fo the globe outside the US (Canada, Hong Kong -unless already part of the China guesstimate, etc) and we are at 4500. I am pretty sure the US can pull off 5000, especialy if you consider the 1400 P85Ds that slipped to Q1 - assuming that was all US deliveries as no others were officially scheduled for Q4.

There is no way Q1 is not a beat! Tell me I'm crazy!

Sorry. You're NOT crazy.

 

[hobbes]

Yesss! He took the bait! :tongue: Seriously though, thank you, hobbes!

Sure. However, the main work on this table is still coming up as new numbers come in, so everyone: Help putting the puzzle together! The credits for all the data in the table now go to mostapasta (copied numbers from his table) and our Norwegian friends.

 

[matbl]

March number for sweden as reported by bil sweden: 98. But their number usually lacks the last couple of days of registrations. So probably a few more...

 

[Newb]

Thx matbl! I've updated the wiki with an estimate of 100 for Sweden. [which is a huge number for a single month in Sweden btw! best ever probably?]

 

[RobStark]

Thx matbl! I've updated the wiki with an estimate of 100 for Sweden. [which is a huge number for a single month in Sweden btw! best ever probably?]

In March 2014 Tesla sold 26 Model S in Sweden.

So if your estimate is accurate that is an increase of almost 300%!


In Germany, last March was 143. I am hoping Tesla at least triples that number.

 

[Newb]

So 2500 for Q1 Europe looks like the bare minimum we'll have, 2700 may be a reasonable bet.

Based on well-founded estimates for Germany and Sweden, we've already crossed the line of 2500 for Q1 Europe, with numbers for at least 10 European countries outstanding...

P.S.: By the way, BIG thank you to hobbes for the wiki and mostapasta for the ground work.
P.S.S.: I've edited February numbers for France and Switzerland, too.

- - - Updated - - -

Austria numbers just in!!! 63 in March 2015!! [compared to just 25 in March 2014 (+150%)]

 

[hobbes]

Wow, that´s fun seeing those numbers come in. If you take the March data for Norway, Sweden and Germany and divide by their total for Jan and Feb, you get a factor of 2.9. Total for all of Europe for Jan+Feb was above 1000... Just saying - don´t really dare to draw the conclusion from that extrapolation just yet...

 

[matbl]

In March 2014 Tesla sold 26 Model S in Sweden.

So if your estimate is accurate that is an increase of almost 300%!


In Germany, last March was 143. I am hoping Tesla at least triples that number.

For sweden, comparing with March 2014 isn't really relevant. At that time, the few deliveries taking place was for orders made at or soon after the first test drive events and before there were any store or service center.

- - - Updated - - -

Where is the Germany number coming from? And any final number for norway yet?

 

[Car4CivilizedAge]

For sweden, comparing with March 2014 isn't really relevant. At that time, the few deliveries taking place was for orders made at or soon after the first test drive events and before there were any store or service center.

- - - Updated - - -

Where is the Germany number coming from? And any final number for norway yet?

Final march number for Norway reported to be 1140 Model S. This makes the Model S number one sold EV in March. For Q1 as well I think.

"Normal" Dual engine only started delivering 13th of March, so expect good numbers in Q2.

 

[hobbes]

Updated the wiki table with today´s Norway number:

Europe Q1 2015 Model S sales

If you get new numbers, you can also put them in yourself!


Updated:
O.k., EVEnthusiast was quicker