Ms Merkel's stubborn refusal to go along with the rest of the EU on vehicle CO2 emission reductions argues otherwise.
And it does have a tax based on engine size,number of cylinders, and horsepower.
For a start, it is Mrs. Merkel. She is married you know. ;-)
But about our car taxation: sales tax is 19%, no matter what kind of car.
But vehicle tax depends heavily on engine size (and therefor fuel consumption/CO2 emissions), meaning that fuel efficient cars with small engines pay far less than gas guzzlers (and Diesels as well by the way, but that is because Diesel itself is taxed quite a bit lower than gasoline).
BEVs don't pay any car tax for ten years (reduced to five years for cars purchased and registered from 2016 onwards - bad idea imho, they should at least stick to the ten year exemption, it's the only subsidy we get for BEVs here).
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Germany will not pick up until Tesla is competetive. Which they sadly are a long way from being.
1. Fleet sales are a very big part of the german high end market and it usually requires volume discounts. If you don't do volume discounts you don't sell any cars. Period.
2. Options and feature list still have a very long way to go until it catches up with even mid class bmw (5-series) or mercedes (e-class).
3. Same goes for exterior fit and finish as well as interior comfort.
I think they need to be fully on par with the german brands inat least 2 out of the 3 points above before sales start to pick up. For germany to become big market, all 3 are needed.
+1 on all points.
Problem over here is, Model S is priced as a luxury car. And the vast majority of those cars here are not private cars but fleet/corporate sales. As matbl said, large discounts for such cars are very common here, and even for private purchases, people expect to get discounts of at least 10 percent, with some models discounts can go as high as 30% and above, especially on foreign and less popular models. As Tesla isn't willing to negotiate on the price, they will keep having a hard time for now.
Plus, even if one is in the market for a BEV, remember that there are German built alternatives like the i3 or the e-Golf, which are far more affordable, have negotiable prices, and offer stuff Model S doesn't.
I sure hope to see more Model S around, but from what I can see in Frankfurt at the moment, they are not getting more common. I keep looking out for them, but other than test drive cars there aren't many to be seen. Perhaps one a week. Actually there were more around in the months before Christmas than there are now. But perhaps the P85D will really change some things.
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My take on slower uptake of Tesla in Europe as compared to US market:
Tesla's size is too big for many European towns and streets. Tesla can not do much about this.
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My guess would be that car buyers in Europe would be more sensitive to petrol prices rather than Tesla price.
+1 on the size argument. It is definitely too large for European tastes/roads/cities/parking garages etc.
But more important is price. One shouldn't set to much hope on the P85D in Germany either. Even naked withouth options its 106K Euro at the moment. The market for such expensive cars is extremely small anyway. Factor in the "never heard of Tesla" factor, plus the general anti-American-car sentiment and the "not really popular BEV" argument and you arrive at quite a lot of question marks for Tesla over here.
Oh and no, we seem to be less sensitive to petrol prices than to car prices, especially now that petrol prices have dropped quite a bit in the last few months due to low oil price (even if you factor on the big drop in the value of the Euro).
