raymond
Member
Does anyone here driving a US spec Roadster in Europe remember which changes had to be made to your car? One member mentioned replacing red LEDs with orange LEDs.
Is there more?
About a year ago I asked the Dutch organisation in charge of approving imported cars ("RDW") about what required changes are typical when importing a US car to the EU. Their reply (translated):
1. Permanently lit orange lights on the front of the car need to be disabled [easy]
2. A fog light must be present; the fog light switch must contain an embedded warning indicator [to show the light is on]
3. Red reflectors on the side must be removed or replaced by orange ones
4. Signal (turn) indicators must be present on the front sides [not sure if the Tesla indicators would pass]
5. Headlights must comply to EU light pattern [I did this once for a Japanese import; you typically need to replace the headlights]
I have explicitly asked about the coloring of the lights and was told that red turn signals are legal and need not be replaced by orange ones.
There are quite a few shops over here that do this on a daily basis as the difference between US import prices and EU prices can be HUGE.
And really: it is just a car. A battery, a motor, brakes. We've seen all that before. And grey imports are just that: imports. Happens every day, completely legal, etc. And Tesla doesn't want a bad rep. and they want to keep selling Tesla's in Europe.
I'd say: go for it!