Cars will often sit at the port for a week or more either before and/or after shipment. Fisker went out of business after hurricane Sandy destroyed a shipment of their cars destined to Europe that were parked in a lot in New Jersey that flooded. Their insurance company refused to cover the loss.
I don't know how Tesla ships their cars to Europe, but I do know Japanese cars shipped from Japan to Europe are put into containers, shipped to Los Angeles, put on a train to the US East Coast, and then loaded on a ship again. They discovered this was the cheapest way to ship cars to Europe in the 1980s and it saved the US rail industry.
If the cars are sent to Europe in parts, they probably fit a few cars in one container at the factory.
I have thought Tesla could speed up European deliveries by making extra cars ahead, making them incomplete and ship kits of options then the cars can be configured in Tilburg to order. It wouldn't cover European orders completely for example they might run out of blue cars and have to wait for more to arrive, but it would speed up a lot of European deliveries. If they set up a similar factory to Tilburg in Asia and delivered cars to New Zealand and Australia from there, they would never need to switch over the Fremont factory to make right hand drive cars. They could all be assembled in Europe and Asia.
Tesla is always making new demo cars, they could use up excess inventory making demo cars. Hopefully they know ahead of time when they are making equipment changes and they could adjust shipments of parts based on the changes.
With the Model 3, Tesla is learning to do logistics better. Up to know they haven't been great at it. The delays in delivering the prizes from their referral program and the delays in delivering parts to body shops are two examples where their logistics a terrible. They aren't bad at getting built cars in the hands of customers in the US, but I suspect that process only happens because of a lot of extra effort. Smooth logistics is an art form all its own and companies that have poor logistics bleed money.
I don't know how Tesla ships their cars to Europe, but I do know Japanese cars shipped from Japan to Europe are put into containers, shipped to Los Angeles, put on a train to the US East Coast, and then loaded on a ship again. They discovered this was the cheapest way to ship cars to Europe in the 1980s and it saved the US rail industry.
If the cars are sent to Europe in parts, they probably fit a few cars in one container at the factory.
I have thought Tesla could speed up European deliveries by making extra cars ahead, making them incomplete and ship kits of options then the cars can be configured in Tilburg to order. It wouldn't cover European orders completely for example they might run out of blue cars and have to wait for more to arrive, but it would speed up a lot of European deliveries. If they set up a similar factory to Tilburg in Asia and delivered cars to New Zealand and Australia from there, they would never need to switch over the Fremont factory to make right hand drive cars. They could all be assembled in Europe and Asia.
Tesla is always making new demo cars, they could use up excess inventory making demo cars. Hopefully they know ahead of time when they are making equipment changes and they could adjust shipments of parts based on the changes.
With the Model 3, Tesla is learning to do logistics better. Up to know they haven't been great at it. The delays in delivering the prizes from their referral program and the delays in delivering parts to body shops are two examples where their logistics a terrible. They aren't bad at getting built cars in the hands of customers in the US, but I suspect that process only happens because of a lot of extra effort. Smooth logistics is an art form all its own and companies that have poor logistics bleed money.
UPDATE:
