Maybe a little off topic for this thread, but the official numbers for the Netherlands have also been posted. So far, a disappointing 17 Model S's were registered in 2014. (7 in Jan, 10 in Feb). The tightening on fiscal rules for EV cars unfortunately clearly had a bigger impact than any technological reasons (like charging, concern about fires, etc...) This is both good and bad news : it means consumers aren't rejecting the Model S for possibly reported shortcomings on the one hand, but it also means that the Model S currently isn't a strong enough value proposition for Dutch consumers without the previous extraordinary fiscal incentives in place (just to be clear, there is still a strong fiscal stimulus for EV cars, just not as stupenduously strong as it used to be) I don't know the German market as well as I know the Dutch market, but I would not be surprised if the same holds.
The recent price cuts hopefully will help a bit, but if a further reduction would be necessary to convince Dutch buyers, I fear we won't see an increase in the numbers of Model S's for a good while in the Netherlands because there are other markets waiting to be opened that are still prepared to pay the 25% margin Tesla is aiming for. From the company's point of view it would make sense to focus on those countries first and scale the sales organisation in the Netherlands back (because, given its size, it won't be sustainable with sales of just a dozen cars a month).
It's going to be very interesting to see where the march and april numbers are going to be!
