Tesla Model S Germany Sales Not Off To A Hot Start

The Tesla Model S’s great success — high sales, great reviews, near universal acclaim, etc — apparently doesn’t extend everywhere. Recent reports from the International Business Times indicate that sales have been rather underwhelming in a number of important European markets, especially the very important market of Germany.

The response in most parts of Europe has been quite enthusiastic, though, so it’s certainly not a wash-out for Tesla — the Model S was actually even the best-selling vehicle, of any type, in Norway for a period of a couple of weeks. That’s quite an impressive feat for any vehicle, much less an EV — and from a relatively new company at that. It certainly speaks to the quality of the Model S, in spite of the poor showing in Germany to date.

Autoblog Green provides more info:

The numbers from IBT indicate that Tesla’s sales in Norway hit 801 in the first two months of availability. In Holland, Denmark and Germany it was just 531 – for all three. There were 348 sold in Holland and 85 in Denmark those first two months.

That leaves 98 sold in Germany in those two months, quite a ways behind the country’s best-selling EVs. The Smart ED sold 146 units in Germany just in September, and even the Renault Zoe and the Nissan Leaf outsold the Model S that month. Those two EVs sold 57 and 55 units, respectively.

When you consider the fact that Germany is a much, much larger market than Norway, those sales figures just aren’t that good. Of course, Norway does have an advantage in that the government there has very attractive incentives in place to spur EV adoption. Tesla is set to release its third-quarter quarterly earnings report on November 5 — it’ll be interesting to see what effect, if any, the low sales have had on the company’s financials and projections.