Tesla is rapidly becoming a cult brand in the United States. How will it fare in Europe? It doesn’t look great so far…
Tesla Model S in Munich @TeslaMotors
A hugely excited tweet from Tesla last Thursday evening (24 January) announced the start of its major sales push in Europe. The first Continental deliveries of its much anticipated all-electric Model S luxury saloon start in late spring.
‘Europe is about to #goelectric!’ promised the tweet. ‘The European #getamped tour kicks off tomorrow in Munich!’
That was more or less the last we have heard of it.
The goelectric hashtag has had nothing about the tour all week while we could only find one tweet under #getamped, an Instagram of a lonely row of demonstrators parked up behind a small sign in Zürich, from @amebuttons.
Possibly the trendy, early adopter types first in the queue for the Model S are not into Twitter. The tour was also announced quite late; emails apparently only went out to customers on 16 January.
Even so, it seems Tesla is struggling to, er, generate the kind of all-out enthusiasm seen in the States where there are already fan clubs and forums buzzing on a daily basis.
The company founder Elon Musk’s on-going public spat with Boeing about the aero manufacturers ‘inherently unsafe’ lithium ion batteries adds continuous fuel to the, er, fire.
Tesla’s high performance battery technology could represent not just a game changer for electric cars – and all vehicles – but also the wider American auto industry which has failed to meaningfully penetrate foreign markets in recent decades. Picture @TeslaMotors
We did ask for comment from Tesla. Someone from the United States went through all DriveEurope’s articles about electric cars later that evening but we didn’t hear back.
To be fair, we discern the #getamped tour is more localised affair than a high profile transcontinental convoy. A fleet of Model Ss will appear at a series of European dealerships through out February offering short test drives for those who have already ordered a car.
‘Your driving session will be approximately 10 minutes long,’ says the bumpf, ’and will follow a predetermined route, designed to highlight the capabilities of Model S.’
After Munich the cars move on to Zurich then Antwerp and Hamburg before finishing in Copenhagen on 24 February.
The tour won’t come to the UK. UK prices are yet to be announced. European prices start at approximately €72,600.
DriveEuropeNews 