Sizable Shipment of Tesla Model 3s Set for Norway
Tesla Inc. is set to make one of the largest deliveries yet of its new Model 3 car to Norway, one of the electric vehicle producer’s biggest markets.
The Glovis Courage is due at the Port of Oslo on March 14, loaded with about 1,800 Teslas, according to an e-mail sent by the port to businesses located near the dock.
It wasn’t clear how many were Model 3s, but that car largely has outpaced the older Model X and S in new registrations in Norway so far this year. If that’s any indication, most of the cars are likely to be Model 3s.
A spokesman for Tesla in Norway declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Port of Oslo confirmed the ship was due at about 1 p.m. on March 14 with Teslas aboard, but said she couldn’t provide more details.
The global rollout of the Model 3, Tesla’s first mass-market vehicle, is a key event for the California-based carmaker, which is struggling to prove it can stay profitable. CEO Elon Musk also is at risk of facing more regulatory fallout from his tweets about the company.
Tesla’s Norwegian operations are closely watched. The Nordic country of little more than 5 million people has the world’s highest number of electric vehicles per capita, thanks to generous incentives. It was Tesla’s fourth-biggest market worldwide in the first nine months of last year, trailing only the United States, China and the Netherlands.
Musk visited Norway last month, holding talks with staff on how to hasten fixes to the company’s service capacity in the country after delays and bottlenecks frustrated customers last year.
The 1,800 Teslas arriving in Oslo on March 14 will be offloaded starting early the morning of March 15, before being transported to the town of Lillestrom. The cars will then be readied for delivery to customers, a process that includes fitting them with winter tires.
Some 808 Model 3s were registered in Norway in January and February, according to the Norwegian Road Federation, an independent organization that compiles data and lobbies authorities on road policy. That makes it the fifth most-registered car in Norway this year, and compares with 291 Model X SUVs.
Another tally at teslastats.no, an independent website, put the number of registrations of Model 3s in Norway this year at 2,188, including 1,559 so far in March. That’s about four times as many as the two other models combined.
Emission-free vehicles made up more than 40% of new car registrations in Norway in February, the road federation said.
