Estimating EU reservations

It seems that it would be possible to get a reliable figure for the number of finalized reservations in the EU. The reason is that Tesla issues invoices (for the deposits) to those who have finalized, which have invoice numbers that start at XX00000001, where XX is the country code. Thus, the invoice number from a recently finalized order in a given country one can know how many orders have been finalized there.

The invoice number is found at: My Tesla>View Profile>View Invoices and then clicking the invoice.

Please, people, hunt for invoice numbers from your country and report them here together with the date for finalization.

Here is what I have:


Norway: 2165 (11 August 13)
Denmark: >100 (8 August 13)
Germany: 173 (5 July 2013)
Netherlands (and Belgium?): 1025 (end July 2013)
Belgium: 67
France: 30 (4 June 2013)
Switzerland: 300+?

PS: Would be good to add this to the EU reservations spreadsheet. Not sure who is in charge of that...

NigelM said:

It's up to you guys, although I'n not entirely sure what use it is in any case. Can someone tell me why this is important to the Investors sub-forum?

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Demand being potentially the most important value driver for the stock in the mid-to-long term, I should say this is more relevant than 90% of the threads in this forum.

NigelM said:

Invoicing rate of finalized reservations isn't reflective of true demand; despite the drawbacks it is at best reflective of the conversion rate from existing demand. That said, everyone in the U.S. recognized that the longer term reservation holders had the lowest finalization rates (for a variety of understandable reasons). There's no way to accurately extrapolate invoice numbers to measurement of demand with anything less than a truckload of salt.

Suggestion: the best way of gauging demand potential will be to look at reservation rates after deliveries start, which will be any day now.....

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We could have a debate about the quality of the numbers. I disagree with your first sentence. Take out the possible sources of error (which are unknown, and could be zero), and invoices are measuring exactly what we want to know: The number of people who are willing to put the actual money on the table and sign the contract. By seeing it develop over time, we see the rate at which orders are flowing in. I don't know what more we could have wished for! (And it is data that will only be available much later to investors who do not investigate in this way).

Also, I fail to see better options to gauge this at the moment. You say "look at reservation rates", but how are you going to do that? The progress of the P numbers? They aren't giving out these any more. VINs? These have been scrambled. Guidance at earnings calls? That is too slow - then we get the info at the same time as the rest of the market.


PS: This discussion seems to me to be about the soul of this sub-forum. I thought it was mainly about getting an edge as investors, i.e. to delve into every possible source of data and understanding. But seeing that this thread is questioned - while threads such as "Anyone having a hard time sleeping the past couple weeks because of TSLA?" and "Jim Cramer from Mad Money says we are a cult" have grown long here - I wonder whether it is meant to be more of a social venue for people who bought the stock. That's fine, but then I for one won't have much reason to hang around.

nikwest said:

I think this number is more reflecting the ability of Tesla fulfilling the demand. Usually you finalize about 2 months before delivery.

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No. Since May, all European orders have been asked to finalize right away. This number thus reflects the accumulated demand in each European country to date.

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purplewalt said:

In looking at the Tesla world map, I noticed a large number of dots in Belgium, some in Sweden and Switzerland.
(And these are only the self-reporting numbers)
Might also consider adding those countries to your list.

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Will be added as soon as someone reports an invoice number from each.

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Raffy.Roma said:

How many reservations in Italy?

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Don't know. Need someone to report a recent invoice number from Italy to know.