Well in reality it's two Model S's, but one will continue its way to Finland immediately and be registered there so that kind of only half counts 
Also I'm currently guessing that they are the first two cars because at least on 31.10.2013 there were 0 registered Model S's in Estonia, I will know for 100% certainty tomorrow when I call our equivalent of DMV because I want to validate that all paperwork is pre-arranged and ready when the car arrives (they've been super supportive btw).
It's been an eventful ride getting here and will be an even more eventful ride going forward for sure. So I thought of creating a thread where I will keep track of all that is happening in the pre-anticipation of final delivery as well as the first impressions and hassles it takes for a first car of a country Some probably have already followed some of my posts at various threads, but I thought to summarize it here so that I have one thread that I can keep updated as I always have a tendency to jabber a lot, especially when anxious and anticipating something nice
So to tell everything honestly I'd have to start from the very beginning. I had been interested in Tesla as such for a very long time and following the progress it was making. I knew there had even been a roadster in Estonia owned by a guy who owns the casino chain and at least used to be the richest person in Estonia. I had never imagined that I'd be actually able to purchase the car, but just for the fun of it when the cars actually started to arrive I started to investigate this July/August. I used the configurator and started to look into what it'd cost. I immediately went with the 85 kWh battery as I'd really prefer driving as much as possible without the need to charge anywhere but at home and have at times to take a round trip to Tartu that is 187km away so with the S60 it'd be a close call in summer and a definite miss in winter. With the 85 kWh battery it'll be a sneeze in summer and might just make it in winter depending on conditions. Now the infrastructure around here is one of the best in world. We have a charger every 50-60km and every single one of them can do 3x32A Type-II or CHAdeMO at 50kW so at worst I'd just need to stop for a short time and recharge the missing 20-30km.
Having a first price idea I started to compute the TCO of the car and was seriously surprised that the TCO barring insurance came to be only slightly above my costs of the car I was driving at the time (Evo X) which was a 3x cheaper car. So I got really excited and started to investigate further. Being a person who always digs to the deepest details when he gets interested in something I immediately delved into TMC and TM forum (excellent resources, grats to all who have answered my tons of questions here) as well as started to organize and enquire about all the aspects needed to operate the car here.
So first off financing. Estonia has a neat incentive program where EV's are subsidized with up to 18 000 eur if they are new (or at least less than 6 months old) and the subsidy must not exceed 50% for private citizens or 35% for companies. With the MS it was a no brainer as already the base 60 kWh model exceeds those conditions to qualify for the maximum 18k. So the car was going to be 18k cheaper than configured. I also planned to take it into financing, but that got a bit problematic at first. Namely I found out that all banks in Estonia had a requirement that the car will only be taken into financing when the car is registered in Estonia however Tesla requires pre-payment before delivery. So a serious chicken and egg problem. Luckily enough after some tedious discussions the bank did agree that if I purchase the car myself, transport it to Estonia and register they will buy it from me into financing. After some more haggling because they were unsure initially what to leave as the remainder value after 5 years I was able to get them to agree on 20% (I had proposed 25%, they 15%, 20% was compromise).
So financing taken care of the next big aspect was insurance. I took one of the portals that allows you to enter the car details and it'll get you insurance pricing from all insurance companies to compare. First hurdle of course was that Tesla was not in the list to be selected so I had to write an e-mail to the site owners to make them do the query manually. Only two companies came up, the two biggest. And the sight wasn't pretty. Their initial offers were for 8000€ / year to insure the car at relatively outrageous conditions (€1000-€3000 deductible, remote tracking install required and they wouldn't cover transport to Tesla for repairs). So a two month long haggling ensued where I managed to work myself up to heads of risk assessment in those insurances and had long chats with them face to face introducing the car, the drivetrain the risks. I even asked Tesla to provide me with common parts needed for repair and their pricing. Overall they were not too keen to reduce the pricing, but one was willing to come down to ca €4500 and the risk head was actually really curious about the Model S and really curious about the Model X for himself). I also pushed then my banks insurance who had originally flat out refused to insure to give me contacts to their risk management head. The person called me one afternoon and we had a 1.5h chat over the phone about the car, the risks involved and what they worried about and what I could alleviate. I sent him tons of threads from here including the huge accidents that were highlighted and showed how little damage the car took. Just around that time the NHTSA published the crash test results so that was extra material that showed excellently how the car handled in various situations. He promised to get back to me in about 2-3 weeks after some internal discussions. So being a bit more hopeful (it had started to look really bleak) I reserved my Model S and paid the deposit.
Now, I'm not really a person to buy a pig in a bag so even though all the stuff I found on the net was excellent and I did believe in the car I needed to drive the car. Luckily enough my work takes me back and forth to Geneva and I had a trip coming up in a week so I called up Tesla representative in Geneva, Jacque Michelle, and explained my situation that I would be in Geneva only for 1 day and if he could somehow squeeze me into his schedule. He promised to take a look and after some back and forth I was able to match his schedule to mine for a short 20 minute trip from some small location in France (the location of the experiment) to CERN. The only way this was going to work was if he would drive to my location and I'd use the test drive as my means of getting back to main CERN campus so I was really impressed with him doing this and it actually slightly screwed up his schedule as my meeting overran, but he was still very accommodating and helpful throughout the drive back and I have to say the car was really excellent. The moment I came around the corner and first saw it I was convinced I wanted it. The acceleration (it was a P85+) was nice in the lack of lag and I used it a few times to get in between at small roundabouts (remember I was coming from an Evo X so strong torque and good handling were a given) and I was sold on the car Here's a pic of me with the test drive car in Geneva at CERN entrance B after the test drive (you can even see part of the Globe that's in front of CERN in the background).
So the moment I got back to the hostel I wrote to the insurance guy and said that I loved the car and would really love to get it, but it all hinged on his insurance offer. The next morning I awoke to a reply from him with an offer of €2300 / year with reasonable conditions all around. Yes, it's 2x as expensive as an Audi S5 insurance, but for the very first Model S ever inquired in any insurance company in Estonia that was a damned reasonable price. So I went ahead and confirmed my order. About 4h after I did people started asking me if I was sure I wanted the S85 and not the P85. Of course I had been insistent on 19" rims and had assumed the P85 couldn't be ordered with those. A new check and boy was I surprised to find that I could get the P85 with 19" rims. So I started calling everyone at Tesla to ask if I could upgrade to a P85 as most what was bundled with P85 I had already added as options so the price hike wasn't that bad. Finally got in touch with Wouter Wildbret at Tesla in Tilburg and boy has that guy been a life saver over all of my contacts with Tesla. He's made things possible that many flat out denied could be done at any point anymore and has been a positive voice that has helped me and others who ordered their cars around here. I've already promised him multiple beers, now I just have to get to Amsterdam at some point to buy them to him
So having ordered the car, having checked that Tesla qualified for the subsistence, having found financing and an insurance offer all I had next to do was to wait. So I started searching for others who had ordered or planned to order the car and was soon rewarded in finding another Estonian posting on the TM forum. We got in touch and have been actively discussing all things Tesla and local to EV's to pass the time and figure out what else needed doing. I looked for a charger and after asking ABB and others around here got a hint for http://ratio.nl/. I found a nice 3x32A charger for under 800€ (the government also subsidizes EV home charger installations up to 1000€), which I ordered and after some searching found Loek's cable shop in the Netherlands as well (TMC user LuckyLuke) and was pleasantly surprised by the cable prices and his active responses so thanks a ton Loek (btw the cables arrived today). I also gave my contact details to KredEx who is organizing the subsistence program because I knew that any potential Tesla buyer would end up calling them at some point and authorized them to give out my contact details so that not everyone would have to go through all the hoops to get all the information on cables, chargers, subsidy, insurance etc. And over time I've been rewarded with a couple of calls from people planning to order, but shaky yet on details. I've spent many hours talking with people about the car and have at least one partial sale contribution where one of those guys actually placed an order two weeks ago.
I also have to thank him a LOT because he brought me in touch with another Estonian who had in fact ordered two cars in 2012 and I found out he had a minor issue that caused him to have to give up one of the cars (or well he was searching for someone to take over the order). To my great surprise the car he was giving away had almost identical configuration to mine (same color, same interior and trim options and almost all of the same options). The two big question marks were that it didn't have twin chargers and it had 21" rims. However the big big big upside was that the cars were ready in Tilburg So I swallowed the differences (well I do like the 21" actually, they just require me to purchase a second set of wheels for winter and I had been contemplating if the twin charger was really needed now that Tesla is coming out with CHAdeMO adapter) and we started a major undertaking to convince Tesla that they should move that car over to me (i.e. make me pay for it), give my slot to the guy who ordered two weeks ago and refund the guy his deposit. It seemed unlikely, but again major props to Wouter and Tesla management they were able to find a solution that fit us all with minor real hassle. Long story short I made the final payment for the car a couple of hours ago and it's now mine (my own, my precious). All I need now is to get it from Tilburg to Tallinn...
So I contacted a transportation company recommended to me by the first other Estonian who had ordered an MS (he's transported various vehicles with them including expensive cars). The company is this: Stabils tilts starp Rietumiem un Austrumiem - Kurbads. I found it fun that while I was on the phone with them to find out the pricing etc they asked for the car specifications so I sent them the Model S specs page and the first thing I heard when the lady on the other end clicked on the link was Oooh, nice car! So they gave me a quote which was very reasonable. The next day (I did the price inquiry a few days ago before the final payment in case someone's confused on the time loops) they came back over e-mail and were asking if they can actually make a small promotional video of this delivery. They're super excited to be able to transport such excellent environment friendly cars that they would really love to do a promotional video. So once that's done (i.e. after the car is delivered) I'll link it here too
I sure appreciate the company and while indeed it's at times frustrating to not be able to get ahold of anyone, then once you do get ahold of them and find the right person they are super helpful and try to do their absolute best far beyond what you would ask and anticipate and I sure hope I can help them in expansions into this region. The best possible sales platform is being able to see and touch the actual car (I'll need a lot of microfiber cloth etc to wipe all the fingerprints off, also saliva probably, hope no other bodily fluids from gawkers) and hear from an owner the actual experiences. I've been quite public on my FB page (and I do get followed somewhat due to my CERN affiliation etc) and have had tons of people asking questions about the car and purchasing experience and when I gave recently an invited talk on big data the majority of questions at the cocktail bar were not about my talk, but about the car. I was really really surprised to find that even people I didn't know at all knew that I was buying a Model S so I do plan to try to give to as many people as possible test drives and convert many many more people to Tesla belief. We have the perfect environment for this car with the charging infrastructure, the incentives, now we just need people to accept it. Of course initially it'll only be the people who can afford to buy the car outright before they finance it, but I hope Tesla will come to this region and was really surprised how response and constructive Jerome was when I wrote.
Ah, it's been a long post and the car isn't even here yet. I did ask my delivery specialist that if she can go and make a few pictures of the car for me then I at least have something to salivate over, we'll see if she sends me anything soon. I'll keep updating this thread as things develop through the various steps of bureaucracy and the tracking and the final delivery as well as how the first days of driving etc go Hope you're not already bored of this as when I get going it's hard to stop so expect megaposts
Also I'm currently guessing that they are the first two cars because at least on 31.10.2013 there were 0 registered Model S's in Estonia, I will know for 100% certainty tomorrow when I call our equivalent of DMV because I want to validate that all paperwork is pre-arranged and ready when the car arrives (they've been super supportive btw). It's been an eventful ride getting here and will be an even more eventful ride going forward for sure. So I thought of creating a thread where I will keep track of all that is happening in the pre-anticipation of final delivery as well as the first impressions and hassles it takes for a first car of a country
Some probably have already followed some of my posts at various threads, but I thought to summarize it here so that I have one thread that I can keep updated as I always have a tendency to jabber a lot, especially when anxious and anticipating something nice So to tell everything honestly I'd have to start from the very beginning. I had been interested in Tesla as such for a very long time and following the progress it was making. I knew there had even been a roadster in Estonia owned by a guy who owns the casino chain and at least used to be the richest person in Estonia. I had never imagined that I'd be actually able to purchase the car, but just for the fun of it when the cars actually started to arrive I started to investigate this July/August. I used the configurator and started to look into what it'd cost. I immediately went with the 85 kWh battery as I'd really prefer driving as much as possible without the need to charge anywhere but at home and have at times to take a round trip to Tartu that is 187km away so with the S60 it'd be a close call in summer and a definite miss in winter. With the 85 kWh battery it'll be a sneeze in summer and might just make it in winter depending on conditions. Now the infrastructure around here is one of the best in world. We have a charger every 50-60km and every single one of them can do 3x32A Type-II or CHAdeMO at 50kW so at worst I'd just need to stop for a short time and recharge the missing 20-30km.
Having a first price idea I started to compute the TCO of the car and was seriously surprised that the TCO barring insurance came to be only slightly above my costs of the car I was driving at the time (Evo X) which was a 3x cheaper car. So I got really excited and started to investigate further. Being a person who always digs to the deepest details when he gets interested in something I immediately delved into TMC and TM forum (excellent resources, grats to all who have answered my tons of questions here) as well as started to organize and enquire about all the aspects needed to operate the car here.
So first off financing. Estonia has a neat incentive program where EV's are subsidized with up to 18 000 eur if they are new (or at least less than 6 months old) and the subsidy must not exceed 50% for private citizens or 35% for companies. With the MS it was a no brainer as already the base 60 kWh model exceeds those conditions to qualify for the maximum 18k. So the car was going to be 18k cheaper than configured. I also planned to take it into financing, but that got a bit problematic at first. Namely I found out that all banks in Estonia had a requirement that the car will only be taken into financing when the car is registered in Estonia however Tesla requires pre-payment before delivery. So a serious chicken and egg problem. Luckily enough after some tedious discussions the bank did agree that if I purchase the car myself, transport it to Estonia and register they will buy it from me into financing. After some more haggling because they were unsure initially what to leave as the remainder value after 5 years I was able to get them to agree on 20% (I had proposed 25%, they 15%, 20% was compromise).
So financing taken care of the next big aspect was insurance. I took one of the portals that allows you to enter the car details and it'll get you insurance pricing from all insurance companies to compare. First hurdle of course was that Tesla was not in the list to be selected so I had to write an e-mail to the site owners to make them do the query manually. Only two companies came up, the two biggest. And the sight wasn't pretty. Their initial offers were for 8000€ / year to insure the car at relatively outrageous conditions (€1000-€3000 deductible, remote tracking install required and they wouldn't cover transport to Tesla for repairs). So a two month long haggling ensued where I managed to work myself up to heads of risk assessment in those insurances and had long chats with them face to face introducing the car, the drivetrain the risks. I even asked Tesla to provide me with common parts needed for repair and their pricing. Overall they were not too keen to reduce the pricing, but one was willing to come down to ca €4500 and the risk head was actually really curious about the Model S and really curious about the Model X for himself). I also pushed then my banks insurance who had originally flat out refused to insure to give me contacts to their risk management head. The person called me one afternoon and we had a 1.5h chat over the phone about the car, the risks involved and what they worried about and what I could alleviate. I sent him tons of threads from here including the huge accidents that were highlighted and showed how little damage the car took. Just around that time the NHTSA published the crash test results so that was extra material that showed excellently how the car handled in various situations. He promised to get back to me in about 2-3 weeks after some internal discussions. So being a bit more hopeful (it had started to look really bleak) I reserved my Model S and paid the deposit.
Now, I'm not really a person to buy a pig in a bag so even though all the stuff I found on the net was excellent and I did believe in the car I needed to drive the car. Luckily enough my work takes me back and forth to Geneva and I had a trip coming up in a week so I called up Tesla representative in Geneva, Jacque Michelle, and explained my situation that I would be in Geneva only for 1 day and if he could somehow squeeze me into his schedule. He promised to take a look and after some back and forth I was able to match his schedule to mine for a short 20 minute trip from some small location in France (the location of the experiment) to CERN. The only way this was going to work was if he would drive to my location and I'd use the test drive as my means of getting back to main CERN campus so I was really impressed with him doing this and it actually slightly screwed up his schedule as my meeting overran, but he was still very accommodating and helpful throughout the drive back and I have to say the car was really excellent. The moment I came around the corner and first saw it I was convinced I wanted it. The acceleration (it was a P85+) was nice in the lack of lag and I used it a few times to get in between at small roundabouts (remember I was coming from an Evo X so strong torque and good handling were a given) and I was sold on the car
Here's a pic of me with the test drive car in Geneva at CERN entrance B after the test drive (you can even see part of the Globe that's in front of CERN in the background). So the moment I got back to the hostel I wrote to the insurance guy and said that I loved the car and would really love to get it, but it all hinged on his insurance offer. The next morning I awoke to a reply from him with an offer of €2300 / year with reasonable conditions all around. Yes, it's 2x as expensive as an Audi S5 insurance, but for the very first Model S ever inquired in any insurance company in Estonia that was a damned reasonable price. So I went ahead and confirmed my order. About 4h after I did people started asking me if I was sure I wanted the S85 and not the P85. Of course I had been insistent on 19" rims and had assumed the P85 couldn't be ordered with those. A new check and boy was I surprised to find that I could get the P85 with 19" rims. So I started calling everyone at Tesla to ask if I could upgrade to a P85 as most what was bundled with P85 I had already added as options so the price hike wasn't that bad. Finally got in touch with Wouter Wildbret at Tesla in Tilburg and boy has that guy been a life saver over all of my contacts with Tesla. He's made things possible that many flat out denied could be done at any point anymore and has been a positive voice that has helped me and others who ordered their cars around here. I've already promised him multiple beers, now I just have to get to Amsterdam at some point to buy them to him
So having ordered the car, having checked that Tesla qualified for the subsistence, having found financing and an insurance offer all I had next to do was to wait. So I started searching for others who had ordered or planned to order the car and was soon rewarded in finding another Estonian posting on the TM forum. We got in touch and have been actively discussing all things Tesla and local to EV's to pass the time and figure out what else needed doing. I looked for a charger and after asking ABB and others around here got a hint for http://ratio.nl/. I found a nice 3x32A charger for under 800€ (the government also subsidizes EV home charger installations up to 1000€), which I ordered and after some searching found Loek's cable shop in the Netherlands as well (TMC user LuckyLuke) and was pleasantly surprised by the cable prices and his active responses so thanks a ton Loek (btw the cables arrived today). I also gave my contact details to KredEx who is organizing the subsistence program because I knew that any potential Tesla buyer would end up calling them at some point and authorized them to give out my contact details so that not everyone would have to go through all the hoops to get all the information on cables, chargers, subsidy, insurance etc. And over time I've been rewarded with a couple of calls from people planning to order, but shaky yet on details. I've spent many hours talking with people about the car and have at least one partial sale contribution where one of those guys actually placed an order two weeks ago.
I also have to thank him a LOT because he brought me in touch with another Estonian who had in fact ordered two cars in 2012 and I found out he had a minor issue that caused him to have to give up one of the cars (or well he was searching for someone to take over the order). To my great surprise the car he was giving away had almost identical configuration to mine (same color, same interior and trim options and almost all of the same options). The two big question marks were that it didn't have twin chargers and it had 21" rims. However the big big big upside was that the cars were ready in Tilburg
So I swallowed the differences (well I do like the 21" actually, they just require me to purchase a second set of wheels for winter and I had been contemplating if the twin charger was really needed now that Tesla is coming out with CHAdeMO adapter) and we started a major undertaking to convince Tesla that they should move that car over to me (i.e. make me pay for it), give my slot to the guy who ordered two weeks ago and refund the guy his deposit. It seemed unlikely, but again major props to Wouter and Tesla management they were able to find a solution that fit us all with minor real hassle. Long story short I made the final payment for the car a couple of hours ago and it's now mine (my own, my precious). All I need now is to get it from Tilburg to Tallinn...So I contacted a transportation company recommended to me by the first other Estonian who had ordered an MS (he's transported various vehicles with them including expensive cars). The company is this: Stabils tilts starp Rietumiem un Austrumiem - Kurbads. I found it fun that while I was on the phone with them to find out the pricing etc they asked for the car specifications so I sent them the Model S specs page and the first thing I heard when the lady on the other end clicked on the link was Oooh, nice car!
So they gave me a quote which was very reasonable. The next day (I did the price inquiry a few days ago before the final payment in case someone's confused on the time loops) they came back over e-mail and were asking if they can actually make a small promotional video of this delivery. They're super excited to be able to transport such excellent environment friendly cars that they would really love to do a promotional video. So once that's done (i.e. after the car is delivered) I'll link it here too I sure appreciate the company and while indeed it's at times frustrating to not be able to get ahold of anyone, then once you do get ahold of them and find the right person they are super helpful and try to do their absolute best far beyond what you would ask and anticipate and I sure hope I can help them in expansions into this region. The best possible sales platform is being able to see and touch the actual car (I'll need a lot of microfiber cloth etc to wipe all the fingerprints off, also saliva probably, hope no other bodily fluids from gawkers) and hear from an owner the actual experiences. I've been quite public on my FB page (and I do get followed somewhat due to my CERN affiliation etc) and have had tons of people asking questions about the car and purchasing experience and when I gave recently an invited talk on big data the majority of questions at the cocktail bar were not about my talk, but about the car. I was really really surprised to find that even people I didn't know at all knew that I was buying a Model S so I do plan to try to give to as many people as possible test drives and convert many many more people to Tesla belief. We have the perfect environment for this car with the charging infrastructure, the incentives, now we just need people to accept it. Of course initially it'll only be the people who can afford to buy the car outright before they finance it, but I hope Tesla will come to this region and was really surprised how response and constructive Jerome was when I wrote.
Ah, it's been a long post and the car isn't even here yet. I did ask my delivery specialist that if she can go and make a few pictures of the car for me then I at least have something to salivate over, we'll see if she sends me anything soon. I'll keep updating this thread as things develop through the various steps of bureaucracy and the tracking and the final delivery as well as how the first days of driving etc go
Hope you're not already bored of this as when I get going it's hard to stop so expect megaposts 
