The Shanghai-made Tesla Model Y will be available in Europe from the third quarter of 2021, sources say.
The news, shared on Twitter by Europe Tesla ship tracker Morten Grove, is significant because Tesla boss Elon Musk has pegged Europe as a key market for the electric crossover vehicle.
Musk believes the Model Y will be so popular that it will outsell the Model 3, Model S and Model X combined – and it appears that this may indeed come to pass.
Grove cites a “very credible source”, and there are suggestions that the delay of long-range AWD Model 3s reaching Europe could be a result of Tesla deciding to use shipping capacity for the Model Y instead. The same source reportedly said that the refreshed 2022 Model S and Model X will also reach Europe in the next quarter.
Cat's out the bag:
MIC MODEL Y COMING TO EUROPE IN Q3 2021 https://t.co/AWRjCqqq04— Morten Grove, Captain of all Tesla-Ships 🚢 (@mortenlund89) June 14, 2021
The news is also interesting because it is known that Model Y production will be a focus of Tesla’s upcoming Berlin gigafactory, which it was thought would be operational by May.
Howeverm the completion of “Giga Berlin”, as it is colloquially known, has faced numerous delays with environmentalists filing objections regarding issues such as water and chemical byproduct treatment; the latest such objection involves how Tesla will deal with coolant leaks which can produce highly toxic hydrogen fluoride according to German news outlet Berliner Zeiting.
It is also being reported that demand for the Tesla Model Y in the US is so high that the wait time for new orders in its home country is sitting at three months – a not unusual wait time for Australian drivers in the past, but unheard of in the US for some time now.
The Model Y will also be produced from Tesla’s “Giga Texas” in Austin which is also still under construction, and Tesla expects that by end of 2021 both the new Texas and Berlin gigafactories will be producing the Model Y in limited numbers.
So it seems that 2022 will be the “Year of the Model Y”, as the latest high volume electric vehicle from Tesla finally takes to roads in large numbers on three major continents.
What does this mean for Australia? Given that now any extra inventory from China will first go to Europe and a three-month wait is to be expected in early delivery days then as reasoned previously we think the early fourth quarter 2021 is still likely to be the earliest the Model Y will be available to order in Australia.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.