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tossandthrow • 04/03/2025 • 2 replies • view on HN

The thing is that Europeans wanted the Tesla cars. They fit perfectly into the Europeans identity - had Tesla kept on and kept the Tesla cars competitive without any political interference, then that could have been great car exports from the US to the EU.

Replies

jbverschoor • 04/03/2025

They wanted it because at the launch until 2018 it was basically free because of all the tax incentives. You got the following benefits (Netherlands):

  Model-S was about 85K excluding VAT (21%) for the plain version

  Added tax incentives of 36% MIA
  Added tax incentives of 28% KIA
  Accelerated depreciation of 75% in the first year VAMIL
  Free parking in the cities (normal hourly rate 5 - 7.50/hr)
  More/better parking options
  A free charger in front of your house regardless where (basically your private parking spot until maybe 4 years ago).
  0 BPM tax (can be up to 40% of the price)
  0 road tax (could be anywhere from 80-150 per month for type of car)
  0 personal fiscal penalties of 25% of the new value of the car, including VAT (which would be a virtual 26K/year extra salary. At 51% tax that's about 1000 per month AFTER taxes)
The 85K car resulted in 90K deductibles in the first year.

The 85K car, including everything was cheaper to drive / own than a FREE car.

Almost all of that stopped in 2022, and what do you know? People stopped buying. THIS is politics. Setting policies which drive behavior.

The government "decides" what you will want to buy / drive / etc.

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Symbiote • 04/03/2025

Tesla built a factory in Germany to produce their cars.

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