In a worrying sign for the Californian manufacturer of electric cars, under the control of Elon Musk, in just its second month since orders began, according to official German government data, the number of applications for government subsidies for its Model 3 decreased in February.
Bundesamtes für Wirtschaft und Ausfuhrkontrolle (BAFA) government data shows that subsides claimed, which entail a €2,000 contribution from the government matched by a minimum equivalent amount by the OEM fell by 8.3 per cent on the previous month.
In January, 911 government subsides were claimed with the figure falling to 835 in February making a total of 1,746 claimed subsides since Model 3 orders began. Orders were split 1,395 and 351 between the Long-Range Dual Motor AWD and Performance Dual Motor AWD respectively. All ordered models above €60,000 aren't included in this data or orders where the subsides on offer weren't claimed.
In terms of registrations this nonetheless likely put the Model 3 at the top of the most registered pure electric car models in Germany in February (to be clarified in the next few days) helping Tesla record its best ever month of combined registrations in Germany with 1,092 vehicles in February or more than every fifth BEV model registered according to official KBA data. This boost in February, led Tesla to registering more than half the amount of vehicles in Europe's largest passenger car market than it did in the whole of full year 2018, registering just 1,905 vehicles last year.
Some analysts, such as Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, predicted earlier that 20,000 Model 3s could be sold in Germany this year (2019). Last year the most registered pure electric car in Germany was the Renault Zoe with 6,360 registrations.