The Wait Club Guide

The TMC Shipping Movements thread tracks Tesla shipments heading to Europe throughout 2026.

Once you've ordered, there's usually a quiet spell when you hear very little from Tesla. Tesla builds cars in batches, not to order. A car is only really matched to your order once it's assigned to production and allocated to a ship. Following those ships is the most reliable way to get a feel for when your car will arrive.

• Model Y: most UK and European cars are now built at Giga Berlin, so far fewer arrive by sea from China.
• Model 3: still built at Giga Shanghai and shipped to the main hubs, including Zeebrugge, Koper and Barcelona.
• Route: all ships from Shanghai to Europe now go round the Cape of Good Hope to keep schedules reliable.

Shanghai → Southampton	Typical transit
Via Suez Canal (old route)	30–35 days
Via Cape of Good Hope (now)	35–45 days

Going round the Cape adds roughly 3,000–4,000 nautical miles, which is usually one to two extra weeks depending on the ship's speed and the sea conditions.

A VIN is usually assigned once your car is built and allocated to a ship, often when it's already at the port or at sea. The VIN is often in Tesla's system days before the app shows it.

• Trackers: community tools use the Tesla Fleet API to check your order status more often than the app does.
• Early data: when your order is matched, these tools can show your VIN and updated delivery window before the app refreshes.

See @Temboa's bot/script help post for the tools.

Special thanks to @Temboa, who keeps posting updates, tracking and arrival estimates for ships heading to European ports.

• MarineTraffic is widely used to follow ship positions using VHF and satellite data.
• @Temboa and friends built Tesla Ships, which tracks confirmed and suspected ships.
• Many "suspect" ships turn out to be false alarms, so the thread sticks to verified data.

Usually while the ship is sailing through the South China Sea, before it reaches Singapore or the Jakarta Strait. We've also seen assignments in the Indian Ocean, but that's less common.

Model Y VINs are sent directly from the Berlin factory.

What you see	What it means
No VIN in the thread's tools	Your car doesn't exist yet
VIN in the tools, not in the app	Production is planned
VIN in the Tesla app	Car is built. Now it's down to transport

Model Ys for Ireland go to Zeebrugge, then by ship to Dublin.

It's hard to tell which ship a Berlin-built Model Y is on. They travel in small batches alongside other brands' cars, and several ships may do the run each week.

Yes. Until you have a VIN, the Estimated Delivery Date is Tesla's best guess and can jump around a lot. Don't lose hope if it jumps later. It can jump back at any point.

When you share your VIN and EDD, it joins everyone else's to build a picture of which VINs for which countries are on the move. Sometimes one Tesla adviser telling one customer something is enough to confirm it for everyone.

Your VIN isn't secret. Anyone can read it through the windscreen when the car's parked. If you'd rather not share all of it, the last 5 digits are still a real help.

Some shipping companies let you track a VIN on a ship, but most don't. You can try your luck with Logisoft's VIN tracker.