European delivery works out because you don't pay new car tax if you buy the car in Europe, drive it enough so it's no longer new (~100 miles or so) and ship it home. This exemption was originally put in place because a bunch of GIs wanted to bring home the sporty little cars they drove in England during WWII.
http://www.bimmerfest.com/wiki/index.php/ED_Summary#Why_is_E...
[1] http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Experience/Events/Eur...
[2] http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/european_delivery_program/excl...
[3] http://www.volvocars.com/us/sales-services/sales/volvo_overs...
As of February 2012, the Porsche European Delivery Program is available at no additional charge (italic emphasis is mine):
"Porsche Cars North America today announced several enhancements to its European Delivery Program. The revised experience provides customers the opportunity to purchase their new Porsche vehicle from any participating authorized Porsche dealer in the U.S. and take delivery of their new car at their choice of one of the automaker's two German factories. The program is now offered at no additional charge to customers and includes access to discounted airfare and hotel accommodations." [1]
They can't give the same discount (the discount stems from avoiding new car taxes).
But as an American example, Corvette has a program where you get to participate in the car building process and you take delivery in KY. What makes that program cool is that you get to see the heritage (the Corvette museum)
There is a huge forum just dedicated to BMW European delivery if you are interested and it helped me out a lot when I was researching this back then. Also someone there every year I believe posts the internal pricing for BMW US/Euro wholesale and with dealer markup so I just went to my local US dealer told him I would give him $1k above German wholesale and he filled out all the paperwork for me. I flew to Munich a few months later showed them my passport and off I went. It was great.
Link here: http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=68aa7500...
In fact, once BMW ships it to the states you normally pick it up at the dealership anyway. I believe some eager beavers pick it up at the New Jersey dock but I think most wait until the car is delivered and titled in your home state (and any shipping damage is discovered/rectified).
Also, there is a recommended break in period on the new engines, precluding you from going above 6k RPM, IIRC. Still, if you did a European delivery, it'd probably be very possible to legally drive 100+ MPH on the Autobahn.
No, not 'probably very possible' - it's entirely legal to do 155mph+ on the Autobahn. There's one heading straight out of Munich. (most German cars except Porsche are limited to 155)
Still, running in the car first might be a good idea.
I wonder if the power hookups for refrigerated containers are beefy enough to keep a Tesla charged…
Basically, you fly over there, show up at the factory, you get treated like a dignitary, they show you "baby pictures" of your car being built, and then you drive off with it and get to cruise around Europe for 30 days. When you're done, you drop the car off at one of a half dozen ports and fly home. Your car arrives a few weeks later.
You get about 10-15% discount and it's a very cool experience. A friend did this for Porsche and while the car was great he said the experience was a little lacking. That they do such lower volume they didn't have the program as perfected and it was more about just showing up and taking possession of the car.
Anyway, that's obviously not what Tesla is doing -- but they should. They should definitely have a California Delivery program. They probably already do.