Tesla sales numbers for Switzerland:

2010 = 44 / 2011 = 51

Source: http://www.auto-i-dat.ch/download/fahrzeugmarkt/Schweizer_Fa...

According to a media release from July 27, 2012, Tesla counted more than 130 Tesla cars in Switzerland:

http://www.presseportal.ch/de/pm/100020821/100722406/tesla-b...

Number of Teslas registered in Norway: 15 in 2010, 48 in 2011, so they sold 33 Teslas in 2011.

Source: Statistics Norway[1], the official state agency for everything statistics.

Compared to say ~300,000 registered Toyotas (2011), I guess it depends on how you define "big" :)

But we do have a somewhat sizeable enthusiast "electric car" community. We deal with the cold by plugging in whenever possible, and most electric cars are used only for local transport.

There's apparently two Tesla S in Norway at the moment. It has generated interest here as well, and we have articles like "How to charge the Tesla Model S" [2] on a site that translates to "charging-stations.no",

[1] http://statbank.ssb.no/statistikkbanken/Default_FR.asp?PXSid...

[2] http://www.ladestasjoner.no/nyheter/75-hvordan-kan-tesla-mod...

In Switzerland you're almost certainly closes enough to a decent sized town to stop and get rescharged at any time. Europe in general is just not as spread out as the US, nor are its cities defined by freeways. Different world.

Tesla's other challenge, i suspect, will be really hot spread out places like parts of Australia.

If you drove the distance from Boston to DC in Switzerland, you wouldn't be in Switzerland anymore. The whole country fits inside New York State.

Random fact: Switzerland actually fits inside New York State 3.4225505632 times … :)

I was particularly thinking about the evils of cold nights

Switzerland is about the size of West Virginia.

And even slightly more rugged in terms of landscape.

Coincidentally also the two richest countries of Europe. I'm just guessing here, but there's a chance the percentage of buyers in those countries who don't also have a sizeable conventional car might be smaller than in other countries.

Electric cars are so common in Norway because they're actually cheaper there (lots of taxes on gasoline powered ones). At least that's what I heard.

Are they such big sellers that most of the buyers can't afford to treat them like toys?