It was another setback for Tesla when Solna District Court ruled on Thursday that the license plates may not be collected before the case is decided.

The background is the sympathy actions with IF Metall's strike, which resulted in Postnord not delivering mail to the electric car manufacturer – and new Tesla cars are thus without license plates.

According to the Swedish Transport Agency, very few new Tesla cars were registered in the initial period after the postal blockade began, a total of 19 cars between November 20 and 28.

Sharp increase

This week, however, there was a sharp increase. On Wednesday and Thursday, a total of 896 new cars were registered.

All but one were still registered at Tesla Sweden on Friday morning, according to the Swedish Transport Agency.

For one of the cars, however, there was a change of ownership to a private individual on Wednesday. SVT has been in contact with the man who had the car delivered earlier this week – without license plates.

"I understand the purpose of the collective bargaining battle. But it will be a problem for those who ordered cars before and are now without plates, says the man who wishes to remain anonymous.

But by exploiting a loophole, and ordering new license plates the day after the change of ownership, he will have the plates sent to him despite the postal blockade.

"We can only state that anyone who is the registered owner of a car can order a plate from us. We do not question such an order. The signs are sent to the owner, says Mikael Andersson, press officer at the Swedish Transport Agency.

"But it is clear that it is not very common for new license plates to be ordered the day after the first ones have been registered for production," says Mikael Andersson.

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Tesla's conflict with IF Metall – summarized in 60 seconds. Photo: SVT