If you want a preview of how Tesla might fare as more competition enters the electric car market, look no further than the Netherlands -- but brace yourself for what you are about to see, especially if you're a hopeful Tesla (TSLA) - Get Report investor.

The Netherlands is the second-largest market for electric cars in Europe, after Norway, which has generous subsidies to encourage mass adoption.

Netherlands reports monthly car sales promptly at the conclusion of each month. These are the results for plug-in electric vehicles in November:

Mitsubishi Outlander 889

Volvo XC90 T8 714

Volkswagen Passat GTE 692

Mercedes C350e 650

Volkswagen Golf GTE 560

Audi A3 eTron 451

Volvo V60 438

BMW X5 40e 244

Did you notice something about that list? Teslaisn't on it. Tesla, the pioneering luxury electric vehicle company, was not one of the eight best-selling plug-in cars in Netherlands in November.

Year-to-date, however, Tesla is No. 6, with 1,613 cars sold through November. What does that mean? That Tesla has been losing plug-in market share month-over-month in 2015.

But what about Tesla's absolute sales numbers? In a growing market, you can lose market share while still growing in absolute terms, right?

The answer is that Tesla's sales in Netherlands have been relatively flat in 2015, with some minor fluctuations from month to month, quarter to quarter:

First quarter: 407 cars

Second quarter: 478 cars

Third quarter: 409 cars

Fourth quarter, through November: 302 cars

In other words, Tesla's sales have been approximately 150 cars per month, 450 cars per quarter, very consistently throughout 2015 thus far, with one month of the year left to go. It's in this market of flat sales for Tesla, that it's gone from No. 6 for the year as a whole, to No. 8 in November.

If the November sales trends continue in December, both the Volvo XC90 T8 as well as the Volkswagen Passat GTE should be approximately tied with Tesla for the full-year number, all of them ending the year close to 1,900 cars. As a result, Tesla Model S should end the year in sixth, seventh or eigth place in the Netherlands plug-in sales statistics.

There are two more observations we can make here:

Of these eight top-selling plug-in cars in Netherlands, only Tesla is a battery-electric vehicle (BEV). All the others are plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). In contrast, the top two plug-in sellers in the U.S. are BEVs -- Tesla and Nissan LEAF. (Note, the subsidies in Norway are exceptionally skewed in favor of all-electric cars, BEVs, as opposed to PHEVs, with the latter category receiving almost no subsidies in comparison, at least through 2014. In contrast, in Netherlands, both BEVs and PHEVs are widely available.)

Of these eight top-selling plug-in cars in Netherlands, only one was on sale in the U.S. in November, and that was the No. 8, BMW X5 40e, which just went on sale in the U.S. in October.

Of the other seven cars beating Tesla in Netherlands in November, two go on sale in the U.S. this month, December 2015, Volvo XC90 T8 and Audi A3 eTron. One goes on sale in early 2016, the Mercedes C350e, and one in the second quarter of 2016, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV.

Do you see a trend here? The competitive pressures we saw in Netherlands in November, will be coming to the U.S. within the next six months.

But wait, there's more!

The Volvo V60 and the Volkswagen Passat GTE will not make it to the U.S. anytime soon, certainly not in 2016. However, The Volkswagen Golf GTE does not yet have any U.S. sales plans, but it would not be unreasonable to assume that this will change soon, with an appearance as early as the second half of 2016 not being out of question.

The obvious conclusion here is that massive competition hammered Tesla's 2015 sales growth, leading to flat sales for the company in Netherlands in 2015.

You can think of Netherlands as the canary in the coal mine. It's the market with some of the broadest plug-in car competition, without the outrageous subsidies lavished in Norway and Denmark.

In this market -- Netherlands -- eight plug-in cars now beat Tesla in November, and the full-year 2015 number will put Tesla anywhere from the No. 6 spot to the No. 8 spot. Plainly, Tesla is losing market share.

And, yes, the overall plug-in market is growing, but Tesla's sales in Netherlands have remained remarkably flat for the first eleven months of 2015, at very close to 450 cars per quarter, or 150 cars per month. The rising tide has not been lifting the S.S. Tesla.

If this is an indication of where other markets will be trending in 2016 and 2017, when the competition we are seeing in Netherlands spreads to other countries, it can't bode well for Tesla, which is still struggling to turn a profit on any vehicles it sells.

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This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of submitting this article for publication, the author was short TSLA. The author regularly attends press conferences, vehicle launch events and equivalent, hosted by the automakers making the presentations.