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Tesla Opens Orders To All US and Canadian Model 3 Reservation Holders (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For people who put down a $1,000 deposit for a Tesla Model 3 as long as two years ago, the big day has arrived. Specifically, the day has arrived when they can give Tesla another $2,500 and then wait a few more months for their car to arrive. Days before the end of the second quarter, Tesla is now allowing all reservation holders in the United States and Canada to place orders for the Model 3. Customers will be able to choose between several variants of the Model 3 -- including the high-end "performance" model -- as well as choosing colors and option packages. However, the low-end version of the Model 3 with its long-promised $35,000 price tag isn't available to order yet.
Each customer will get a specific delivery estimate based on the model they choose and their position on the waiting list. A typical delivery window is two to four months. While the original $1,000 Model 3 deposit was fully refundable, customers who pay the extra $2,500 will be locked in three days after placing an order, the company told CNBC. That isn't a new requirement -- a Tesla spokeswoman told Ars that the company has long asked customers to pay a $2,500 deposit when they order other Tesla models.
Each customer will get a specific delivery estimate based on the model they choose and their position on the waiting list. A typical delivery window is two to four months. While the original $1,000 Model 3 deposit was fully refundable, customers who pay the extra $2,500 will be locked in three days after placing an order, the company told CNBC. That isn't a new requirement -- a Tesla spokeswoman told Ars that the company has long asked customers to pay a $2,500 deposit when they order other Tesla models.
For those of you debating whether to order now and splurge on the long range model, waiting for the 35K model likely means you will not get the full tax credit. The impact of this may be more than you think. Not only do you get to take the tax credit for this year when you buy now, but if you wait until the tax credit expires to sell your (now used) car, the resale value should increase by close to the tax credit amount. So it really does make sense to buy now (35K + 15K = long range Model 3 now).
Of course, now that they are opening orders to everyone. . . you probably want to closely look into the probability of getting your car in time to take advantage of the full tax credit. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Couldn't even manage to get to the second paragraph of the summary?
You bears are getting desperate.
Model 3 buyers have always (*) been required to pay a $2,500 deposit when ordering. "other" isn't appropriate here. Is that a mistake by the Tesla spokesperson or by Ars?
* It's possible that there were special rules for "family and friends (and employees)" who ordered very early Model 3s.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It's also an econobox that can't supercharge.
People want a car, not a hair shirt. Don't get me wrong, Bolt is fine for a subset of users. But don't pretend that it's a replacement for the Model 3.
Why must all aquatic villains play the organ?
Furthermore, Trump calls the Canadian dairy tariff one-sided, yet he seems completely unwilling to acknowledge the fact that American farmers are subsidized as well. The difference is that Canadian dairy farmers are assisted by people actually buying their products and are weighted in a way to control production based on demand. American farmers are paid for by American tax dollars whether you consume dairy products or not.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
"$50K. That makes it a luxury car, not a car for the people."
That depends on operational and maintenance costs, as well as longevity. That is, unless you consider anything other than a cheap upfront cost shitbox with a short lifetime which provides job security for the dealer mechanic to be the definition of less-than-luxury.
I'm not claiming which side of the scale Teslas fall on, just pointing out that the economics are much more than initial cost.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Only for narrow definitions of "currently". Yes, it's lower than it was yesterday, but it's higher than it was at the beginning of the week. Yes, it's lower than it was when it reached a brief peak a few weeks ago, but it's higher than it has been for most of the past year.
Modern new cars need minimum mechanical intervention over first few years of their lives. It increases as they age, but used cars cost far less regardless.
50k-ish USD is going to buy several decades of mechanical interventions for a decent used car, which will only set you back a few thousand. And Tesla, while cheaper to maintain, is by no means free over its life cycle.
So yes, all current Teslas are luxury vehicles by definition.
Check Tesla's financials. They lose money before you include R&D or capital expenditures - startup costs. Basically, the cost of the product (cost of revenue) and the administration/sales support for that product (SG&A) already put them negative.
Last quarter they had $3.4B in revenue, and the cost of that revenue was $2.95B, leaving them with $450MM in gross profit. SG&A was $686MM - meaning that just the cost of the product and the sales/administrative overhead to sell that vehicle results in a $236MM loss.
R&D, Interest Expenses, capital expenditures - those aren't even discussed at this point, we're already at a loss. It's not startup costs that are killing Tesla - it's too little gross margin on their product for their current SG&A level. Either they have to massively (and I mean by 50% or more) slash their sales and administrative costs, or they need to increase the price of their product. If Tesla completely SG&A (an impossibility, but we'll say they can for now), they still lose money based on R&D and interest. And we haven't even discussed capital expenditures.
Fundamentally, their financials simply don't work. They need to either dramatically change everything about everything they do, or they have to increase the revenue (price) of each product by 40% or more. It doesn't work out any other way.
One thing they could do is eliminate their own dealerships and let others run them. If you look at Ford, GM, BMW, etc. you'll see their SG&A is less than half that of Tesla's, per car. And it's predominantly because a huge chunk of the cost of sales, administration, support is covered by the dealers, who get a 10% margin on the vehicles sold. So the normal car companies "give" 10% of their margin to dealers, in exchange for taking on more than 60% of the SG&A costs. Tesla is trying to do it, so it's "saving" 10% of revenue and eating 230% of the SG&A than a normal car company should. Company car stores don't make sense - they are a financial death-blow, but Tesla won't change that, it's too much of their "mystique". But that one change there could well put them close to profitability...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yep, I bought a 10-year-old Toyota for $4000 and used it for 14 more years. I paid maybe $10,000 on maintenance, including some fender benders. Then when I finally scrapped it, I was paid $1500 by the government for trading in a "fuel-inefficient" car. And I don't even know how much I saved on cheaper insurance and registration fees.
Any car that costs $50,000 upfront is very costly by comparison.