I emailed Tesla customer service today for information about the Income Tax credit. Here is what I found out, take it for what it's worth.
15 minutes ago, I wrote a simple email to Tesla customer service and asked them when they expect to reach the 200,000 threshold. I also wanted to see how responsive Tesla customer service would be because I have heard some complaints about them on the Internet. I wrote this email at 5pm on a Friday afternoon so I figured everybody would be gone or on their second margarita and didn't expect a response until late next week or perhaps never. Within 5 minutes after hitting send, my phone rings!
"Hi el crucero, this is Dylan from Tesla. I see you have a question for us"
(Me) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! UHHHHHH. UHHHHHH. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!
(him) what was that sorry I didn't catch that
(me) UHHH UHHHH.......... I can't talk, I can't think!
(him) okay just take your time
(we went on to have a 5 minute conversation about the 200,000 threshold and these are the key points)
- The Government considers a car sold when title is signed over at delivery
- Tesla expects to reach the 200,000 threshold "early in deliveries"
- Tesla can't say when "early in deliveries" is at this time, too many variables and they are still playing with the numbers
- Since I am a 3/31/2016 reservationist in California I will definitely get the full tax credit
if I take one of the early cars.
- Tesla is committed to keep reservationists publicly and personally informed as they have a better understanding of how the deliveries will occur so that everyone can plan for the threshold and the phase out of the tax credit.
- Tesla is going to drag out deliveries if the 200,000 threshold might occur near the end of a quarter to carry over into the first couple of weeks in the new quarter so that more people can take advantage of the tax credit for a longer period of time.
- the staff at Tesla is just as excited as the reservationists are, maybe even more so, because they will be getting their cars soon and they have seen the car and it is unbelievable. Morale is high and the staff feel they are delivering something that is going to change the world.
- I told Dylan that many reservationists, like moi, were likely to delay our order in order to get the cars with the options we want. The right car was more important than the tax credit. He said, Tesla is well aware of this scenario and have taken that into consideration. He said I will get the car with the options I want and most likely qualify for at least a partial tax credit. (WOW!)
We ended the call with well wishes for a happy weekend. La Crucera had heard me exclaiming from the other room and she rushed in to see if I was okay, and then listened to the conversation on the speaker phone. After the call ended, she asked me, "who was that, Elon"