Short version: “VFX is buying a Roadster.”
The Long vanity version is a pretty self-absorbed Post so just skip it if you don’t care about my story.
The more astute (and perhaps even those less so) have figured out that I have a Tesla on order. Yes, long ago I somewhat denied it here and recently avoided the direct question when my cross posting in the owners forum (with different name) was all too obvious.
I have never been hiding because of a desire for anonymity, as I will be active in the green community touting the benefits of driving electric. The reasons for my deception-by-omission are that I was never sure we could get the money. I did not want to have to document my trials and tribulations and ultimately not get the car. To date it has been a wilder financial roller coaster than I even imagined so I have absolutely no regrets for my silence. (More on the ride below.)
Back in 2004 I was investigating the building of a Lancia Stratos Kit car as an electric vehicle. To this day I argue that the car is perfect for Electrification given its tiny size and huge mid-mount engine compartment. I also really love the design since I grew up in a Fiat/Lancia family. I had run the numbers for the kit, motor, Valance batteries, build, etc. and it came to about $70K. About the time I was to start buying the components for a 5-year build, a friend in PIA told me about this Lotus EV being worked on for sale in the Bay area. At the time a search for Tesla would only bring up the Nikola and a search for Lotus EV would bring up that one-off Zytek
they made in the nineties.
The Tesla site itself was dark except the image of a covered car. I even sent an Email to Martin who temptingly wrote back a short cryptic answer. When the Barker hanger party came along I used that “connection” to wrangle my name at the door. Needless to say I was blown away by my ride and posted the video online. Having a professionally built car with real electronics and engineering and safety for another 20K (assuming no overages on my own build) seemed like a no brainer. Even if the design was not my beloved Stratos. My biggest reservation was one of “Never buy One-point-Oh of anything”. Given it applies to the company and the car, I still fear that.
The question was and has always been where to get the money for a car that was delivering in less than a year. (Little did we know…) My wife had the family ranch burn down in the San Diego fires and she got enough for her bit to get us a Patient buyer position.
Since I am a hoarder of junk in the tenth magnitude I figured I could start selling crap. If I sold my Infiniti FX (30K) and my work gear, and some furniture I was storing since my mom passed, I would be pretty close. So when it came to the first price increase we decided to pull the trigger (with 50 others) the week before the 92 to 98K jump. If we could not do it we would get a full refund (hopefully) or get a loan to buy and sell the car at a break- even price. as 2nd worst-case.
I still need a big car for much of my work and have a junky farm Pickup that I planned to fix up for use on days I needed to work gear heavy. Though over the extra year wait I saw the mileage on my brand new SUV go up, the warranty lapse, and the value drop. Since the truck does not get much use and did not degrade, the value between them became so close that it seemed pointless to sell the nice enclosed hauling car and keep the junky open truck that I would have to spend thousands fixing up for use as a work vehicle. The problem is now I was very short on the making the deal.
I had my own saving of course and in Nov 08 I had a high when I sold a huge chunk of work gear to a friend for 30K and saw that as an over the top point for getting our Tesla. I almost Posted here that day. But then work dried up for awhile and I had to tap into savings to pay the bills. I still have a lot more to sell but Ebay and auction houses are reporting huge drops in buyers/prices. I usually live within my means and have always bought my cars for cash so looking into a loan was new for me and in talking with Tesla I found out that I’m the first to buy a Tesla with a traditional car loan. My credit union gave me a good rate on a partial and Tesla has been great in the process since they know they need to get the loan mechanics in place for the future.
I have fully paid for the car now in advance so I know it’s coming and it is slated for delivery end of May /early June.
The car. #500 (that’s pretty cool as a homologation number)
As you may imagine the price increase hurt our chances of getting the car and we too considered pulling the plug with about 40 others but my wife has been really supportive. She knows I was a Tesla (the man) fan long before the car came along and had built a Tesla coil in high school electronics class. She had also supported the Stratos garage build and when this car came along she had never seen me so fixated on any one thing in our 18 years.
The eight thousand dollar price increase and my paint choice (see below) meant no rally seats for me and will be the stock standard leather. Someday I would like to do something fancy like Alcantara but that and other improvements are five years of payments away.
The wheels will also be standard but I don’t think the new ones are that bad. I have never had strong feeling about auto rims except that I like them dark so I may paint them someday.
The HPC is out. The install was also looking like a +5K job at my place so it was in question anyway.
Radio is stock (yes it comes with a basic radio) but I really need a NAV for work so I will be getting a windshield Garmin like device since the SUV’s is built in.
Accessories: No hard top…basically we purchased things that only the factory can do like the windshield tint. I asked, “Do they actually have two piles of windscreens at the factory and choose from each pile based on the $400 extra in the order? (Yes) The only other up charge besides the destination charge doubling, is the paint armor. All the owners swear by it and getting it done aftermarket was no cheaper.
cont.
The Long vanity version is a pretty self-absorbed Post so just skip it if you don’t care about my story.
The more astute (and perhaps even those less so) have figured out that I have a Tesla on order. Yes, long ago I somewhat denied it here and recently avoided the direct question when my cross posting in the owners forum (with different name) was all too obvious.
I have never been hiding because of a desire for anonymity, as I will be active in the green community touting the benefits of driving electric. The reasons for my deception-by-omission are that I was never sure we could get the money. I did not want to have to document my trials and tribulations and ultimately not get the car. To date it has been a wilder financial roller coaster than I even imagined so I have absolutely no regrets for my silence. (More on the ride below.)
Back in 2004 I was investigating the building of a Lancia Stratos Kit car as an electric vehicle. To this day I argue that the car is perfect for Electrification given its tiny size and huge mid-mount engine compartment. I also really love the design since I grew up in a Fiat/Lancia family. I had run the numbers for the kit, motor, Valance batteries, build, etc. and it came to about $70K. About the time I was to start buying the components for a 5-year build, a friend in PIA told me about this Lotus EV being worked on for sale in the Bay area. At the time a search for Tesla would only bring up the Nikola and a search for Lotus EV would bring up that one-off Zytek
they made in the nineties.
The Tesla site itself was dark except the image of a covered car. I even sent an Email to Martin who temptingly wrote back a short cryptic answer. When the Barker hanger party came along I used that “connection” to wrangle my name at the door. Needless to say I was blown away by my ride and posted the video online. Having a professionally built car with real electronics and engineering and safety for another 20K (assuming no overages on my own build) seemed like a no brainer. Even if the design was not my beloved Stratos. My biggest reservation was one of “Never buy One-point-Oh of anything”. Given it applies to the company and the car, I still fear that.
The question was and has always been where to get the money for a car that was delivering in less than a year. (Little did we know…) My wife had the family ranch burn down in the San Diego fires and she got enough for her bit to get us a Patient buyer position.
Since I am a hoarder of junk in the tenth magnitude I figured I could start selling crap. If I sold my Infiniti FX (30K) and my work gear, and some furniture I was storing since my mom passed, I would be pretty close. So when it came to the first price increase we decided to pull the trigger (with 50 others) the week before the 92 to 98K jump. If we could not do it we would get a full refund (hopefully) or get a loan to buy and sell the car at a break- even price. as 2nd worst-case.
I still need a big car for much of my work and have a junky farm Pickup that I planned to fix up for use on days I needed to work gear heavy. Though over the extra year wait I saw the mileage on my brand new SUV go up, the warranty lapse, and the value drop. Since the truck does not get much use and did not degrade, the value between them became so close that it seemed pointless to sell the nice enclosed hauling car and keep the junky open truck that I would have to spend thousands fixing up for use as a work vehicle. The problem is now I was very short on the making the deal.
I had my own saving of course and in Nov 08 I had a high when I sold a huge chunk of work gear to a friend for 30K and saw that as an over the top point for getting our Tesla. I almost Posted here that day. But then work dried up for awhile and I had to tap into savings to pay the bills. I still have a lot more to sell but Ebay and auction houses are reporting huge drops in buyers/prices. I usually live within my means and have always bought my cars for cash so looking into a loan was new for me and in talking with Tesla I found out that I’m the first to buy a Tesla with a traditional car loan. My credit union gave me a good rate on a partial and Tesla has been great in the process since they know they need to get the loan mechanics in place for the future.
I have fully paid for the car now in advance so I know it’s coming and it is slated for delivery end of May /early June.
The car. #500 (that’s pretty cool as a homologation number)
As you may imagine the price increase hurt our chances of getting the car and we too considered pulling the plug with about 40 others but my wife has been really supportive. She knows I was a Tesla (the man) fan long before the car came along and had built a Tesla coil in high school electronics class. She had also supported the Stratos garage build and when this car came along she had never seen me so fixated on any one thing in our 18 years.
The eight thousand dollar price increase and my paint choice (see below) meant no rally seats for me and will be the stock standard leather. Someday I would like to do something fancy like Alcantara but that and other improvements are five years of payments away.
The wheels will also be standard but I don’t think the new ones are that bad. I have never had strong feeling about auto rims except that I like them dark so I may paint them someday.
The HPC is out. The install was also looking like a +5K job at my place so it was in question anyway.
Radio is stock (yes it comes with a basic radio) but I really need a NAV for work so I will be getting a windshield Garmin like device since the SUV’s is built in.
Accessories: No hard top…basically we purchased things that only the factory can do like the windshield tint. I asked, “Do they actually have two piles of windscreens at the factory and choose from each pile based on the $400 extra in the order? (Yes) The only other up charge besides the destination charge doubling, is the paint armor. All the owners swear by it and getting it done aftermarket was no cheaper.
cont.
