Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

2010 Roadster 2.0

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
The buyer definitely has no use for the plates or license tabs now that he's got the car over the border.

In WA they generally go with the car rather than the person that owned them, and I didn't see a way to turn them in, get a prorated refund, etc. I had looked around briefly on the licensing web site because a tab refund would have been great (I recently renewed and they are currently good for MORE than a year, but won't be used by the buyer).

But thanks for the idea, I just googled around a little, and I might be able to get a refund if I apply before the new tab period starts on Oct 1...

EDIT: No, it turns out I have to turn in UNUSED tabs to get a refund. I already stuck these on the car (and there's no way to peel them off without ripping them to shreds). Perhaps this is why they remind you of your tabs expiring 2.5 months in advance, so you will stick them on when they arrive 2 months in advance and then you can't get a refund...
 
Last edited:
Ah, I didn't realize license plates stayed with the car in WA. In every state that I've lived, the plates stay with the person if transferred to another car, or are supposed to be returned to the DMV, but in reality nobody ever does.

I assume there are different rules for personalized plates?
 
The Dept of Licensing site says surprisingly little about this.

There is a procedure to transfer plates to another car HERE; they mention that you might want to do that for personalized plates.

But I don't see anything else in the section on plates, or the section on buying and selling a car, that says what to do with plates or tabs when you sell a car. The "report of sale" form asks what the license plate is.

There is another site (dmv.org) that claims that WA plates are supposed to stay with the seller, but all it links to is the DOL page above to transfer plates to another car.

OK, I found a Dec 2014 article in the Seattle Times that says under a new law (set to start in Jan 2015), "plates will no longer transfer with a car when the car is sold" and "if you are selling a car and buying another, keep the plates. For a $10 fee you can transfer them to your new vehicle". That is mentioned as a way to save money, not as something you must do. No links to the law, DOL site, or anything.

The text of the article explains that all car buyers have to buy a new license plate and tabs; they can't reuse the old ones. There is apparently nothing for the seller to do with the old ones (unless they choose to pay to transfer them to another car); it is just a requirement on the buyer to get new ones. This is apparently to keep up revenue despite getting rid of an old rule that required new license plates every 7 years to ensure good reflectivity. That is no longer required, but cars turn over an average of every 5 years, so the net effect is that more plates and tabs are sold. Yuck.
 
Last edited:
Hi All,

I was the lucky one that bought Chad’s Roadster. I absolutely love it. I wasn’t going to post until I had fully imported the car and registered it, just in case I ran into any issues. So far so good.

I first want to that Chad S., so honest and easy to deal with. He kept everything immaculate and the car looks brand new. Gave me a high level of confidence in buying a car with this many miles (km’s).

Right now, the car is parked until I can get into Tesla Vancouver for the immobilizer, daytime running lights and anything else needed for importation. Was told this should take 2 weeks. I am driving my insurance company nuts getting day permits so that I can take it out. This is the first electric car I have driven and I am shocked with the torque. I already don’t want to drive my other car.

Thanks Patrice for the inspiration to import a Roadster into Canada, how many are there now?
tesla 2.JPG


I also want to thank DaveD for meeting us when I picked up the car. I love the 3.0 upgrade and thanks for all the info on charging. (posted a pick of the two cars together)

Finally, I have since moved the hummingbird feeder (can’t be too careful).

I’ll post a bit more once I get to actually drive it!

Thanks again Chad.

-Tim
 
Hi All,

I was the lucky one that bought Chad’s Roadster. I absolutely love it. I wasn’t going to post until I had fully imported the car and registered it, just in case I ran into any issues. So far so good.
...

-Tim

Welcome to TMC, Tim! I was happy/sad when I met you -- sad for @ChadS, and happy for you. Life isn't perfect...

Anyway, keep driving (pun intended) your ins. co. crazy -- driving a Roadster is addictive, and there's only so many nice days left here in the PNW before the rainy season sets in, and the top has to go on. Relish and enjoy each day like these that we're having. :)

You'll find most everyone here in the Roadster section to be nice and helpful. We're a "select" bunch of people, and we all know how lucky we are to own one of these very cool machines!
 
Thanks - though we didn't design it, it was a spec house. It is pretty EV-friendly though. Below is another shot I took the night before Timmeh picked up the Roadster.

There is 10kW of solar on the upper slanted roof (you can just see it edge-on); that came with the house; it is enough to cover all of the house's electrical needs (including for the electric heat-pump-driven radiant floor heating) on a yearly net-zero basis. That is probably not enough for most homes, but this one is pretty efficient - extra insulation, passive air exchangers, 4.0 COP heat pump, etc. There is another 5kW system on the lower slanted roof (you can just see the wiring tubes) that we added to help cover the cars; we are also part of a solar cooperative that has a system on a nearby city's municipal buildings, and our utility offers net metering as well as certified "Green Power" for any extra that the cars use, and the state pays us for producing renewable power. So we effectively have no bills for petroleum, natural gas or electricity.

The builder built an 80A Tesla HPWC in to the garage for us, and I put a Clipper Creek 32A J1772 station on the other wall. There is a third garage bay on a lower level you can't see; but the driveway there is steep enough the Roadster bottomed out and tight enough the Model S can't get down there. Maybe someday I will be able to send a self-parking Model 3 down there by itself? Right now it just houses my electric bicycle.

The slanted roofs also collect rainwater in to a 3,000-gallon cistern that, in addition to being used for flushing toilets and watering plants, I use to wash the cars on the driveway. The driveway is made of porous pavers, so the water then soaks in to the ground rather than running to a storm drain.

Most materials (sheetrock was a notable exception; too hard to find) are reused, partially recycled, or certified sustainably harvested. There's a local "Built Green" rating system that gives "5 stars" to houses that get at least 500 out of 1,000 possible points; this house got over 600. Much like a Model S, it is bigger and more expensive than we were looking for, but after a long search I couldn't find any other house near these specs so we bought it to encourage them to do more. The builder is Ichijo; they are Japan's largest home builder, but this was one of their first projects in the U.S. They had previously done a very interesting condo project down the hill HERE (which is when I started following them, and how I ended up learning about the house and touring it).

IMG_20160914_193513.jpg
 
According to @djp , there were 57, so mine became the 58th Canadian roadster which would make yours 59th.
Summoning @TEG :)
Do you have that number in your massive amount of data on roadsters, TEG?

I have a limited view of Canadian Roadsters based on ones that had VINs designated as "for Canada".
I don't have much view into USA bound Roadsters that got later "imported" into Canada.
Also, many of the earliest Canadian Roadsters didn't yet have the Canada specific digit in their VINs.

So... Any attempt at having me count we be off by quite a bit.
 
I have a limited view of Canadian Roadsters based on ones that had VINs designated as "for Canada".
I don't have much view into USA bound Roadsters that got later "imported" into Canada.
Also, many of the earliest Canadian Roadsters didn't yet have the Canada specific digit in their VINs.

So... Any attempt at having me count we be off by quite a bit.

So doug_g's first Canadian roadster wouldn't even have a Canadian VIN...
Yeah, that would make stats really complicated!! Thanks for the feedback.
 
Hi DaveD,
I'm just waiting for the parts to come into Telsa Vancouver. Hopefully it'll be soon. I really like driving the car vs my current SUV. Mark Lidstone at Tesla has been great and assured me he'll have me in as fast as he can.
I did have the car out on the weekend again, using a daily permit. When I parked I had someone come up to me asking what kind of a car it was..., then another person stopped and about 30 minutes later I had talked to 5 different people. They were all surprised it wasn't a new model and loved to hear about the acceleration.
I'll let you know once I have it all registered.
Cheers,
-Tim
 
  • Like
Reactions: ChadS
When I parked I had someone come up to me asking what kind of a car it was..., then another person stopped and about 30 minutes later I had talked to 5 different people. They were all surprised it wasn't a new model and loved to hear about the acceleration.

Yeah, you'd better get used to that. It's going to happen a lot. The Roadster size and styling, along with the yellow color is attractive to people. It also attracts flying insects, which seem to think it's a flower. :)

You'll develop a repertoire of stories to tell people about the car. I usually start by asking if they know what it is. If they know it's a Tesla Roadster, then you can use the shortened story telling them about your history of owning the car. If they don't know what is, then they'll need to be told the long story. You're going to have to allow extra time in your schedule for having these chats -- Tesla Time. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: dhrivnak
A quick follow-up on the Washington state license/plate tab issue: different web pages and forms say different things. As first it sounded like I was out of luck because I had sent off the plates and new tabs (which in general as of 2015 the seller "should keep" because the buyer can't use them; but there's nothing for the seller to do with them either unless you pay to transfer them to a new car). However, after filling out a form and contacting DOL, they sent me a "statement of loss" form to get notarized. I just had to state that the plates and tabs were no longer in my possession but would not be used in WA. Then they refunded my tab fee for next year. (So thanks, @andrewket, for getting me to look in to that).

Timmeh, I hope you can get the car on the road soon. Although next Spring is when you'll really enjoy it. One thing I always wanted to do (but never did, for some reason) is drive to Whistler in it. I've done that twice in a Model S, but the Roadster should be really fun on that road.

And finally, something else absolutely nobody needs to know, but it ties in with Tesla and the house. The builder had used it as a showcase and had a number of open houses (everybody I meet in the neighborhood has been through it). They had signed it up for the 2014 "Green Home Tour" before we bought it; the event took place after we bought it but before we moved in. We agreed to let them continue with that. We showed up to see how the event was going...and saw a bright red Model S parked in front of the house. This was a couple years ago when there weren't so many of them, and I wondered if it might be somebody I knew. I came inside...and sure enough, bumped in to a forum member. He had a Signature red Model S (with a unique feature that makes it easy to identify as his), but was driving a multi-red loaner that day.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: dhrivnak