For those purchasing a Model S once production starts again, and particularly for those in New England, below is a timeline of my purchase, from the date of a test-drive, ordering, and delivery – all within about a month and a half. Knowing that many have waited years for a car, I was happy to see the whole process occur so quickly. Here is the quick run-through:
- October 29: Test Drive of Car in Peabody MA
- October 29: Order placed online
- October 29: Confirmation of order received
- November 4: Formal order agreement showed up on online account for car
- November 10: Text from Tesla reporting 4-7 week estimated delivery
- November 25: Text from Tesla reporting 2-4 week estimated delivery
- November 30: MVPA (motor vehicle purchase agreement) received, along with VIN and request for payment
- December 1: Text from New Jersey service center reporting estimated arrival of car in Paramus NJ on December 15
- December 12: “Get ready to meet your Model S” text from Tesla
- December 13: “Get ready to meet your Model S” text from Tesla
- December 15: Text from Paramus NJ Tesla indicating car to be picked up from service center by shipper on that day and expect to hear from trucking company with ETA.
- December 16: Call from trucking company indicating they are on my road in New Hampshire and attempting to find my house (two-minute warning!)
- December 16: Car arrives mid-afternoon; car clean and everything looks good; temporary NJ registration and tags included
Before I get a little critical about the process, let me say what everyone on this forum already knows: the vehicle is amazing. Despite COVID-19, I am thinking of every imaginable excuse to drive somewhere, and sometimes just sit it and marvel about the comfort, the technology, and all I am looking forward to! I feel like a kid again, and this is priceless! I paid for FSD and a short while ago allowed my “S” to navigate with autopilot and watched it deal with the exit ramp from an interstate with only my loose supervision. Very cool!
But having purchased many new cars over the years, this was clearly a unique process in so much as the relationship between the buyer and seller almost seems reversed. Although all the communications from Tesla were congenial, it was clear that everything was on the seller’s terms, and any effort to diverge from the path Tesla puts in to front of you seemed largely to be useless. Maybe it was just me, but I had this subtle feeling if I called for information, I might actually slow the process down. The few times I did try calling, I never reached a human being, so I'll never know. The salesman at the closest showroom and service center in Peabody, MA, wouldn’t give me his extension. Unlike the last time I made a jump in technology when I moved from a Volvo sedan to a Prius back in 2006 at which time the Toyota salesperson sat down with me in the car and gave me a thorough orientation, Tesla offered nothing but videos. The trucker guy that dropped it off admitted that he knew nothing more about the car than how to drive it off the trailer. I guess that’s the way in 2020. No product comes with a printed user guide these days and the best you can expect is a link to something helpful. In this regard, the online guide is very well designed and extremely thorough. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I actually printed the PDF and I'm carefully reading it!
I realize that Tesla has broken the mold of an awful automobile industry that instills very little trust and often sells very mediocre products. My hope, though, is that Tesla might follow the way of Apple and other big tech companies in providing both excellent products and superb customer treatment. Maybe it’s part of the learning curve?
