What's interesting is that by first catering to those who already own a Tesla - as a show of appreciation for helping them get to the 3 - they're almost guaranteeing high-spec cars. Not all of them, for sure, but a much higher proportion of them compared to those purchased by folks who haven't owned a Tesla before. Smart move, because they avoid the PR hit while still pumping out mostly high-margin cars for the first couple months. And by also catering to their own employees and those on the West Coast first, they keep everything pretty close to them for the first few months which will cut down on delivery times and allow them to catch any issues and fix them a lot faster.
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AP2 Pricing
- Thread starter flamingoezz
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What's interesting is that by first catering to those who already own a Tesla - as a show of appreciation for helping them get to the 3 - they're almost guaranteeing high-spec cars. Not all of them, for sure, but a much higher proportion of them compared to those purchased by folks who haven't owned a Tesla before. Smart move, because they avoid the PR hit while still pumping out mostly high-margin cars for the first couple months. And by also catering to their own employees and those on the West Coast first, they keep everything pretty close to them for the first few months which will cut down on delivery times and allow them to catch any issues and fix them a lot faster.
The reason to charge a mark-up for activating later is to incentivize people to pay up front. Tesla wants to put the hardware in every car so when they make the self driving car share service available they will be ahead of Uber/Lyft due to the size of their existing fleet. Each additional car they can have with full self driving is a big revenue generator down the road...the issue is financing that investment. By giving a discount (or charging a premium to people that activate later, however you choose to see it), they are incentivizing the customers to help them pay to install the hardware standard across the fleet (which then also lowers the per unit cost).
K-MTG
Sunshade Captain of TMC
JeffK
Well-Known Member
JSkrehot
Member
I'm sure there are a great majority of S/X owners that are not "hard up for cash," however, I'm sure there is a large number of owners who stupidly own a 75k-125k car but don't own a home, put money into their retirement, and literally live check to check, but they have an awesome car.It makes you really want to buy it now huh?
It's not like the people purchasing high end Model S/X are hard up for cash but sometimes people stretch themselves thin on the purchase.
JeffK
Well-Known Member
I can't say the thought hasn't crossed my mind to do everything I can to buy the awesome car and just live in it because it's that awesome.
JSkrehot
Member
Would be fun for about a couple weeks until your back started hurting from sleeping in a car, ha. A little road trip in it time to time while pulling into RV sites to charge and travel the country, sure. I would like to do this in my Model 3 at some point.I can't say the thought hasn't crossed my mind to do everything I can to buy the awesome car and just live in it because it's that awesome.
ccutrer
Active Member
Or the middle of the road - I own my own house, have a decent retirement set up, and can comfortably afford a Model X. But it comes with paying attention to finances, and making sacrifices of other "wants." I have no regrets (financial or otherwise) with buying an X, but couldn't spring for Performance, or afford to trade in a 6 month old car and take a $30k depreciation hit.
But $3K is still a lot to pay for software which you can't use when you buy it and no idea of when or if you will ever legally be able to use it. Until it is actually being used somewhere in the real world, they should make self driving available as a reservation, $3K cash interest free to Tesla at time of purchase, fully refundable prior to activation. That would get a lot more people to hand the money over up front. Once the regulatory hurdles are cleared, go back to making it a regular option.
Haven't heard any such news since Elon's initial tweet that said higher spec'd cars would be built first. Are you saying he (or Tesla) took back this statement and said the opposite?Oh, it's here somewhere, but probably buried somewhere. Maybe someone else has the source. Not sure if it was a tweet or something. I am pretty confident that is what was said though. But who knows what will happen come production start.
I've heard multiple people say that there is a tweet out there where Elon says that they won't be making the highly optioned ones first. I've even seen people refer to a date in, I think, April that he made it on. Like you though, until I see it, and I've looked for it, I'll just assume the worst (since I will not be maxing out my options).
JeffK
Well-Known Member
3Victoria
Active Member
Of course, one will be able to use full autonomy immediately on one's 50,000 acre estate
(I wish)
(I wish
)Right, that's the one everyone has seen and knows about. There is some mythical post/tweet/blog/interview out there where he says that they changed their minds and won't do it that way.
Supposedly it was sometime in April and he says that because of the number of reservations they can't do it the way they initially intended. There are a lot of people out there that claim to have seen it but no one i've run across has been able to provide a link to it. I think it might just be a case of people projecting what they want to hear. Although, I have to admit, it's what I want to hear as well ...
Zaphod
Galaxy President (former)
Far as I can tell, that article is pre-reveal so would be out-dated information. Judging by comments, the article was published in February. At the time, they probably weren't expecting the avalanche of reservations. I am 99% positive they since rethought that plan. My belief is they will be doing fair amount of the higher-spec cars and sprinkling in mix of others.
JeffK
Well-Known Member
All I can find isRight, that's the one everyone has seen and knows about. There is some mythical post/tweet/blog/interview out there where he says that they changed their minds and won't do it that way.
Supposedly it was sometime in April and he says that because of the number of reservations they can't do it the way they initially intended. There are a lot of people out there that claim to have seen it but no one i've run across has been able to provide a link to it. I think it might just be a case of people projecting what they want to hear. Although, I have to admit, it's what I want to hear as well ...
Couldn't find anything about specifically changing from highly optioned first to anything else. Most likely just thinking through a faster ramp up I would guess, which they announced later.
JeffK
Well-Known Member
Yeah, as far as I remember that whole not doing highly optioned cars first thing was a rumor started here on the forums... not based on actual quotes.
Direct quotes all suggest highly optioned cars will be first in each region after current owners.
Direct quotes all suggest highly optioned cars will be first in each region after current owners.
Canuck
Well-Known Member
Tesla is in dire need of cash. Highly optioned cars bring them that much needed cash. Producing base models with a few options would be wasting valuable factory time since those cars can be built once the highly optioned ones have rolled off the line. Tesla says they are doing it because "we’ve got to pay back the investment of the tooling and everything" since that sounds better than "WE NEED CASH!".
I highly doubt Elon Musk will overrule that in a tweet, even though he's a loose cannon on twitter.
I highly doubt Elon Musk will overrule that in a tweet, even though he's a loose cannon on twitter.
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Zaphod
Galaxy President (former)
Not sure where you come to that conclusion because there is nothing there that makes that clear to me. The article was published 9 months ago, which would put at least in late January. The "updates" state no date to reference when the updates were made. The newest comment on the article is dated February 12th. All points to be pre-reveal unless I'm missing something. Doesn't really matter to me though as I'm checking all boxes unless it gets stupid expensive, but will still be high spec regardless.
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