Now, i looked left and right, and quickly realised almost no one offered an AWD electric car without it being an overpriced 100k$+ deal. The closest thing i almost bought was the premium Hyundai Kona, but with limited availability and no AWD, I knew it wouldn’t do it.
Now i hadn’t owned a tesla before and only have acquaintances (work collegues) who had one, but being a hardcore tech guy (im a technical director), i already knew mostly everything i could about tesla’s vehicles, and while i wanted one, I didn’t have the budget for an S/X and didn’t want to wait weeks/months(/years?) to get a model 3. Let me specify that I was NOT a reservation holder of any kind, nor have previously purchased anything from tesla.
I follow electric car news on a daily basis, but as a canadian it wasn’t clear if the end of november deadlines to order were only in the USA or canada too. So i went to the local tesla store in Montreal to discuss my options, as after doing some math I realised by selling the e-golf so soon, i was able to sell it for the same price as 6 months ago, and give a significant cash down on the price of the AWD model 3. So on November 23rd, within 15 minutes at the store, I bit the bullet, put down a deposit and ordered the car! (white ext/int, 18’ wheels with autopilot). The estimated delivery times by then were 4-6 weeks, meaning I would either be getting my car before Christmas, or just before I would return to work a few days after the new year.
But being at the store, I asked to speak with the manager and I made it very clear I wanted my car before the end of 2018 as the state of the rebate here in Quebec (8k$) wasn’t sure any more as the funds dedicated to the program were running out with no clear intention to renew the program (since then, they confirmed to having it extended until the next provincial budget at the end of march, making sure I would get the incentive!). I also know about Tesla’s situation and their will to sell as many cars as possible before year’s end, So I leveraged this and made it double clear that was my intention, and that if they found a car in inventory that was AWD, i wouldn’t mind adapting my configuration to match whatever they had in inventory.
Well, low and behold, on Monday the 26th, I already got a call from Tesla in Toronto, letting me know they had found a car in inventory that the targeted owner refused delivery of, and that it could be mine within a week, given some transportation time and additional transport fees. yay! I was given a tentative delivery date of December 4th! It wasn’t exact’y what I ordered (white exterior but black interior, 19’ wheels) but I was more than happy to accept since the delivery would be so quick! (and after some reading, maybe the white interior with a 2yo kid wasn’t the best idea!)
So i shifted everything in 2nd gear:I was able to quickly sell my e-golf, get all the paperwork tesla asked of me done in a more than timely fashion (answered every email with all the info needed within an hour, which they were all very thankful for), got the loan process cleared very quickly (i have a very good job/salary) and so all that was left to do was wait for my car.
Now i got a call on November 29th, letting me know that my delivery would be late by 2 days, as the car hadn’t been shipped in time to my local store to make it happen on Tuesday; new delivery date was now Thursday the 6th.
And now this is where I need to criticize tesla montreal’s store a bit: I didn’t get any followup about anything after the 29th. I sent an email to my delivery advisor on Tuesday the 4th, asking when I would get confirmation for Thursday’s delivery. But oh no!!! She was now ooo until the 7th, so i had no idea what would happen to my delivery. So i contacted back everyone i had been in touch with about what was up, hoping someone would answer me, as I needed to sell my car on Wednesday the 5th (already delayed it once) but i need a car as I have a kid i need to pickup everyday from the kindergarden. This made me feel very uneasy for a day or two, as people did get back to me but without clear answers, only more questions to confirm for the delivery process and related documents.
by 6pm on the evening of the 5th, i hadn’t gotten any updates for 30hrs+, had almost sold my car (had an issue with the taxes declared on the vehicle so had to scramble to get a proper evaluation done, ended up selling it Thursday AM, mere hours before my tentatively scheduled delivery.) but I still wasn’t sure i’d be getting my tesla on Thursday. So i sent an email again, getting a very cryptic reply that I wasn’t sure was a question or an affirmation, kind of wondering if i had been called to confirm the delivery, which i unsurely replied ’not at all’. Well, an hour later, i got a call, and got my delivery confirmed for the 6th as they had just gotten the car at the store. (not by initial advisor though; they assigned me a new one)
And so, i went at the store on the 6th, got there as planned by 13h30, and to my utmost stupefaction, by 14h10, i was out of the store with my car (it did help a lot they didn’t need to teach me anything about the car, in fact i thaught them some tricks/features that had been introduced in recent firmwares they didn’t know about!). That was clearly the most pleasant snd painless car delivery process i had ever gone through. Clearly they were also very happy to have managed to make it happen so quickly and i got praised by all of them for being so much on top of things! (i was used to it by then, having gone thru hell 6 months ago managing to sell my subaru and buy my egolf outside of my province, it had taken over 1.5 months to fibalize everything! so stressful!). Now I would have thought most Tesla buyers were such good clients, but it became very clear from them i was the exception rather than the norm, and they don’t get a lot of people with cash on-hand come over and apply pressure and have clear delivery expectations from them given my flexibility; I really felt all of them were glad to having dealt with me, And with such amazing delivery timing (even with bouts of unclear communication), I also was really glad I took the decision to buy my Tesla from them in a such short timing.
Now this might be crazy, but I had never driven a tesla before! Not even a test drive!! I knew what to expect having an e-golf and seeing tons of videos on youtube about the car’s capabilities and whatnot. I loved the e-golf’s acceleration and initial torque, but at 9.5s for 0-100km/h, appart from the initial kick it wasn’t anything truly special (compared to gas cars appart from initial acceleration).
Now, the first time I got on the highway on that day with my AWD Model 3, I wasn’t expecting what heppened when i put the pedal to the metal. THE ACCELERATION! OMG! and it’s not just the initial thrust like my e-golf had, you can feel this car has the same tireless power accelerating from a standstill as it has when you need to pass someone going from 100kmh to 120kmh (ok... i actually accidentally immediately ended up at 140kmh, to my great surprise but it gave me a grin it took me a while to get rid of!). the e-golf, as fun as it was to drive (its a golf, for now i still prefered its handling to the M3, but im sure ill get used to it) was far from matching this acceleration and the general thrill full feeling I get in the Tesla whenever I press on the pedal.
Will I miss the e-golf? of course! but not for long i’m sure. I had done a 2150km road trip this summer playing golf all around Quebec with it (i was on sabatical for the summer and played 42 rounds of golf across 120 days!) and it’s clearly a great electric car! it cost me barely 300$ for 18000km across the summer and I convinced many friends and collegues to go electric with my e-golf tales abd giving a few of them a test drive (i ended up selling my e-golf to a collegue which saw my car parked everyday at the job abd dreamt about getting one, but knew ot was now an almost impossible feat to get obe, he’d have to wait for the ID).
But now I am kind of sad. I’ve had the car for 3 days and am currently on vacation in Mexico, away from my car. I barely had time to drive it to get a real feel for the car, but I did do a 300km trip on Friday to drop the kid at my parents for the week and took some rather large detours coming back home to test the car.
But it was hellish cold that friday (-15C) and I did put the car through its paces (putting the pedal to the floor on each accelerating occasion i had), so my 300km ended up taking 450km of range out of my battery, leaving me with ~55km of range when I got back home. It clearly proved to me that this car, even if I decide to push it, has more than enough range for my needs, even in the winter. And my initial decision to get an AWD model as that’s what I wanted? couldn’t really test it as there was no snow accumulation since Thursday, but for all the slippery streets I did take, I could already feel it would do the job and would feel MUCH better than the e-golf’s AWD.
I hope my tale was interesting to you guys, I wanted to share my experience so anyone who was ready to pull the trigger but not quite sure would actually be convinced that buying a tesla is (mostly) a great experience!
Feel free to comment and ask questions, I am more than willing to share more details about my story!
