Carpet Bombing TMC to make a point

[aronth5]

Mnlevin, I realize these threads don't help you but to ckessels's point they do indicate the forum has covered the fact that air suspensions were prioritized. I certainly don't think Tesla has been doing any thing fishy.

Has anybody gotten a delivery window for Standard Suspension?

2012 cars required to have air suspension

Active Air vs. Standard Suspension

 

[Mnlevin]

I suspect that those with standard suspension are amongst the smallest order group. I can understand your frustration, then again, we are all crossing our fingers that Tesla succeeds in whatever fashion required, that's the first order of business during these early days.

Monkey, I think your quote above is incorrect. Either that or there is something going on with the order numbers. There are cars in the 10 / 12 /17000 range getting delivered right now. It would appear to me that what happened to the 4270 orders ahead of me, how FEW of those had 60 or 85 batteries AND AAS. Seems very few, and what about the numbers between mine and the 17XXX that got delivered recently. Doesnt anyone see something awry? IF the company has to reach out 17000 number to get a delivery then alot either cancelled, didnt order the AAS or order a 40kw battery. I would estimate that the spread could be pretty even of all the batteries. Also if as you say most had AAS then MOST of the people ahead of me would have their cars, but they dont. They only built about 5000 cars so where are the numbers from 0-8000? or 9000, Why do they have to reach to an order that just came through the door in feb to meet production.

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Mnlevin, I realize these threads don't help you but to ckessels's point they do indicate the forum has covered the fact that air suspensions were prioritized. I certainly don't think Tesla has been doing any thing fishy.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...ten-a-delivery-window-for-Standard-Suspension

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/10764-2012-cars-required-to-have-air-suspension

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/13015-Active-Air-vs-Standard-Suspension

Have seen all these and knew it would be 2013 before the car would be built. What grabs my attention is if they can only build so few cars at a time, why are they building cars that were ordered in Dec, Jan and Feb. If they really have 20,000 orders then all of those thousands of cars either cancelled or didnt order AAS with a 60 or 85 battery. That is ALOT of orders. Why do they take an order that was posted and finalized Feb 25 for delivery before people who they have had money for 18 months? Lastly what is concerning is why are there so many posts of people who have order numbers in the 10XXX-20XXX that they are being ask to finalize their order? It doesnt make sense if they cannot produce the cars for months. That rings alarm bells for me but no one else here seems to think that is a problem.

 

[dsm363]

The ones delivered before you were almost certainly 85 and 60 kWh versions with air suspension. You didn't order the air suspension.

 

[TEG]

I think some of the delays can happen not because the options chosen were "less profitable" but rather they are making runs of vehicles with similar characteristics in batches.
Imagine for instance that they had the suspension assembly line set up to just install air suspensions for a while. Then they would want to delay the non-air suspension cars for a while since they may not want to switch the assembly line back and forth to accommodate different types at the same time.

Another situation is with body paint. They may "load up" the paint booth with enough paint to do dozens of cars in the same color and can't switch colors back and forth car to car.

I am not trying to nullify the pain in having to wait, but rather offering a possible explanation as to why it is sometimes for reasons that aren't personal to your car, or just about profits, but rather about the reality of doing batched mass production.

Many car companies don't take "all a carte" orders at all and just send dealers bunches of whatever they happened to be making at the moment.
In those cases, the dealers get good at trading with each other to find the car that was made with options that some particular customer wants.

 

[jerry33]

Many car companies don't take "all a carte" orders at all and just send dealers bunches of whatever they happened to be making at the moment.
In those cases, the dealers get good at trading with each other to find the car that was made with options that some particular customer wants.

And of course adds to the cost of car. If the Model S was sold by dealers it would be about 30% more.

 

[K Hall]

MnLevin. You are solely responsible for your sequence.

Once I understood the production priority I changed my configuration to enable a speedy delivery of my car. Do the same.

Your carpet bombing approach is selfish and unproductive. Bad behavior at best.

 

[Mnlevin]

How many reservations does TESLA really have???? I have heard the number 20,000 and I wish it were true but I have my doubts. If there were really 20,000 reservation holders how does that explain how the many people on this blog ordered cars as late as dfitz206 (jan 2013) above and some others as late as Feb and get their cars right away? There should be a backlog of months if not a year for people ordering cars now, and yet there is not. One explaination is that there are 16000 people who didnt order either the 85kw or 60kw battery, so all of them ordered the cheapest cars? That doesnt make alot of sense, statistics would say there would be a spread across all different options. Were there that many cancellations?

It would seem impossible to place an order today and get your car in a month or so, but that is not the case. While I know all the virtues of the product and it is awsome, I am now having my doubts about the company. I know people who have ordered cars very recently and have them with extremely high reservation numbers, so again where are all the orders, if they are building cars for people who only recently ordered them what happened to all the other orders?

 

[Al Sherman]

I don't think we've ever really defined (or maybe ever will) "early adopter." No disrespect to Roadster owners, or folks who plopped down a huge deposit after seeing a MS prototype. But, I think everyone who is getting their cars right now is STILL an early adopter. My mindset has always been, and still is that there are going to be issues across the board. Both minor and major.Tesla is trying to do something that is unprecedented in most of our lifetime's. No judgement intended but I think some folks just might not have the personality traits required to withstand the early adopter headaches. Fanboy, kool-aid drinker, true believer? Whatever, I'm guilty. I believe in the company. Conspiracy? No. If they're trying to maximize profits, I'm glad. There are always tradeoffs.

And the car. I've had 3 or 4 of the minor issues that others have had. They'll be fixed in due time. They fixed my blinker light issue from 3000 miles away while I drank coffee and watched TV. I'm fully aware that I could be in Swegman's or digitaltims shoes at some point. I believe it'll all be OK.

But the car. It's about the car. Mnlevin; I urge you to hang on and get the car. It's just a staggering achievement in so many ways. Reservations, cancellations, whatever. My old feeble mind is having trouble following all the numbers and dates. BUT, I haven't given a ride to, or simply shown the car to anyone who wasn't blown away. As we get more of them on the road and the bugs worked out they are going to simply FLY off the shelves. The untapped market of people who can afford this car but haven't seen it or even heard of it is very large. When GenIII comes along it will be huge.

If you still want the car,I urge you to readjust your expectations regarding timing. Get the car. It truly is a marvel. It's a great company filled with people from top to bottom who believe they can make it happen.

 

[bonnie]

How many reservations does TESLA really have???? I have heard the number 20,000 and I wish it were true but I have my doubts. If there were really 20,000 reservation holders how does that explain how the many people on this blog ordered cars as late as dfitz206 (jan 2013) above and some others as late as Feb and get their cars right away? There should be a backlog of months if not a year for people ordering cars now, and yet there is not. One explaination is that there are 16000 people who didnt order either the 85kw or 60kw battery, so all of them ordered the cheapest cars? That doesnt make alot of sense, statistics would say there would be a spread across all different options. Were there that many cancellations?

It would seem impossible to place an order today and get your car in a month or so, but that is not the case. While I know all the virtues of the product and it is awsome, I am now having my doubts about the company. I know people who have ordered cars very recently and have them with extremely high reservation numbers, so again where are all the orders, if they are building cars for people who only recently ordered them what happened to all the other orders?

Unlike early Roadster owners who put a deposit down on faith only, you have the luxury of dealing with a publicly traded company ... which means the books are audited and the results of that audit are public knowledge. By insinuating that they do not have the orders they say they have, you are pretty much saying they lied to their auditors. That's pretty heavy stuff.

Probably should dial it down a notch.

 

[dsm363]

How many reservations does TESLA really have???? I have heard the number 20,000 and I wish it were true but I have my doubts. If there were really 20,000 reservation holders how does that explain how the many people on this blog ordered cars as late as dfitz206 (jan 2013) above and some others as late as Feb and get their cars right away? There should be a backlog of months if not a year for people ordering cars now, and yet there is not. One explaination is that there are 16000 people who didnt order either the 85kw or 60kw battery, so all of them ordered the cheapest cars? That doesnt make alot of sense, statistics would say there would be a spread across all different options. Were there that many cancellations?

It would seem impossible to place an order today and get your car in a month or so, but that is not the case. While I know all the virtues of the product and it is awsome, I am now having my doubts about the company. I know people who have ordered cars very recently and have them with extremely high reservation numbers, so again where are all the orders, if they are building cars for people who only recently ordered them what happened to all the other orders?

If these multiple posts over and over again about the same thing showed that people with reservation numbers thousands behind someone were getting the 60 kWh standard suspension and it had be going on for awhile then maybe you might have a complaint. As Tesla has said (like it or not), standard suspension was pushed back so that means instead of the factory sitting around doing nothing and burning through millions of dollars they decided to fill orders for cars they can make (yes, even people who reserved after you). This has been pointed out multiple times but you seem to not want to try and understand that fact. Al is right, it's an awesome car. Wait for it to arrive and you'll likely love it or cut your losses and try and get your deposit back or write off the $5,000. Losing $5,000 is better than ending up with a car from a company you think is fishy and full of evil intent.

 

[jerry33]

How many reservations does TESLA really have???? I have heard the number 20,000 and I wish it were true but I have my doubts. If there were really 20,000 reservation holders how does that explain how the many people on this blog ordered cars as late as dfitz206 (jan 2013) above and some others as late as Feb and get their cars right away?

It's pretty simple: Some people get lucky with configurations that happen to be in production at the moment they finalize. My res is 7971, my VIN is 5130. The 2841 difference between res and VIN is easily accounted for by the 40 kWh, standard suspension, and red cars that aren't even in production yet. As the 20,000 number has also been tracked by forum members, I don't have any reason to think that it's incorrect.

In addition, this is a publicly traded company and the executives are or have been associated with other legitimate companies: PayPal, Apple, etc. There may be concerns, but the ones you cite aren't among them.

 

[brianman]

I don't think we've ever really defined (or maybe ever will) "early adopter." No disrespect to Roadster owners, or folks who plopped down a huge deposit after seeing a MS prototype. But, I think everyone who is getting their cars right now is STILL an early adopter.

IMNAlwaysSHO, it's probably best not to try to draw a strict line here. That said...

From the standpoint of Tesla being a young company with (so far) relatively low volume, all Tesla vehicle owners and reservation holders are early adopters.
From the standpoint of EVs with range over 100mi., all Tesla vehicle owners and reservation holders are early adopters.
...
(This list goes on.)

From the standpoint of people partly responsible for keeping Tesla afloat, Roadster owners are clearly both early adopters and, at various points, life support for Tesla.
From the standpoint of showing faith and trust in Tesla as it makes its way to mainstream, similar things can be said about Model S reservations made before June 2012.
...
(This list continues too.)

In short, there's a lot of appreciation to go around. To be clear, I'm not saying Al was doing that. But his hesitation w/r/t to the "early adopter" description seems a bit sensitive.

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Regarding the topic title...

I'm seeing a pattern forming regarding "I don't have my Tesla yet" or "I have my Tesla but it's not perfect" that remind me of the "stages of grief". It's unfortunate that this process seems to involve "flood any forums or outlets that might possibly invoke sympathy or compensation from Tesla" which either in form or function almost always bends down a counterproductive path.

It's kind of like when you call the customer support line for any product you own and open the conversation screaming. If you think that tactic is your best approach to getting a positive, desirable resolution to your problem quickly then you're misguided.

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If you still want the car, I urge you to readjust your expectations regarding timing. Get the car. It truly is a marvel. It's a great company filled with people from top to bottom who believe they can make it happen.

As Al has stated it, I agree.

For a moment, ignore your entire history with Tesla and reevaluate the entire Tesla Model S offering from a variety of perspectives. If you didn't have a reservation, would you want the car (and put down a reservation to get one)?

If yes, then contact ownership to learn what you can and then adjust your expectations accordingly so you can find a way to be happy again.

If no, then contact ownership to politely but sternly express your concerns that Tesla has not kept up their end of the bargain w/r/t delivery timeline and that you'd like to know your options w/r/t cancelling your reservation and being returned your deposit. If you feel it necessary, note that you will be contacting legal counsel to fight for your deposit if necessary.

Flooding the forum with further FUD-framed questions just makes people on the forum dislike you for ruining a generally positive and worthwhile environment.

Sorry for the soapbox.

 

[doug]

Carpet-bombing TMC to make a point to TESLA MOTORS is not appreciated. We ended up with duplicate posts and discussions all over the place, impossible to sort out. Raising an issue here is fine; raising the same issue in 7 different places isn't.

Seriously. If you have an issue with Tesla, feel free to discuss it, but don't take it out on us (TMC members and moderators who are independent from Tesla) by making a mess all over the forum.

 

[vfx]

... If the Model S was sold by dealers it would be about 30% more.

I don't believe this.

I believe Tesla is adding in and getting the 30%. And I'm OK with that.