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CPO site has newer VIN numbers than my undelivered car?

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So the CPO site has cars newly listed with VIN numbers higher than the car I ordered? I have VIN 1292xx and they have cars listed way past that. Why would Tesla build vehicles that essentially have zero miles (50 technically but thats how many all new cars have) for their CPO inventory before a custom order?
 
Skynet has become self aware, and factory robots made extra cars that its AI engine has pre determined we will need...

So the CPO site has cars newly listed with VIN numbers higher than the car I ordered? I have VIN 1292xx and they have cars listed way past that. Why would Tesla build vehicles that essentially have zero miles (50 technically but thats how many all new cars have) for their CPO inventory before a custom order?
 
So the CPO site has cars newly listed with VIN numbers higher than the car I ordered? I have VIN 1292xx and they have cars listed way past that. Why would Tesla build vehicles that essentially have zero miles (50 technically but thats how many all new cars have) for their CPO inventory before a custom order?
They are not necessarily built in order of VINs. Depends on model and configuration as they do tend to batch build configurations that are very similar.

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I checked the site. From what I see all these 2016 models low mileage cars (say 50m) are for lease.

Perhaps the CPO site is the best sales/lease channel for Tesla.
They don't have to be leased, they just show that to give an example of what lease payment would be. They can still be purchased and financed as well.
 
I'm guessing as production ramped up, they have more capacity than demand right now so they are starting to basically keep new cars in stock like traditional car dealers. Some people need a car on the spot and this pretty much solves that issue.
 
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They don't have to be leased, they just show that to give an example of what lease payment would be. They can still be purchased and financed as well.

Sale or lease, my point was that listing these cars on CPO site might be the best (or only?) distribution channel. All these cars share the same location, San Francisco Bay area, most likely they are at the factory.

What is the best way/channel to sell new/low mileage cars out of the factory, with no dealers?
 
I think this is part of the plan for Model 3 as well. They can make ~20% of production to be commonly selected combinations and just sell as new. Takes pressure off of the production process and expands market
 
All the 50 mile cars are clearly brand new inventory. They are priced at full list without any discounts aside from a handful that have modest $100 discounts. The plan is likely to list all vehicles that are on order as demo or display vehicles for sale as soon as they are built in order to give people the opportunity to buy the car for full price without a wait. Those that aren't sold immediately will gradually get mark downs as they are driven or sit in the showroom.
 
I was at a service center today looking at different interiors trying to decide on which seats to purchase. They had an inventory car that was not on ev-cpo site. It had a few 100 miles on it as it is a loaner car. The sales rep told me that many if not most of the loaners are cars that someone ordered and then backed out at the last minute and lost their deposit. I do not know if this is true but might account for the difference in options in some of the inventory cars
 
What I was most interested in was why would these cars be built and listed before my preordered car? I can understand the cars that were produced and never delivered for whatever reason but it seems like there are too many listed for a scenario like that. I placed my order for a MS late Jan and it just went into production. These cars listed as available have later VIN numbers than mine and seem to already be out of production and in Southern California.
 
I was at a service center today looking at different interiors trying to decide on which seats to purchase. They had an inventory car that was not on ev-cpo site. It had a few 100 miles on it as it is a loaner car. The sales rep told me that many if not most of the loaners are cars that someone ordered and then backed out at the last minute and lost their deposit. I do not know if this is true but might account for the difference in options in some of the inventory cars

Some, but not all, Inventory cars are customer cancellations. I know early on Tesla tried to populate the loaner fleet with highly optioned cars, as motivations for people to upgrade given the chance to experience a P85 or P85+ or better seats, etc.

They had an inventory car that was not on ev-cpo site.

It bears repeating -- EV-CPO only collects and displays what is on Tesla's own Preowned website (which includes Inventory cars). I don't have a secret sauce into the back-end systems in order to list every CPO or Inventory car available. We know that there are hundreds more unlisted cars available.
 
So the CPO site has cars newly listed with VIN numbers higher than the car I ordered? I have VIN 1292xx and they have cars listed way past that. Why would Tesla build vehicles that essentially have zero miles (50 technically but thats how many all new cars have) for their CPO inventory before a custom order?

They are not CPO - they are new cars - or "Inventory". They are there for buyers to walk up to and buy "today" (ie. weekend tire-kickers visiting a showroom).

Why build inventory ahead of paying customers? Well, it is obvious. You are a captured customer and are already sold. The company has a need to keep sales growing and that is done through inventory cars available for immediate sale. This started happening way back in summer of 2014 just prior to "Reveal the D" event. There were inventory sitting on lots in late 2014 (RWD models) and eventually sold off or turned into Loaners/Demos.

Notice on the CPO web site. Many locations have in-series Vin #s. Select 'Inv" as type and Sort By Vin. This a sales manager setting up for his handful of inventory orders and putting them in all at the same time to be built and fill out a delivery truck so that transit costs are lowest. It's just business and it is cheaper for Tesla to build inventory cars and sell them soon after - than waiting only for customers to place orders. Once an auto factory is up and running at steady-state, it is not good to have "low-volume" days. Perhaps Model X orders are not converting to actual confirmed sales as fast as expected.

Hank - I have visited my local Tesla lot a few times looking at inventory and many times they had cars that you did not list on your web site and some were a month+ old. Maybe they were loaners but they were lined up with all the other inventory and looked ready for sale.

When they pulled the CPOs off the web and your site dropped in number, you mentioned that they were (probably?) put into use as the loaner/demo cars and that now we see 300+ new Inventory cars out there. Seems like it is more financially sound to use "old CPO" as loaners and not brand-new ones because any scratched-up new car and mileage-riddled new inventory doesn't command the sticker-price and needs discounting for immediate sale. If Inventory units are never driven, they can command sticker price, or close to it.
 
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As a prospective owner getting ready to pull the trigger I really appreciate this forum and the ev-cpo website. What a great tool as I decide on options and see if there is an inventory car out there with what I want at a better price. If that is you hank who is keeping that site up I really thank you as it has been a great tool while going through my buying experience
 
As a prospective owner getting ready to pull the trigger I really appreciate this forum and the ev-cpo website. What a great tool as I decide on options and see if there is an inventory car out there with what I want at a better price. If that is you hank who is keeping that site up I really thank you as it has been a great tool while going through my buying experience

Yup, that's me. Thanks for your feedback!

Good luck on finding the perfect car.

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Notice on the CPO web site. Many locations have in-series Vin #s. Select 'Inv" as type and Sort By Vin.

Hank - I have visited my local Tesla lot a few times looking at inventory and many times they had cars that you did not list on your web site and some were a month+ old. Maybe they were loaners but they were lined up with all the other inventory and looked ready for sale.

Yes, I tried to explain that above -- that I don't have access to any internal or secret list of CPO or Inventory cars for sale. All of my data comes from what Tesla decides to list on their Preowned website. So yes, I think it's pretty well known that Tesla has many more CPO and Inventory cars available that (for whatever reason) they decide not to list on their site.

When they pulled the CPOs off the web and your site dropped in number, you mentioned that they were (probably?) put into use as the loaner/demo cars and that now we see 300+ new Inventory cars out there. Seems like it is more financially sound to use "old CPO" as loaners and not brand-new ones because any scratched-up new car and mileage-riddled new inventory doesn't command the sticker-price and needs discounting for immediate sale. If Inventory units are never driven, they can command sticker price, or close to it.

Yes, this is what I've been told, as well as several other people. Elon's original plan was to use newer/higher optioned cars as loaners to entice people to upgrade, and even said "if you like the loaners, you can just keep it". But as with many things Elon says, reality just didn't work out that way. :)
 
Driving a new car around as a loaner has about a $1 "sales depreciation" plus $1000/month - however, I don't know if they can deduct the mileage driven by the customers.
Driving an older CPO still has a bit of depreciation but seems to be less than $1/mile. It may be more financially prudent to drive CPO as loaners and not the new inventory. A change perhaps put into place by their new CFO.