I took delivery of my 85 in June, with the intention of driving it 8-10 years, knowing full well that the car would become obsolete over time. I have never expected to upgrade any of the hardware on the car. Software? Yes. Hardware? No. The D will be great for those in snow areas. All the semi - auto features are mostly neat technology, but not necessarily "quality of life" features.
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Disappointed with the D unveiling
- Thread starter Jer in Toronto
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- Model S
I think the big difference here is that Tesla could have built the cars with the option to upgrade and be expandable out of the box. If they say you can't install the parking sensors or retractable mirrors because of a wiring harness, that's just poor planning on their part. People like me would pay a reasonable amount of money to get auto pilot. But, Tesla has shown that these things will be expensive if they even allow it.
Retractable mirrors w/ wiring harness = $1500+?
Parking sensors = $2000 because of "ultrasonic hole puncher" or new bumper?
I feel most for the signature owners. At least when I bought my car, it was $10,000 less than yesterday's price.
Retractable mirrors w/ wiring harness = $1500+?
Parking sensors = $2000 because of "ultrasonic hole puncher" or new bumper?
I feel most for the signature owners. At least when I bought my car, it was $10,000 less than yesterday's price.
Krugerrand
Meow
Don't be silly. There are lots of people on the planet who don't have any of those features on their cars, nor do they care or wish to have them. Heck, I own a car that's less than 10 years old that has hand crank windows. I appreciate the simplicity and so does my wallet when it comes time to have the car fixed.
I kinda sensed that too. Right?
For me I glaze over when it hits 70k + with options. Can I do it? Yeah, ok. ****it. Should I do it? No. Ah****. Argh.
69 kinda hits a magic number.
It dropped right?
No one else builds cars that are able to take major future hardware upgrades. Look at any other car company. You can't walk into the service department and get a major 2015 feature added to a 2014 car. And if you order a 2015 car, some options are factory only. If you've taken delivery and change your mind, it's too late.
That tells me that it's hard to do it in a way that makes business sense for both the customer base and the business. I think this is one of things where Elon wanted to do better but ran into reality. So we and Tesla are just going to have settle for mostly software upgrades. Plus the TSBs seem to me to be minor hardware upgrades to bring older cars up to spec with new production where it's cost-feasible.
As for Signature, the true value there was/is being the first on the block to have one. Just like the people who spend lots of time, effort (or money) to be one of the first with a new Iphone. Same with an early VIN. These people / we were the ones with the vision and guts to buy an S in the early days.
In some circles, that matters.
I agree, I understand the position that Tesla is in. I'm sure there was a lot of debate about how some owners would be annoyed with the upgradeability and the consequences of it, but progress can't be stopped! One thing though is that since Tesla doesn't have model years, it's hard for people that do care about that stuff to time things correctly. If you received a car without the sensors just before the cut off (3 weeks ago), you may have waited if you had known that the 2015 model year cars were coming out in 3 weeks.
breser
AutoPilot Nostradamus
Yup I certainly feel like I got taken. I'm deeply frustrated about the Autopilot features. There is another guy that ordered the same day as me, confirmed 2 days before me (I waited 2 days before confirming), but took delivery 5 days after me. He got the new sensors, I did not. My order was original scheduled for late October, but got moved up to Late September because I was close to the factory and they could tick another delivery off on their Q3 numbers. To add an insult to an injury, the exact same configuration is now $950 cheaper than it was when I ordered. Part of that is the removal of the parking sensors as a separate option, part of it is the price drop on the HPWC.
I was mildly disappointed about missing out on lane departure and speed assist. Missing out on ACC was a little more major, but not a major deal for me. I don't care about missing out on AWD (I wouldn't have bought it anyway). But missing out on the sensors that drive a ton of future upgrades on a car I intend to keep for 8 years really hurt. Knowing that I missed out by a few days and paid the same as people who got them, destroys my feeling of having made a good purchase.
To the people saying that cars get upgraded and that you shouldn't expect a 2014 to have the same features as a 2015, realize that both me and the guy who got his 5 days after me both got 2014s. I see this as the equivalent of a dealer have two 2014 cars on the lot, where the manufacturer added a feature standard midway through production, one car has the feature the other doesn't. They then sell both of these cars to two different people for the same price. The person that got the unexpected features is thrilled, the person that didn't feels taken. Technically, the dealer delivered exactly what he sold both of them. So technically the guy without the extra features has no room to complain. This of course is exactly the sort of behavior I expect from dealers. This is exactly the type of behavior I was led to believe Tesla didn't engage in. Technically legal but leaves the buyer walking away with a sleezy feeling about who they bought from.
With a traditional model year switch over you have some idea when the new model years are coming (towards the end of the year). When the new models show up the old models are discounted to be sold. In this case Tesla just started adding the features to cars, kept it quiet and then the buyer has no opportunity to make an educated decision about waiting. That's great for Tesla's bottom line. Not so great for consumers. If you'd asked me a month ago if I thought Tesla's direct model was good for consumers I would have said yes. Today, I don't think it really is better.
Tesla seems to be emulating Apple in this case, but Apple is not selling $100k cars. Plus Apple does it right. If you ordered an iPhone 5s slightly before the iPhone 6 announcement you'd still have gotten an iPhone 5s. The guy next to you that ordered at the same time also got an iPhone 5s. Nobody gets magically upgraded to an iPhone 6 for free. Ideally, Tesla would have announced Autopilot a month ago and put up the new ordering system. Told people with existing orders they would not get the new features. People with orders in process have a choice, let the order proceed and get the car on that schedule. Cancel the order, loose their deposit ($2,500) and place a new order. Tesla would end up with some cars as inventory cars they could sell at a $2,500 discount and not loose a dime from what they expected. People who bought those cars would feel like they got a good value. In other cases the car could be removed from production and Tesla just pockets $2,500. Everyone walks away happy, Tesla wins, etc etc..
The way this went down is a disaster for Tesla's image of a customer friendly company. It's a disaster for their effort to fight back against the dealers trying to force them into the dealer model.
You know I hadn't thought about that; it's a really good point. I was really scratching my head about complaints related to new features not being retrofittable because that's how it always is for all cars, but that's an important difference regarding the model year. Many companies do add/remove options and colors throughout the year but most major changes are handled at model year change. It actually has many benefits; buyer's are actually prepared mentally for changes and expect them even when none have been pre-announced and buyer's then make their own decisions when the model year gets towards the end. Some buyer's need a car immediately and don't care about future changes, some look to get a good deal on current models knowing new ones won't have the same discounts (that doesn't apply to Model S). A very major benefit is resale. By doing most changes at model years it is easier to track expected option differences when selling or purchasing used. Obviously the downside is the potential delay for new features.
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Wow!! I'm so very sorry - that's a really crappy way for this to happen. There's no excuse for that. When they changed your order date, they should have let you know in some way and given you the option to wait.
I don't think it's a disaster for the company at all. There were probably 2000 deliveries for end of quarter so the actual number of people affected (the number that care is smaller than the total) is just not enough to move the needle. Having said that; it's really shi**y to have done.
A good time to do it would have been just prior to the factory shut down, tell all reservation holders that some new features are coming and allow people to choose to have their car produced before the shutdown or face a significant delay (since many would choose to wait). After the factory was retooled; all cars should have been fitted with the hardware.
Again, I'm very sorry. Your situation is different then most because you didn't just happen to get unlucky on timing; you were pushed up so they could meet their 3Q targets.
wallet.dat
Member
Yes, I believe that's correct and is reflected on TeslaMotors.com.
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I'm curious if the new 470hp motor is a different motor all together, or just the old motor with a software tweak. If the latter, will this be retroactively upgraded to existing cars?
breser
AutoPilot Nostradamus
From what I've read here some people had Tesla employees do just that (don't remember if it was OA or DS that did it). Unfortunately, my DS wouldn't return my messages and was rather difficult to talk to. To the degree that the result of my post delivery survey was a call from the Northwest Delivery manager earlier this week to discuss that. Of course at the time I didn't make a fuss about this because I didn't know what I know now.
You're right there's probably not very many people in the situation I'm in and unless they followed the forums as closely as I have been they probably have no idea. But I still think it's a disaster for them because now they have turned someone who was a significant supporter, into at best a disappointed customer. I say that as someone who just spent half a day driving 60 miles away to show off the car to a group of college students who were doing a segment on electric vehicles in their Intro to Engineering class (as did 2 other members of this forum). Tesla doesn't have a demand problem right now and they're not really advertising (though this event was certainly a great way to get a lot of free advertising from the press). But as far as brand building, right now that's largely happening by customers like me.
Couldn't agree with you more about what they should have done.
I sympathize with the feelings here, but I must stress that at least from a European perspective, the model-year cut-off for the likes of Audi and BMW is also quite vague for factory orders. When most order, they will not know for sure which model-year they will get, because you can't know when the car is built. With wait times stretching into months, they can and often do spread on both sides of the usual two yearly change dates. There are similar stories of guys getting major changes or not getting them, depending on what day of the week their car went into production.
Exactly the same thing that happened to breser, has happened - at least in Europe - to people ordering cars, say, for factory delivery from Audi's Ingolstadt plant. I have followed closely many cases where this has been so and the complaints are similar and similarly understandable. Same order time, different production order around the cut-off week, perhaps even same day for the pick-up (e.g. some guys have been picking up their 2010 while a guy in the next circle is picking up a 2011), but different model year and different features accordingly. It is a game of luck.
I do agree Tesla is a little more unpredictable, though. With Audi or BMW or Mercedes, you know what the model-year cut-off at the production plant usually is - at least pretty well historically. Say, week 22 at Audi. Order after that date to make sure you get the latest options and it is a pretty safe bet. Although, there is usually another, mid-model-year date six months in, complicating things a little, and sometimes some bigger change pushes to change the model-year change for a particular model (e.g. a facelift), but overall there is somewhat more predictability in the traditional way. Tesla has been pushing changes "as they happen" for a couple of years now, from small to big, and that is somewhat different from the old boys.
In the U.S. market the model-year change is - if I understand correctly - far more pronounced. That is true at the dealer level and relates to the import process as well, but in Europe it is far less so in my experience, where I guess the comparison is similar to Tesla's home market comparison in the U.S. In Europe, factories makes changes throughout the year (except a little more predictably than a newcomer like Tesla) and European customers can't really tell when ordering from factory what their model-year is going to be and what the changes will entail. People talking of model-year generally might mean the date of the car's registration, not its factory model-year etc.
Personally, I'm driving a new P85 where I would have ordered both D and A with the trimmings, obviously. But mine is literally a vehicle to take me to the Model X on reserve (I bought the Model S dealer-specced which I never do, because I wanted to go electric so bad), so I don't mind and am enjoying the show in anticipation of getting to that Model X Design Studio one day. For me, these things will make the upgrade to the Model X even more enticing, while I get to drive a great car in the meanwhile. But that's just my side of it, and it doesn't apply to others. It is easy to not care as much if the car changing frequency is high (or if your appreciation of extra features in a car is low).
I get it that a guy with years planned into the ownership and every detail of an ever-improving (software-wise) vehicle understandably feels different and that is something Tesla would be wise to consider when planning their process further. Those new sensors will allow for a lot of software upgrades over time and that's something where Tesla is different from many manufacturers and makes it a double edged sword in this case. Having been on both sides of this game of luck, there is no easy recipe. Personally, I've been around enough with factory-ordered cars to not really care anymore. I've got lucky and unlucky enough times and it kind of stops mattering as you see and feel the ebb and flow of it from both sides - but that doesn't help at all the guy feeling stung about it today, of course.
People are also different, but as a tip that sometimes has helped me in the past: Giving yourself permission to change plans if need be. Say, you intended to keep the car for a decade, well, start making plans to swap it earlier. If you really feel like it, get it done and take the cost to the chin. You might also see that the process could also end in not swapping the car, because when you know you can swap it if you really need to, it might give you the peace of mind not to care. When you miss some feature, you know the option to buy into it is there for you, at least as a plan, and that in itself may help. You are no longer missing out, you are just waiting for the right time to buy in. And when you do swap, if you do, you might get some new features that older owners would not have, so there is that carrot to keep from swapping too early.
That's great advice; i would further that by saying that it will take many months for the initial software implementation and years for follow-on improvements. If you decide you want the extra sensors but don't want to take much if any cost hit, you could wait 1-2 years and pay attention on the boards when someone with a build you like that includes the sensors is upgrading. By that point the difference in used price between your 2013 without sensors and a similar 2013 with sensors will probably be negligible. You could buy theirs and sell yours.
Another advice is a little harder (and impossible retrospectively): Stop following forums, magazines and car news the day you order the car.
There are so many unknowns that might go down over the many months ordering a car takes. That has also helped me in times of anxiety - what you don't know, really doesn't hurt you - but on the downside it robs you of the very nice community aspect of the car purchase and ownership experience. I don't always do this, but when I have done it, it helps immensely with any buyer's remorse issues.
breser
AutoPilot Nostradamus
I don't see myself just eating the depreciation. You have to discount the car by the $7,500 tax credit which isn't in my pocket yet. In Washington state sales tax doesn't apply to new sales of EVs but does apply to used sales, so you have to discount it by that. Then you have to discount it for not having the sensors and you have to discount it for the drop in price. Finally, you have to eat whatever the normal depreciation is for just driving off the lot and plus the nearly 2k miles I've put on the car. Keeping it for a few years doesn't help anything (the sales tax exemption runs out in July 2015). I have no idea what all that comes to but that just seems like a crazy loss for me to eat just because I lost the Tesla lottery.
I'm sure there's plenty of people on this forum that have that sort of change just rattling around to throw at something like this. Clearly some people have put significant downs on Signature vehicles. I'm not one of those people. If I was I probably wouldn't care about any of this because like you said I'd just be replacing the car in a few years and I'll have new stuff then.
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I have a 2014 (I know nitpick). But see my sales tax point. Paying the sales tax significantly increases the price here, especially on a vehicle as expensive as this.
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Another advice is a little harder (and impossible retrospectively): Stop following forums, magazines and car news the day you order the car.
I'd have missed out on an awful lot if I did that. For instance, I learned about XPEL and Opticoat by reading this forum. I'd have lost out on the license plate LED upgrade I have coming. I'd have lost out on the the LED lighting in the trunk and frunk that I'm thinking about doing. I'd have missed out on the great experience I had today showing the car to college students.
Edit: I appreciate the fact that I'm at least getting some sympathy from you guys. When I mentioned my situation over on the lane departure/speed assist thread I basically got told off by other owners who didn't get a P85+ or parking sensors, or whatever option they couldn't order when they ordered their vehicle.
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First of all, let me stress: I *do* sympathize - and I also understand not all have the same budgets. I'm not in any way loaded either, these are not insignificant costs to me neither. Because the investment is so significant, I would say even with people who do change cars fairly frequently, this kind of thing still stings. It is a big buy, you wait for a long time for, and that creates expectations. It is an even bigger issue in your case, and I do understand.
I also know that something helping me, may not help anyone else. But since I too have been burned like this many times and seen others gotten burned even more, all I can say, those two things have helped: Either starting making plans to swap (no matter if you do swap, the process itself can be helpful because it gives you options and a feeling of involvement with the new features) or getting the heck out of the car news scene the minute you order a car (and not come back until the car is old enough not to care anymore), because the unknowns compared to the investment, and thus the risk of buyer's remorse, are huge in car purchases. Latter can be done retrospectively too, changing to some new interests and not dwelling on car forums and reading car news, makes the sting go away faster in my experience - as opposed to reading others gush over whatever new things the sensors do in Update 7.0.
Some may suggest just letting it be and time will heal, but that is a bitter pill to swallow in my experience. While it does help, it is also a hard path to take that ultimately takes away from the enjoyment of the new investment. I have never found much solace in that, although of course it is true that when the car is older, at some point you usually stop caring about such things. So, my tips are the above-two: Plans to swap is an active process that helps, even if you end up not yet swapping. Moving away from reading and talking about the car helps too (and the sooner one does that, the better, best is doing it on the day the car is ordered).
Rest assured, I'm not asking you to swap cars or leave.
That is not my place to do, in any case. But these have been helpful to me in the past and I just wanted to share the ideas. Omer also had a nice suggestion.
This is a fair point. I do have one suggestion though: consider this a "genetic flaw" in Tesla and expect it to remain as such. It's like a genetic flaw in someone you're dating; don't plan or try to fix it, but learn to accept it and move on.
Point of clarification: I'm not saying quietly accept it. Feel free to give ownership@ a piece of your mind. Just don't expect it to make any difference. Assume nothing will come of it (which means you won't be disappointed!) but at least "cast your vote".
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Thank you.
Indeed, that is the downside of the suggestion to go into information curfew on the day of the order. One will miss out on a lot - even more so with something like the Tesla, where it feels a bit more like a movement today than just a car purchase. It is a thing that I know does help alleviate buyer's remorse, because what you don't know really doesn't hurt you, but it isn't always the right call to make. And indeed, forums like this would be much less interesting and helpful were everyone to follow such an advice. Everybody must decide individually what their threshold for stuff like this is. Personally there have been a car purchase or two in my past where I would have been far better off not knowing what I eventually knew. I have no idea what I will do the day my Model X order goes in, but I do know what I *should* do, from a buyer's remorse point of view... because not even a new vehicle model is a guarantee something interesting won't come out soon afterwards (say, 360 parking cameras or rear-seat entertainment which might not come out initially).
I guess one thing that can also help a little, is looking into improving the car experience in other ways. Getting active in retrofits or other activities around the car can rekindle some new interest in a vehicle that might have otherwise lost some of its luster, by redirecting the focus onto something else.
Please don't paint Signature owners with the same brush as "people ... that have ... change just rattling around." Also characterizing us with "wouldn't care about any of this [Tesla advances after purchase]". It's unfair, untrue, and hurtful.
I agree that trying to change someone you're dating (Tesla the company included) isn't going to usually work, but the only option really isn't just accepting it. The other, obvious, option is to move away if you can't accept it.
But even when you do decide that accepting the flaw is in your best interest, finding the best way to do that can be hard and have many options. Something like "accept it and move on", is not the only advice and probably not the best advice either, because it ignores a real emotional process that stands in the way of doing so.
It is like suggesting losing weight on willpower alone. It just doesn't usually work. So the discussion of how to successfully buy a car (e.g. a Tesla) and deal with the contigencies that may follow is far more complicated - just like weight-loss is.
