Inventory Model S

[Ugliest1]

TGA, I thought the demos/loaners were always for sale. How else do you explain that I was offered one still on a train, that was headed to Cincinatti and was supposed to be their showroom car? I might be extrapolating....but I also know we drove out to our SC to test drive a car with coils and someone had test driven it right before us and was buying it (we still got to take it for a drive).

Couple of things. I'm just adding information here from the past, Tesla may have slightly changed current actual policy and actual on-the-ground practices, so, YMMV.

In late Jan or early Feb 2014, Tesla announced a new policy that any test drive or service loaner cars would have to be in use ("on the lot") at a store or service centre for a minimum of 90 days before they could be sold. This arose from the situation that at quarter-end, darn near all of them were disappearing and there were few available for test drives and almost no service loaners to be had (can you say "ICE car rental"?). So there's that built-in delay on inventory cars.

At the last quarter's earning report (May 2015), Elon mentioned that they would no longer be focusing on end-of-quarter ramp-up of sales -- while it was great for many, the "hurry up" tended to give some customers a bad purchase experience and that wasn't good long-term. He even said something to the effect that it will likely mean fluctuations in the quarterly numbers (implication being that Wall Street wouldn't be happy... don't get me going). So there may be less ability for a lucky person to snag a great end-of-quarter deal.

 

[MsElectric]

I can confirm this 90-day policy is no longer in effect. The Tesla store was quite eager to sell any of the cars they had on hand to me and one barely had any miles. Oddly I was looking more for one with more miles so I get a decent enough discount for buying an inventory car but it seems few ever rack up many miles as they are selling them before that happens. It seems most inventory cars are in fact sold prior to 90 days.

Couple of things. I'm just adding information here from the past, Tesla may have slightly changed current actual policy and actual on-the-ground practices, so, YMMV.

In late Jan or early Feb 2014, Tesla announced a new policy that any test drive or service loaner cars would have to be in use ("on the lot") at a store or service centre for a minimum of 90 days before they could be sold. This arose from the situation that at quarter-end, darn near all of them were disappearing and there were few available for test drives and almost no service loaners to be had (can you say "ICE car rental"?). So there's that built-in delay on inventory cars.

At the last quarter's earning report (May 2015), Elon mentioned that they would no longer be focusing on end-of-quarter ramp-up of sales -- while it was great for many, the "hurry up" tended to give some customers a bad purchase experience and that wasn't good long-term. He even said something to the effect that it will likely mean fluctuations in the quarterly numbers (implication being that Wall Street wouldn't be happy... don't get me going). So there may be less ability for a lucky person to snag a great end-of-quarter deal.

 

[Ugliest1]

I can confirm this 90-day policy is no longer in effect. The Tesla store was quite eager to sell any of the cars they had on hand to me and one barely had any miles. Oddly I was looking more for one with more miles so I get a decent enough discount for buying an inventory car but it seems few ever rack up many miles as they are selling them before that happens. It seems most inventory cars are in fact sold prior to 90 days.

As they increase production, it makes sense they wouldn't run into the loaner availability problems they had more than a year ago. Yay!!

 

[MrT]

I totally agree with you. I just signed to purchase an inventory 70D. They tell me I will have her within two weeks, and I am sure they will want me to make the sale before june 30th. To make the deal, they took $1800 off of the car, which is on a truck in Texas and has never been driven. It was in route to Florida, and will be rerouted to my home state of Maryland. I can't wait. They were able to find me an inventory car with the options I wanted, and in my 2nd color combination choice (White/Tan).

 

[ww73]

Congrats!

 

[Tamar]

I totally agree with you. I just signed to purchase an inventory 70D. They tell me I will have her within two weeks, and I am sure they will want me to make the sale before june 30th. To make the deal, they took $1800 off of the car, which is on a truck in Texas and has never been driven. It was in route to Florida, and will be rerouted to my home state of Maryland. I can't wait. They were able to find me an inventory car with the options I wanted, and in my 2nd color combination choice (White/Tan).

+1. Except the one I just signed for is an 85D. It's in Chicago and hasn't been driven. Same discount.

 

[EKnight47]

+1. Except the one I just signed for is an 85D. It's in Chicago and hasn't been driven. Same discount.

So, did you two go through your local service center or store to find your inventory car? I just sent a request for call/trade-in quote through the website. Perhaps the call back will yield some insight into the inventory vs. new options and availability.

 

[Tamar]

So, did you two go through your local service center or store to find your inventory car? I just sent a request for call/trade-in quote through the website. Perhaps the call back will yield some insight into the inventory vs. new options and availability.

Yes, I was in for several test drives, and made clear my desire to wait for a D with certain config options that had a least some discount. My SM sent me relevant cars via email often (every few weeks or so) or when a particularly attractive car became available. They will also pull up the inventory list and filter for you when you visit, but they won't let you "take control" of the search.

 

[FlatSix911]

I totally agree with you. I just signed to purchase an inventory 70D. They tell me I will have her within two weeks, and I am sure they will want me to make the sale before june 30th. To make the deal, they took $1800 off of the car, which is on a truck in Texas and has never been driven. It was in route to Florida, and will be rerouted to my home state of Maryland. I can't wait. They were able to find me an inventory car with the options I wanted, and in my 2nd color combination choice (White/Tan).

I had a similar positive experience when I found out about the inventory cars.
We just purchased a 70D with Sport Seats and upgraded interior on June 13th.
The car has 50 miles and I was offered a $2,400 discount with the car to be delivered in 1 week at the Fremont factory.

 

[3mp_kwh]

End of quarter is when you want to engage your DS a couple times a week. Otherwise, I think they still limit by region (example, you won't see a GA car, in NY). I don't see a lot of point in horse trading away the options you want, for discounts of $1-4k. Then, there's how much more common you'll find extra options, especially wheels, on cars that aren't discounted, if you were looking for 19's, etc. To make a DS's life easy, give them a couple exclusions (ie color, SAS) and then an email address where they can send VINs/options that meet your needs.

I would be surprised if this quarter is much different, despite Elon's call comments. "June" in the Design Center was still a sticky delivery time. There will be ordinary order cancels, as a function of financing failures, etc. There will be new/older inventory cars suddenly becoming available. Habits die hard.

 

[FlatSix911]

I had a similar positive experience when I found out about the inventory cars.
We just purchased a 70D with Sport Seats and upgraded interior on June 13th.
The car has 50 miles and I was offered a $2,400 discount with the car to be delivered in 1 week at the Fremont factory.

Update: I will be taking delivery on Friday, June 26th :biggrin:
Two weeks from order to delivery ... can't wait to see the car!

 

[Tamar]

My car arrived from Chicago in Mpls on Saturday. I was there getting an inspection on our "trade in" (in quotes because it is a 1996 Civic) and got to sit in in though it was not detailed or quite ready for delivery. It has 9 miles on the odometer. I'm out of town now and can't pick it up before July 1, but it may end up "delivered" on paper by June 30. The sticker on the front window said "customer" and "May 18" so I am guessing it was an order where the financing fell through or the buyer backed out for some other reason.