Lease residual fluctuating

[exxer]

I had a somewhat similar issue with an inventory MX I had reserved at the end of December. The car had some miles on it and had a showroom price adjustment. I found out that Tesla is calculating the residuals on the adjusted price and not on MSRP as it used to be, which as you might know, affects for your residual. I tried getting "help" from Tesla Finance as the SA didn't seem to care much; Tesla Finance didn't care much either, but confirmed that's the way they roll now and politely asked me to not contact them. They also never agreed to share the actual residual % they used on the deal, which I am of course capable of figuring out myself if the other numbers are available, but back in Dec when the tax credit was still available and in leases was supposed to be added to the residual; it was not very clear what they were doing. My calculations gave me 53% residual which in my opinion is non-sense. Is this maybe what is happening in your case @exxer?

I walked away from the deal, lost a $100 bucks twice (I first chose one car and then decided for another). I think Tesla's lease terms are really bad. My previous MS lease was really easy and transparent, I was so happy to move away from the traditional dealership buying experience after leasing BMWs and Porsches for years but unfortunately seems like Tesla is moving a little bit backwards in that aspect.

As for other suggestion on financing, buying cash or financing in my humble opinion is not a good financial decision. Of course, everybody's situation is different and I respect fellow Tesla owners who prefer to buy, but I choose to invest my money instead of buying this highly depreciating asset.

Cheers

Thanks to the Internet, we can all become more aware of situations like our own. Your experience is exactly what’s happening with me. We are in the silent minority because Tesla wants consumers to purchase and bear all the risks, since they cannot subsidize leases like the big boys.

It’s not only non-sense, it’s deceitful and feels like a breach of the traditional social contract. Also, Tesla failed to show their math and freely manipulated the numbers to their advantage.

FYI in the future, the $100 order fee can be transferred to a different car. I confirmed this with different SAs.

One SA bragged to me “this one car made $600 on people ordering and not completing the purchase”. Tesla, just build an honest business that respects your customers; pulling the fleece over their eyes will only work for so long.