$TSLA's foobar "Tesla Direct" VIN assignment and courier delivery service cost them $11,500 Friday night. (BTW, I have the "Tesla Direct Hotline" internal number for Fremont PM me if you need it.)
[Quoted from Tesla Direct - Courier Checklist]
"Delivery Day - The Customer Handoff
The goal of the customer handoff is to provide your customer with the information that they need to get on the road and start enjoying their new Tesla in 5 minutes or less!"
My story:
First I stopped by 47400 Kato Road where they are running said "Tesla Direct" service which didn't show-up Friday 2-4pm nor 3 hours late to my home, never called me, never assigned a VIN, etc. etc. I spoke to a manager who apologized. He claimed they could deliver my 3P- White/White over the weekend. I pressed him for a VIN, but he couldn't give me one!
On to FDC: the Fremont Delivery Center!
After I complained about being stood up by "Tesla Direct" Fri PM, they had said over the phone they found two P3- White/Black interior we could check out. Upon arrival, it turns out they could only find a White/Black interior 3 AWD - not performance.
They still accepted our 3/22/2016 6-month early lease return Model X P90D in exchange for my buying this VIN 0938## Model 3 AWD white/black/EAP 9/2018 manufacture date with only 8 miles on the odometer! I used the awesome
www.teslachecklists.com/model-3-delivery-checklist while waiting in the car for paperwork with a bright flashlight and I couldn't find any faults or panel gap issues at all with it. I saved $11,500 + 9.25% sales tax in return for 0-60 in 4.5 sec max. instead of 3.1-3.5 sec. Perhaps I can even pay to "uncork" the vehicle someday, too.
Anyway, the people over at FDC treated us great. They got a big laugh when I told them I took more than a Model 3 paper loss on $TSLA today.
We were the last customers to leave at midnight! The company gave their employees free Uber rides home since BART is too dangerous to take late at night.
I overheard one employee tell another one they delivered almost 250 vehicles on Friday, and are scheduled to deliver 450 more on Saturday alone!
This doesn't count the people who really get home deliveries out of the Kato Road "Tesla Direct" location. There are tons of cars there, too, and many people working out of that facility.
The lesson is it pays to be aggressive. If you live in the Bay Area, don't have an appt. but want a car this weekend, just call:
Fremont Delivery Center
Phone:
(510) 897-4860
47623 Fremont Blvd, Fremont, CA 94538
to see if they can assign one to you. The person who helped me said she was responsible for 5 sales on Friday that wouldn't have happened otherwise. (She normally works in Corp. Finance.) It's all hands on deck!
PS. Tesla's customer website is still hosed. Now my account says:
I have a VIN but it doesn't know that I've already taken delivery! I don't care because my phone app is working.
3 hours have passed since end of my delivery window so I call Fremont Delivery Center for help:
- "Home delivery service is a new function being run out of a different facility on Kato Road and we've been getting lots of calls today from customers with issues." It's the same place they ran the "come on down and pick a car off the lot" a few weeks ago. Used to be the Fremont Service Center location.
- They never matched you with a VIN to generate final MVPA not sure if they know how to do that.
- I'll ask my FDC VIN assignment person to try to find a 3P- for you matching your config,
- me: "Great. I'd be happy to stop by over the weekend to turn in my early off-lease X and pick-up the Model 3 if she finds one."
- resolution: "We found 2 exact matches except interior is black instead of white". Since black is more durable than white, I told him to lock up the largest VIN of those two and we'll be down to check it out in 30-45 mins.
- He said: "Be prepared for a long night."