I signed up here in hope of giving others a realistic view of what dealing with ordering a Tesla can be.
On May 8th I enthusiastically ordered a new M3 Performance for California delivery. I chose it partly because at the time the other Model 3 trims did not qualify for the federal tax credit. This made the M3P quite a good deal. I had driven an M3LR and loved it. It made my Macan feel like a truck. So I sold my Macan back to the dealer and tried to patiently wait for the Performance. I would check nearly daily for updates to the delivery window. It started out as June and then began erratically creeping out. At one point it is was well into August. It finally stabilized at June 24 to June 30. Good.
I had one big problem. We are moving from Wash DC to California on June 30th. After some phone calls to Tesla Sales and reading many forum posts I decided that I would just let it play out and then ask for a short delay. There seemed to be support for that.
Yesterday, June 21st, I got a message from tesla that I had a VIN, needed to complete my insurance information, and choose delivery on June 23rd or 24th. Not good. This was at 3:30p on a Friday. I could not reach my insurance agent and I was still in DC. I left a VM for my agent and waited. About 6 hours later I got another message from Tesla reminding me to pick a date and threatening to cancel my order if I did not choose a delivery date by the next day.
I got on a chat thread with Tesla. They said that I could put the order on Hold for up to 14 days but my car would be offered to someone else and I would be put back into the queue. I asked if I would get my deposit back if I cancelled. They did not reply to that. I then read online from Tesla that as long as I had not yet signed the purchase agreement I would get my deposit back. Wrong. I decided to cancel and was not offered a refund.
I will probably wait until I am in CA and change to an M3 Long Range. I will save a good chunk of money and get a bit more range. I really did not need the 0-60 spec anyway. All Tesla had to do was let me delay for one week and they would have sold me a more expensive car. I am pretty sure that their Dublin, CA dealership had space to hold my car for one week. I would have gladly paid upfront so they would have risked nothing.
Your mileage may vary...