To be fair, if you go to the financing tab of the app and hit VIEW it’ll give you a full breakdown of costs and they call it “order deposit”.
I just bought a new Honda Odyssey for my wife last month. They’re incredibly hard to find. On top of that I paid cash which some dealerships don’t like because they can’t make some money on the financing. Regardless, their online sales manager sent me a text once a week letting me know what they had coming in and any changes that occurred with reserved vehicles. He called me one morning and said “I have one here we didn’t expect to get so soon. We haven’t even done an inspection yet but you’re welcome to come see it”. Left my office and drove over. 10 minutes later the deal was done.
This might not be every dealership, I know. But these guys wanted to sell cars. So far Tesla hasn’t convinced me they want to sell cars. And that might be because they haven’t been hungry yet. But they’re leaving the door open for competitors to get their foot in and shake things up.
My decision to get the car is only because of the car itself, despite the company policies. And I’ve seen first hand in my own career that design, engineering, and manufacturing are easier things to change than company culture. That should worry Tesla.
