My objective with the 3 was always a $35k Tesla for the price of a decently optioned Civic (with full federal tax credit). It's what I lined up for hours outside on a cold Seattle 3/31/2016 morning to make a deposit toward. My wife never really wanted the car but tolerated my enthusiasm for an "affordable" Tesla and was willing to give it a go. She's always wanted us to go the SUV route, but we can't afford an X. Our second kid will be here by summer, so we need a slightly larger car to replace our ILX before then, which I was planning on being the 3.
But other than the latest delay that pushed me to an estimated delivery of early 2019 for SR and AWD, here's another factor for me deciding to cancel - I got to experience a LR Model 3 a few weeks ago for a few hours - an experience I am super grateful for - and thought the car was really good, but not great. In my opinion, it just doesn't feel like it's worth $50k or more. Yeah it's a nice looking EV with an awesome glass roof and sound system, but the interior materials - from the leatherish seats, plastics, fake wood, piano center console, and even carpet/floor mats, came across as kind of underwhelming. My gut tells me that the LR RWD PUP should be the $35k car, and Tesla should find a way to beef up that baseline to increase their margins for higher priced versions (better interior materials, AWD, etc). This kinda made me wonder if something less than the LR RWD PUP is something I'd want to spend $35k on, and I ultimately decided that it wasn't.