I know that many people are curious to how the new non-refurbished CPO process is going, so I thought that I would create a thread documenting my experience. I know that a few other people are doing this as well, so I guess the more data points the better!
Back in 2015, right around when Model 3 was announced, I knew that I wanted to buy some sort of EV. The Tesla Model S was my dream car...I treated myself to a rental from Turo every year for my birthday, but the price was way out of reach. The Model 3 was going to be my first EV purchase, but I know that Tesla has had issued delivering cars when promised, so I made the guess back then that I wasn't going to be able to get my hands on one until late 2018, early 2019. Turns out that I was right, since I didn't want a $55k model.
Because I wanted to get out of the crappy Prius that I was driving at the time, I started looking at the 2016 Chevy Volt. It was a great compromise between using battery for most days, and using gas when you need it on long trips. I have had the Volt since late 2015. 31,750 miles driven, and over 29,500 miles were all electric.
Fast forward to 2018, and my family has grown. I have a toddler now with a ginormous car seat, strollers, diaper bags, etc. The Volt, especially with the lack of a real middle seat was getting very tight on space. My brother picked up his Model 3 and drove it down to San Diego. We put all of our baby stuff in there, and although it fit quite a bit better than the Volt, we decided that it was just too small for a family car, and we need to figure out a way to make the Model S work.
Since January of this year, I've been lurking on the classifieds section here, tesla.com/used, and ev-cpo.com. The CPO prices were absolutely insane. I probably started looking for a Tesla at the absolute worst time ever because the CPO prices were insanely inflated for some reason. I was focusing my search on S60 models to save money and because I even made a 53 mile battery work for me for 3 years. I had my heart set on autopilot, but these were going for high 40s, low 50s.
Last Wednesday, April 25th, I got an alert from ev-cpo that tons of cars just hit the site. They even had an S60 with autopilot for 45k, but it was located in Seattle. In the time that it took me to talk to my wife about me leaving for 3 days to drive a car from Seattle to San Diego, it had already sold. We had a long talk that night, and we both agreed that if I could find one for 45k or under, just buy it and we will figure it out. She did mention that although we could afford a 45k car, it was probably not the most financially responsible decision to buy one, but she was on board.
Later that night, I got another ev-cpo alert for a 2013 S60 that was priced at $30k!! I took a look at the specs of the car and realized that for the price difference, I could certainly live without Autopilot. I put my credit card down, but it looks like I was minutes too late as somebody else had snagged it. Again, we had a talk about what happens if another one comes along, and we agreed that it would be a better financial decision if we could find one in the $35k range.
That next day, I was eating lunch at my desk, and I get the ev-cpo alert. 2013 S60, 83,000 miles with Tech Package, Pano Roof, Smart Air, Ultra High Fidelity Audio, Supercharing, 17k left on bumper to bumper and up to 125k miles in battery/motor. $35,500! I thought about it for all about 90 seconds, double checked the car's page to make sure that I wasn't missing anything, and put my credit card down for the $1,000 deposit. Success, it went through!
I immediately called my CPO advisor that I had been working with, and he was in disbelief when I told him the price. I think the price sounded about right for the mileage and the year, so maybe he was trying to make me feel better about the purchase. I asked him if he had any more information about the car, and he told me that he would find out and get back to me. Later that day, he sent me pictures of the car (attached).
Continued in next post...
Back in 2015, right around when Model 3 was announced, I knew that I wanted to buy some sort of EV. The Tesla Model S was my dream car...I treated myself to a rental from Turo every year for my birthday, but the price was way out of reach. The Model 3 was going to be my first EV purchase, but I know that Tesla has had issued delivering cars when promised, so I made the guess back then that I wasn't going to be able to get my hands on one until late 2018, early 2019. Turns out that I was right, since I didn't want a $55k model.
Because I wanted to get out of the crappy Prius that I was driving at the time, I started looking at the 2016 Chevy Volt. It was a great compromise between using battery for most days, and using gas when you need it on long trips. I have had the Volt since late 2015. 31,750 miles driven, and over 29,500 miles were all electric.
Fast forward to 2018, and my family has grown. I have a toddler now with a ginormous car seat, strollers, diaper bags, etc. The Volt, especially with the lack of a real middle seat was getting very tight on space. My brother picked up his Model 3 and drove it down to San Diego. We put all of our baby stuff in there, and although it fit quite a bit better than the Volt, we decided that it was just too small for a family car, and we need to figure out a way to make the Model S work.
Since January of this year, I've been lurking on the classifieds section here, tesla.com/used, and ev-cpo.com. The CPO prices were absolutely insane. I probably started looking for a Tesla at the absolute worst time ever because the CPO prices were insanely inflated for some reason. I was focusing my search on S60 models to save money and because I even made a 53 mile battery work for me for 3 years. I had my heart set on autopilot, but these were going for high 40s, low 50s.
Last Wednesday, April 25th, I got an alert from ev-cpo that tons of cars just hit the site. They even had an S60 with autopilot for 45k, but it was located in Seattle. In the time that it took me to talk to my wife about me leaving for 3 days to drive a car from Seattle to San Diego, it had already sold. We had a long talk that night, and we both agreed that if I could find one for 45k or under, just buy it and we will figure it out. She did mention that although we could afford a 45k car, it was probably not the most financially responsible decision to buy one, but she was on board.
Later that night, I got another ev-cpo alert for a 2013 S60 that was priced at $30k!! I took a look at the specs of the car and realized that for the price difference, I could certainly live without Autopilot. I put my credit card down, but it looks like I was minutes too late as somebody else had snagged it. Again, we had a talk about what happens if another one comes along, and we agreed that it would be a better financial decision if we could find one in the $35k range.
That next day, I was eating lunch at my desk, and I get the ev-cpo alert. 2013 S60, 83,000 miles with Tech Package, Pano Roof, Smart Air, Ultra High Fidelity Audio, Supercharing, 17k left on bumper to bumper and up to 125k miles in battery/motor. $35,500! I thought about it for all about 90 seconds, double checked the car's page to make sure that I wasn't missing anything, and put my credit card down for the $1,000 deposit. Success, it went through!
I immediately called my CPO advisor that I had been working with, and he was in disbelief when I told him the price. I think the price sounded about right for the mileage and the year, so maybe he was trying to make me feel better about the purchase. I asked him if he had any more information about the car, and he told me that he would find out and get back to me. Later that day, he sent me pictures of the car (attached).
Continued in next post...
