My Two Weeks Old Tesla Model 3 Depreciated by 10% Overnight

[sperkin]

Taiwan protested a couple of years ago when they dropped prices, and Tesla offered some rebates. Not many cared in the US, but I cried and moaned to the executives, and got free unlimited supercharger.

Tesla seems to remove the "contact an executive team" from my account soon after that. If you can still reach them via your owners account, you should try that or just tweet Elon, and hope to get lucky for his replies.

 

[one2many]

Sears used to look up your item to see if it was going on sale in a week.
My first plasma TV was $2500, second was $400.
My used Leaf 2013 was $15k, just sold for 9K
Do not even get me started on Stereo Equipment.
There is no point to this post.

 

[RoBoRaT]

I feel your frustration, this is the price of innovation. While other car companies increase the price of their cars YoY, Tesla makes their cars better and cheaper.
Coming from a 2018 Model 3, the 2021 one is now $10,000 cheaper and better in almost every way.

What if the prices of the same vehicle you got actually went up, do you think it would be fair for Tesla to ask you to pay the difference shortly after you bought it? That is how I think about it.

And finally and most importantly, each one of us is paving the way for a more sustainable future and helping push the adoption of EVs. Whenever you feel sour about your Tesla purchase always remember their core Mission:

"To accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation"

This!

I feel for your loss OP @M3OZ - I would want to have paid $8K less for my Tesla too but reality is that Tesla will not give that back, not in $$ form. If it was 3 days ago, maybe.

For any consolation, as you said, you are HAPPY with the product - I hope it continues to give (happiness) that back to you.

This YT episode by Zach n Jesse has some good insight about why Tesla does what they do: to avoid the Osborne Effect and at the same time slowly get to a more affordable (to all) EV. Starts at time 2:00.

 

[FunSecured]

So, while this may feel like cold comfort...this really is nothing new where Tesla price drops are concerned. You shouldn’t feel a) alone. As this has happened to a great many ans over years in folks initially feeling stung and b) kinda as was cited...their reducing their price over and over is actually part of how they’re accomplishing their mission. When our S dropped in price, I asked myself if I loved my car (answer: yes). I asked myself if I bought the car as an “investment” (no...it’s a car!...they generally DONT appreciate and only drop, the moment you walk out the showroom door). I next asked myself if I intended to sell my car right now (answer: nope...I love my car. Tesla performance and tech...sentry mode and Netflix and acceleration and full self driving and Superchargers all over and etc, etc, etc...no...I’m keeping this car).

From all this...I decided to just -enjoy- the car I happily bought at the time and NOT get hung up on whatever price drop may happen on the road ahead. You’ve got an amazing car. Life is short and you’ve opportunity to enjoy the VERY cool thing you purchased.
If you can get any sort of offset / accommodation from Tesla management....that’s fine but I think it an uphill battle and like I said

 

[kamalik09]

Aw poor you. Imagine being a buyer of the first p85 s at 130k and now it's half the price. Also, you do realize that every single car you buy depreciates the minute you drive it off the lot, right? Unless it's a limited production run or straight collectors item, it will not appreciate. Welcome to reality. The last cell phone you bought lost more than 50% of its value the minute you activated it.

 

[one2many]

OK well I put about 5-8K on a stereo set up. By the time a got it out
of the boxes and played Stairway to heaven one time its value was about
$300 bucks.

 

[M3OZ]

I am not being sarcastic but just following that logic. Also I am curious, what misleading information did Tesla give you? did they give/take away something you did not agree to?

Strong representations were made to me about the resale value of the car within 12 months. I have quoted some of the emails with sales rep where she is making representations about depreciation of Tesla within 12 months as low as 5.5%. Given that my car has depreciated at least 10% overnight in two week, I think I have been mislead to say the least.

 

[M3OZ]

Tesla seems to remove the "contact an executive team" from my account soon after that. If you can still reach them via your owners account, you should try that or just tweet Elon, and hope to get lucky for his replies.

Where did you use to get 'contact an executive team'? I don't seem to have that. I have never been able to get past my incompetent sales rep who seems to be no more useful than a recorded voice which keeps repeating, 'I am sorry sir, I understand but my programming does not allow to accommodate this request'

 

[M3OZ]

Aw poor you. Imagine being a buyer of the first p85 s at 130k and now it's half the price. Also, you do realize that every single car you buy depreciates the minute you drive it off the lot, right? Unless it's a limited production run or straight collectors item, it will not appreciate. Welcome to reality. The last cell phone you bought lost more than 50% of its value the minute you activated it.

And the price dropped within two weeks of buying that? The point is simple, had I known about the impending price drop and release of the new car, I would have waited. I was deliberately deprived of that information for them to move their current stock. Other car makers know this results in bad relationship with their customers. They do not drop refreshed models and implement price changes overnight. They make their intentions known ahead of time and do run-out sales before they introduce the change. Here in Tesla they knew they are going to reduce the price and bring out a new model and did the opposite. They hid the information and let their customers hung out to dry.

 

[John-RH]

M30Z,
I ordered my car (M3 AWD LR) October 3rd, delivered October 10th. A week later I read the news of the refresh. I'm disappointed but at same time, I absolutely love the car and super excited to have it. I considered how literally every Tesla owner knows the feeling of seeing a car they paid more for reduced in price shortly after. And how the car has improved in efficiency, range and value. It is similar for buying an iPhone. Each year they release a new model that is faster, better, and less costly (depending on the specs). You could wait forever to get the best value. Anything tech related will be better and less expensive over time. Its a lot more expensive than a phone, for sure. Anyway, Life is short, I'm going to enjoy it and eventually sell it and buy a new one. Or I may not ever buy a car again, just use a robo taxi. It's all good. I'm grateful I can afford to buy the car in the first place.

 

[hellocar]

I don't understand what value there was in posting this - just drive the car and forget about the price drop!

 

[jjrandorin]

A car is a significant asset and depreciation is absolutely a factor. Particularly, when the sales person kept banging on the fact that Teslas hold their value much more than other cars. Sent me a link to back up her claims on Tesla losing only 5.5% of the value and to win me over found local examples of resale value of Teslas.

From sales rep:
'I am not sure if you read this article or not which explain the resale value of of the model 3, it only lose 5.5% less of their value after a year of ownership which is much better than other cars.
Please check this article if you have not read it yet, very interesting Tesla Model 3 tops list of cars that hold their value'

Then a few days later:
'In terms of trade in, the team just not willing to give me a number based on the hypothetical situation, but I have asked one of my customer who tried to sell her model 3 standard range privately, she only had it for couple of months and she wants to upgrade to a Long range with different color. She said she got a lot of inquiry about her model 3, and one lady offer her 71000 for her car.
In general, trade in price is lower than the trade in price, and Tesla holds the value better than other petrol cars. Tesla model 3 is a really popular car with a lot of demand.'

So as you can see, she failed to mention that this is the wrong car in terms of depreciation and was going exactly in the opposite direction. These statements are misleading to say the least.

Unless you are about to sell your recently purchased car right now, the "depreciation effects me" argument has zero weight. You wont realize any depreciation until you actually sell the car. If you were planning on keeping the car 4-5 years, the amount of depreciation AT THE TIME YOU SELL IT is what matters, not what it is during the journey until you sell. 4-5 years from now there might be a 10% difference but that difference might be in the hundreds of dollars because both cars will be worth less.

Its like people think the price they pay (or more) should be the only price anything is sold for, ever. I simply do not get that argument.

As for the "purchasers now pay less than I did" argument, I have absolutely zero sympathy for that one because its the same as every other car deal. For every other brand, your neighbor could buy the exact same car from the exact same dealer on the exact same day and pay 15-20% more than you, or 15-20% less than you, depending on your (and their) negotiation skills.

If you and one of your neighbors had the same house floorplan and you sold your home for 300,000 and 2 weeks later your neighbor sold theirs for 350,000, you certainly are not going to the buyers and asking for more money.

As has been pointed out many times, if tesla raised the price, and they came to you and said "oh I know you bought 2 weeks ago, but we need more money from you now" you would laugh in their face.

On the "my salesrep said", thats a joke, really. Who believes a car salesperson? In most cases, they lie to your face to make a deal because they work on commission. In tesla's case, tesla just keeps them in the dark. They typically know less than we do about upcoming things. Your salesperson almost certainly DID NOT KNOW. "someone" in tesla did, but certainly the people assisting with selling cars didnt.

Like someone else said, I was waiting for someone to start "complaining" about this, because it happens all the time here, and its ridiculous. People buy cars and someone else buys the same car and pays less all the time. it sucks for that person, but it happens. You just didnt know about it before when you bought other brands, because everyone was negotiating in "private" and lying about what they paid for the car online.

 

[LionXng]

Strong representations were made to me about the resale value of the car within 12 months. I have quoted some of the emails with sales rep where she is making representations about depreciation of Tesla within 12 months as low as 5.5%. Given that my car has depreciated at least 10% overnight in two week, I think I have been mislead to say the least.

Past performance does not guarantee future results. The rep gave you accurate historic information. It is always implied that no one can predict the future and their statements are estimates at best unless they use the word "guarantee".

 

[TechOps]

I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is that this is part of buying a Tesla: you never know when they're going to include new features and/or lower the price, and it could be the day after you take delivery. There's no getting around it and it's been going on for years.

The good news is that when you trade in for another Tesla, your depreciation won't matter as much, because the new car will be way better, and way cheaper, than what you bought, lowering the delta of what you need to pay to upgrade to something exponentially better.

So as long as your next car is a Tesla, this doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.

 

[one2many]

Ashtray is full, sell the car. Oh I see, cannot eat, smoke, have sex, drink, wear the tires down,
add air, remove air, baby you can drive my car and baby I love you..... sorry maybe the wrong
post, still like the song.

 

[dmurphy]

Company revises product, someone PO’d, Film at 11.

Seriously, I’m so sick and tired of people whining and moaning about how they “got screwed” when something changes.

It’s exactly the same car you were willing to buy and pay for last week. That didn’t change.

If you don’t believe in depreciation, call Bernie Madoff. I hear he offers guaranteed returns on your investment.

 

[jelloslug]

Are you planning on selling it tomorrow or something?

 

[one2many]

You can checkout any time you like but you can never leave.

 

[Xian]

I get where the OP is coming from buuuuut this isn’t anything new and also not specific to Tesla. I remember back in the mid-90’s, Toyota made a rather large cut to the price on the MKIV Supra ($15k IIRC)... people were pissed, some folks got “stuck” with their cars, and life moved on.

Heck, maybe the lesson here is to hold onto your Model 3 until there’s a blockbuster Fast N Furious featuring your car... or maybe a new MadMax is more likely down in Australia?

 

[OmahaG8]

Aug 2018 P3D owner, I remember Tesla cut me a $5000 check in exchange for giving up free lifetime supercharging after they dropped the price. That was shocking, I don’t know if you’d be so lucky. I’ve used maybe $100 in supercharging so that was a great decision.

Shockingly the price of a new P3D with all options and the one I paid for (also all options - white seats, FSD, red paint), less $7500 tax rebate and 5k refund, only comes out to about 3k difference 2 years later.

Like all things in life, can’t hurt to ask Tesla. You’re already sitting at a ‘no’, so asking could make it a yes - can’t make it any worse.