New Inventory Teslas getting "frozen" starting tomorrow

[kilocar]

I have a friend who works at a local Tesla dealership. He informed me today that he was told Tesla is removing all of it's new inventory models from the system starting tomorrow. Apparently, it has to do with Tesla being able to deliver any new/custom order prior to end of Q4, so they would rather keep their inventory models as dry powder for the end of the quarter when deliveries can't be made in time. Basically, that means tonight is the last day to get the triple combo deal...inventory discount + free supercharging + $1k referral discount.

Just wanted to give everyone a head's up on that....good luck getting one tonight if you are in the market!

PS. If you are interested in leasing an inventory model and see one you like, feel free to contact me about how you can save even more than going through Tesla / US Bank directly. It can add up to several thousand dollars in additional discounts.

 

[IdaX]

Aha so this is aimed at sliding the scale to ensure that they cross 200,000 vehicles on January 1 2018?

 

[TexasEV]

Interesting, but you can’t have a friend that works at a local Tesla dealership because Tesla doesn’t have dealerships. It has stores. (Or galleries in states where Tesla can’t sell cars.) it’s not just a semantic distinction, one of the best things about buying a Tesla is you avoid the auto dealer cartel and buy directly from Tesla.

 

[Product_Guy]

I have confirmed this with two other OAs as well. Feel free to contact me or OP if you're looking for a good deal tonight before the freeze.

 

[kilocar]

Interesting, but you can’t have a friend that works at a local Tesla dealership because Tesla doesn’t have dealerships. It has stores. (Or galleries in states where Tesla can’t sell cars.) it’s not just a semantic distinction, one of the best things about buying a Tesla is you avoid the auto dealer cartel and buy directly from Tesla.

Good point. This one is actually a new car showroom and officially a used car dealership. I guess the used car dealership is required to have a presence at all. Yes, buying direct is awesome!

 

[LCR1]

Interesting, but you can’t have a friend that works at a local Tesla dealership because Tesla doesn’t have dealerships. It has stores. (Or galleries in states where Tesla can’t sell cars.) it’s not just a semantic distinction, one of the best things about buying a Tesla is you avoid the auto dealer cartel and buy directly from Tesla.

Yea, because $175/hr labor, restricted parts supply, refusal to work with 3rd party dealers etc, denying access to manuals for DIY, etc is not a cartel either.

 

[hmmm]

That's interesting...there were massive showroom discounts on "old" (i.e. which had been listed for a while...) inv cars today, still a couple left but the best ones moved fast.

Why would they want to move them like that now? Why not wait for EOQ?

 

[kilocar]

That's interesting...there were massive showroom discounts on "old" (i.e. which had been listed for a while...) inv cars today, still a couple left but the best ones moved fast.

Why would they want to move them like that now? Why not wait for EOQ?

I got off the phone with my friend at Tesla about 30 minutes ago and there's still quite a few good deals in their system to be had tonight....

What he told me on their logic is that since any new/custom Tesla can be ordered, made-to-order and delivered prior to the end of Q4, so there is no need to sell inventory ones at this time. Just keep them as dry powder as you get closer to the end of the quarter. It's optimizing for revenue and margin. Sounded reasonable to me, but I'm sure there's more going on behind the scenes than just that one driver.

 

[LargeHamCollider]

I got off the phone with my friend at Tesla and there's still quite a few good deals in their system. What he told me on their logic is that any new/custom Tesla can be ordered, made-to-order and delivered prior to the end of Q4, so there is no need to sell inventory ones at this time. Just keep them as dry powder as you get closer to the end of the quarter. Sounded reasonable to me, but I'm sure there's more going on behind the scenes than just that one driver.

I expect an update to the MS/X electronics soon.

 

[buttershrimp]

I have a friend who works at a local Tesla dealership. He informed me today that he was told Tesla is removing all of it's new inventory models from the system starting tomorrow. Apparently, it has to do with Tesla being able to deliver any new/custom order prior to end of Q4, so they would rather keep their inventory models as dry powder for the end of the quarter when deliveries can't be made in time. Basically, that means tonight is the last day to get the triple combo deal...inventory discount + free supercharging + $1k referral discount.

Just wanted to give everyone a head's up on that....good luck getting one tonight if you are in the market!

PS. If you are interested in leasing an inventory model and see one you like, feel free to contact me about how you can save even more than going through Tesla / US Bank directly. It can add up to several thousand dollars in additional discounts.

Let me guess, you want me to use your referral code?

 

[kilocar]

Let me guess, you want me to use your referral code?

No, not necessarily. You can use whatever referral code you want. If you have one, you can refer yourself. I'm referring to a savings vs leasing through Tesla directly. It can add up to several thousand dollars over the lease term. I don't really need any referrals now based on what I do to help finance new car purchases.

 

[singal3]

Let me guess, you want me to use your referral code?

Yes he probably does, that is usually what people do for helping each other.

 

[kilocar]

Aha so this is aimed at sliding the scale to ensure that they cross 200,000 vehicles on January 1 2018?

That would be nice...I really hope they eke out until Jan 1! Wait until Q1 '18 to get out of production hell on M3, then max out the next 2 quarters.

 

[buttershrimp]

Just a little jokey

 

[hmmm]

I got off the phone with my friend at Tesla about 30 minutes ago and there's still quite a few good deals in their system to be had tonight....

What he told me on their logic is that since any new/custom Tesla can be ordered, made-to-order and delivered prior to the end of Q4, so there is no need to sell inventory ones at this time. Just keep them as dry powder as you get closer to the end of the quarter. It's optimizing for revenue and margin. Sounded reasonable to me, but I'm sure there's more going on behind the scenes than just that one driver.

I'm not questioning your source and the logic makes sense....the timing is puzzling but then again as you suggested there are probably different elements in play...incentive for the sales team to pull sales into October to make Q4 less stressful/back-end loaded?...who knows....upcoming new features?

 

[Product_Guy]

I'm not questioning your source and the logic makes sense....the timing is puzzling but then again as you suggested there are probably different elements in play...incentive for the sales team to pull sales into October to make Q4 less stressful/back-end loaded?...who knows....upcoming new features?

I heard that they will be keeping service loaners for “at least a year” and will be selling them as used cars. Not sure how that works, but apparently they want to use the loaners for longer periods of time and not sell them as often.

 

[HankLloydRight]

I heard that they will be keeping service loaners for “at least a year” and will be selling them as used cars. Not sure how that works, but apparently they want to use the loaners for longer periods of time and not sell them as often.

If that's true, it's a dead repeat of what happened with Inventory cars right before Tesla started listing them online. They maintained a database of every loaner/demo vehicle, which was also the same database they used to sell Inventory cars (accessible only to sales associates). People quickly figured out they could get a pretty good discount by scoping out "newer" inventory cars and snapping them up, even if the savings was modest ($1k-$2k), and there was no wait. Suddenly, Tesla found themselves with no newer model loaner cars, only older, aging loaners/demos, which kinda defeated the purpose of a "demo". So they instituted a new rule that Inventory cars must be held at least 90 days before being sold off as Inventory. This helped maintain a larger pool of new model cars for test drives, etc. So I guess with the online Inventory sales since then, they got ahead of themselves again and are caught selling the newer cars rather than the older ones. I guess when you have to meet quarterly numbers, they'll sell any car they can. Quite the conflict between sales (keep newer demo cars) and finance (sell everything possible to make the numbers).

 

[Olle]

I have a friend who works at a local Tesla dealership. He informed me today that he was told Tesla is removing all of it's new inventory models from the system starting tomorrow.
Just wanted to give everyone a head's up on that....good luck getting one tonight if you are in the market!

Today is tomorrow. How did it go? New Inventory | Tesla

 

[Product_Guy]

Today is tomorrow. How did it go? New Inventory | Tesla

I should clarify - there is no more “hidden inventory”. Cars that are in sales and service fleets are no longer for sale. There will still be a few inventory cars, but very few compared to the amount of cars that OAs had access to until yesterday. And with that, no huge adjustments from the car being a showroom or service vehicle.

 

[TexasEV]

I should clarify - there is no more “hidden inventory”. Cars that are in sales and service fleets are no longer for sale. There will still be a few inventory cars, but very few compared to the amount of cars that OAs had access to until yesterday. And with that, no huge adjustments from the car being a showroom or service vehicle.

Good, that means more service loaners available since they won’t keep getting sold.