This is the first Tesla I have ordered. I am very enthusiastic about Tesla as a company and as the manufacturer of great cars. I own Tesla stock. I just feel that their constant changing of estimated delivery dates is poor and the lengthy wait is wearing my patience thin. I am thinking about a number of options I as don't want to be one of the last to not get the 4680 batteries and also not get any potential federal incentive. If I have to wait, I want to make it more productive wait and insure that I at least get the new batteries.
But have you custom ordered previous cars or have you bought what the dealers had in stock?
For me, this is nothing new. We have custom ordered plenty of cars and I have done my research what goes into the process. We ordered a 2001 BMW 330xi that didn't get picked up by BMW until after the cut off. So the factory shut down for the usual European vacation and we ended up with a 2002 BMW 330xi. We ordered a 2016 Suburban and an item we wanted was on constraint( GM had a shortage of that part) so it took awhile for it to be assembled. My 2017 Camaro SS was custom ordered and it came relatively quickly because the dealer had an order in for a Camaro SS that was still in the stage that was accepted by GM, but could still be modified. The only difference between that experience and Tesla's is the dealer would always give you a generic, "6-8 week" statement and Tesla is a bit more transparent and gives you an estimate. I have no idea what that estimate is based off of, but I imagine it is based on demand, anticipated dates of when they would get the parts in to build your vehicle, etc.
I imagine the September jail a lot of people were in( myself included) was Tesla internally rescheduling and shuffling the planned orders based on Austin coming online.
RIght now Tesla isn't the only one dealing with parts shortages. I know a person that ordered a RAV4 Prime back in November and the dealer says it probably wouldn't be in until November of this year. The C8 Corvette is sold out for the next few model years( let alone the new Z06....)So everyones order books are backed up.
But you do you. If you want a 4680 and a federal tax credit( if it comes), the best advice I can say is to cancel the order. Tesla will not hold your current order. You're outside of the window of the order agreement to be able to hold it.