Are you saying that dealers got a heads up to order additional cars before the EHVIP cancellation, knowing they would be reimbursed for the rebate?
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Are you saying that dealers got a heads up to order additional cars before the EHVIP cancellation, knowing they would be reimbursed for the rebate?
Good perspective, @BKR1986.
My $0.02 worth: financially (not emotionally), you're crazy to take out an 8 year loan on a depreciating asset. Especially since you say you don't keep cars long. A car is the worst "investment" you make in life. I don't know how old you are (I'm 55 and - I'll say it - a self-made millionaire, so I have some experience), but your money would help your life as a whole much more saved and making interest (e.g. children, house, travel, retirement). To me it sounds like you can't afford a Tesla. Yet.
The compromise is you buy a 2nd-hand hybrid or PHEV until the base Model 3 becomes available, or cheaper EVs come on the market.
Now if AWD is necessary for you, as it is for me, we hardly have any EV choices at the moment besides a Tesla. The Mitsubishi is a fit, but it's also new and expensive. Sounds like you might have to wait until you make more income. For me, any car loan over 3-4 years is a sign it's not affordable. STAY OUT OF DEBT.
A third option would be to buy a 2nd hand Model 3 in a few years, but that might be - by your own standard - too boring. Boring saves money. My Miata (pictured) is 2nd-hand, so I got a huge discount, and I love how un-boring it is.
Not trying to sound preachy, but you've done your homework and from what you've shared, this car is beyond your budget IMO, I would say with or without the rebate.
Hope this helps!
Thanks @jkirkwood001,
I've always respected your feedback and I appreciate more that your opinions come from actual experience.
I am not a millionaire. However, I do think I'm doing well for a 31 year old. I purchased my first home at 23, rented it and sold it for 3X what I paid 5 years later. This funded my current home which I currently have $100,000 mortgage on and has been recently appraised at $730,000. I have no debt and own all assets but my home outright. I work in IT for a major airline that may or may not have been mentioned a few posts above (lol)
All of that being said, I do agree with you completely. I'm not comfortable paying $800+ per month for the next 8 years for a depreciating asset. And as it stands, I *technically* can afford a $2,000 per month car payment for 3 or 4 years but that would leave with with VERY little savings after bills and living lol. I don't have kids or a wife and I'm at the age where experiences, travel and food mean more to me than having a fancy car.
I will have to either reel in my expectations and look at either a less expensive model or wait until someone decides to sell off their AWD once the next greatest thing comes out. I will continue to look at 2016 (AP2) Model S's. I feel after the upcoming major refresh, these will start flooding the market.
I'd love to get your opinion on an option my financial guy mentioned, if you had a moment?
He advised that an alternate option would be that I could use some of the equity I have in my current home to buy the car outright.
Similar to a HELOC but because I'm due to renew my mortgage, he would just pull the cash out during the refinancing and after fees and a slight increase to interest rate (currently paying 2.3% fixed) my total monthly increase would be less than $300 per month.
What, in your opinion would be the pros and cons of doing this? Would 31 year old, single Jkirkwood001 with no debt, excellent credit, and no car payment consider this a feasible/reasonable option if he REALLY wanted a Tesla M3? LOL
No surprise that a big manufacturer (and campaign $$$ supporter) got inside information from the PC party about how to prepare for the program ending. 100% sure the PC party didn't have the same back room deal / convo with Tesla.
Sounds like they may of had an idea something was happening.
Any one know what EV rebate applications Ontario is currently processing?
I submitted my rebate form by email in early June and assume it will take at least 4-6 months. All I have is email stating they received my application. Is it worth contacting them to find out the status? 14k is a lot of money and a little paranoid.
I submitted my rebate form by email in early June and assume it will take at least 4-6 months. All I have is email stating they received my application. Is it worth contacting them to find out the status? 14k is a lot of money and a little paranoid.
phigment
Member
pcons
M3 AWD+
Even 'back in the day' it would take up to 6 months to get a rebate, and now I would assume its slower because more applications to process and less motivation to do so. I had a co worker buy a volt 2 years ago, and it took him 6 months to get the rebate (his dealer didn't process the paperwork for him). Be patient (and very thankful) you have the rebate, unlike 95% of the rest of us
jkirkwood001
Active Member
Wow, about a 1/3 the price for a comparable (I said "comparable", not same OK??
brand-new sedan. Tough to beat. And again, if that buys you 3 years until Tesla and other BEVs have more affordable options, that sounds like a great path, @adaptabl .Large car dealerships are, for the most part, significant contributors to the right wing parties. Those loyalties a long and deep. This is a government that is about back room deals, political favours and old school thinking. Tesla is none of those. This is caustic, hateful and purposeful behaviour by Ford and his henchmen. Tesla wouldn’t stand a chance.
I spoke to OMB today. They had a meeting with MTO yesterday and MTO is being receptive. MTO is now reviewing how this decision was made in regards to Tesla not receiving the incentive instantly. If it was something that was spelled out by MTO, it's possible for them to make a change. If the directive came from cabinet, there is little to no chance that anything will change.
Hello folks. I've been following the discussion for a couple of weeks, and am in the same boat as the rest of you. Made my order on June 17, and am waiting until basically Tesla tells me I have no other options before deciding to cancel. I've been in touch with the Ombudsman, as well as my MPP, and have written a number of letters to various people in the government about the issue.
One piece of info that I can contribute is that I have been emailing back and forth with a Tesla exec who told me a few days ago that Tesla has not been able to get in touch with the MFO, MTO, or anybody from Doug Ford's government. Similarly, I was given contact info to an individual in the government who has been tasked with dealing with this issue on a case-by-base basis. I called her directly, and was told that her position is not one in which she is supposed to speak directly to civilians, but instead that she should be appealed to by an MPP. So I gave her info to my MPP, who has told me that the woman in question is not answering her phone and does not have voice mail set up. I'm trying to get her email address now.
In any case, the Tesla exec told me that they are planning to take legal action.
From my perspective, here's what this means:
1.Any legal action, taken either by Tesla or any other group, will take longer than a month to be resolved. If any of us purchase the car with the hopes of a favourable legal resolution, then we are going to have to gamble because it could be six months before it gets settled. And there is no guarantee - in fact, it's probably unlikely - that it will be resolved in our favour.
2. Choosing not to buy the car now, with the hopes of it being more affordable later (through federal rebates, or the eventual availability of the more affordable model) is also a gamble. For starters, I personally have no idea if the Liberals will retain power after next year, but I do know that Cap and Trade is a hot button issue and I can't imagine that they'd make that the central focus of their re-election campaign. Beyond that, due to the volatility of the market right now, there's no way to predict the strength of the Canadian dollar in a year, not to mention the possibility of prices being driven up due to tariffs and trade wars.
In any case, regarding the topic of a refund, I'll just say this: I love Tesla, I've been unimpressed by their customer service. In general, it seems that you could call Tesla three times, and talk to three different people, and receive three different answers. I ordered my car on June 17th, and nobody has been in touch with me about my order. I expect, when a Tesla advisor does call me, that I will be given the option to cancel and receive a full refund. It wouldn't make sense for there to be an available refund, only to have it be taken away, without someone informing me of either option through a direct channel. So, yeah, I'm going to wait until someone contacts me.
One piece of info that I can contribute is that I have been emailing back and forth with a Tesla exec who told me a few days ago that Tesla has not been able to get in touch with the MFO, MTO, or anybody from Doug Ford's government. Similarly, I was given contact info to an individual in the government who has been tasked with dealing with this issue on a case-by-base basis. I called her directly, and was told that her position is not one in which she is supposed to speak directly to civilians, but instead that she should be appealed to by an MPP. So I gave her info to my MPP, who has told me that the woman in question is not answering her phone and does not have voice mail set up. I'm trying to get her email address now.
In any case, the Tesla exec told me that they are planning to take legal action.
From my perspective, here's what this means:
1.Any legal action, taken either by Tesla or any other group, will take longer than a month to be resolved. If any of us purchase the car with the hopes of a favourable legal resolution, then we are going to have to gamble because it could be six months before it gets settled. And there is no guarantee - in fact, it's probably unlikely - that it will be resolved in our favour.
2. Choosing not to buy the car now, with the hopes of it being more affordable later (through federal rebates, or the eventual availability of the more affordable model) is also a gamble. For starters, I personally have no idea if the Liberals will retain power after next year, but I do know that Cap and Trade is a hot button issue and I can't imagine that they'd make that the central focus of their re-election campaign. Beyond that, due to the volatility of the market right now, there's no way to predict the strength of the Canadian dollar in a year, not to mention the possibility of prices being driven up due to tariffs and trade wars.
In any case, regarding the topic of a refund, I'll just say this: I love Tesla, I've been unimpressed by their customer service. In general, it seems that you could call Tesla three times, and talk to three different people, and receive three different answers. I ordered my car on June 17th, and nobody has been in touch with me about my order. I expect, when a Tesla advisor does call me, that I will be given the option to cancel and receive a full refund. It wouldn't make sense for there to be an available refund, only to have it be taken away, without someone informing me of either option through a direct channel. So, yeah, I'm going to wait until someone contacts me.
Hello- was that Zahra? I contacted her too as I understand she’s the point person on this- but for MPPs only. She wouldn’t talk. My car is gone but if I One gets the 14k out of that vile Ford I’ll raise a glass to them
jkirkwood001
Active Member
Everything you say makes perfect sense - good thinking. Thanks for asking for my perspective.
Three mitigating factors in your case:
- Money borrowed under a home loan is cheaper than a car loan. Using the Tesla calculator I shared, I'm guessing your trade-in is worth about $14,000? A 2% lower loan rate will save you almost $7,000 over 8 years. I agree that's a better way to borrow the money.
- More significantly, as you note, your current car costs you ~$620 / month. If you're willing to forego the 407 (HOV lanes towards your home?), given the premium on insurance, electricity, etc, you'd "save" ~$500 / month switching to a Tesla. So your $900 payment is net $400 / month / 8 years.
- The added detail about having a net worth over $600 K and being employed in IT supports you having more cushion to leverage than some others.
If you bundle the loan into your mortgage, you save ~$7,000 but the payback duration gets averaged out. You might need to renew your mortgage for many extra years, but at least that loan is mostly towards building your equity, and at the lower rate.
Of course it depends what's more of a priority for you - there's no way getting a Tesla will "pay" you back financially. But, here's an idea (and I said the same thing when my son and daughter-in-law were anxious about buying their first-house):
- Buy the Tesla and see how the payments work out for one year.
- Use the mortgage rate, but aim to keep the duration as short as possible - a benefit of a mortgage is that the monthly payment stays the same even as your salary should go up year over year, so year 1 is the toughest year of paying off a mortgage.
- If the costs are too much, you sell your Tesla after a year, and even if it's only worth 70% of what you paid, that's still double or quadruple what you'd need for a replacement vehicle (a used car - suck it up, Princess). You take the extra 1/3 or 2/3 from the Tesla sale and make a bulk payment back into your mortgage to reduce its monthly payments (make sure your bank let's you do this).
- Your risk is not completely $80,000 over 8 years. It's 1-year's depreciation, say ~$15 K worst case.
- There's a chance the feds will introduce a rebate that lowers the resale value of the car. That would suck if you buy now. You can't control that. I try not to worry about what I can't control. Don't expect and you're never disappointed, is my philosophy. The rebate's unlikely to be $14,000 though so I doubt it'll be as severe as others are fearing.
- In other words, in a way the risk is not 8 years of high payments, it's paying ~$15,000 for one year of driving a Tesla and finding out if it's worth the impact to your lifestyle. That and your escape plan involves downgrading to a 2nd-hand car. As an "experience" there are worse bets. In my son's case, the maximum penalty to try out paying for a home was the move cost and the realtor's fee (assuming a stable housing market), but it wasn't "OMG I am stuck for 25 years!!" Buying a Tesla has less financial risk than buying a house, but both the depreciation - and the fun! - is more.
PS Out of the dozen cars I've owned, only 2 were new: a Pontiac Firefly (3-cylinder Suzuki!) which I bought when I was a courier and could therefore write-off the purchase, and my current 2013 Suzuki SX4 winter car, which I bought when Suzuki left North America and was on sale 25% off (new in 2013 for $17,500). The sweet spot are cars 2-years old - you can detail it for $150 to make it look new, but it costs ~$40% less than new.
Canuck
Well-Known Member
I don't doubt you were told that, but I won't believe it until I see it. Execs like to threaten lawsuits to shift blame (not that Tesla has any blame in this case, in my view) but once Tesla's legal dept looks at this, there's no way in my view they will commence an action against the gov't. It would be dismissed on Summary Judgment. This is well within the government's authority. Elections have consequences -- the Courts know that, and one government's handout is properly taken away by a new gov't. There's no legislation or common-law that prohibits what was done -- and it's commonly done.
So the bottom line is this: Good on Tesla to rush our vehicles up here (when our original delivery date was "late 2018") to take advantage of a $14k rebate we all knew wouldn't last long regardless of who is in power. Giving $14k of tax dollars to Tesla owners is bad optics for a left-wing government, and completely out of the ball park for a right wing one. That's just a fact like the fact our federal gov't, lead by all-talk but no-action on climate change, Trudeau, continues to hand out billions to big oil despite our climate change pledge, while having no federal rebate. Yet he talks and acts like he's a leader in combating climate change when in reality he's tucked as deep as you can go into the pocket of big oil. Even Trump has a $7.5k federal rebate -- that survived their last budget. If we were even remotely concerned about climate change, every Province would have a $5k rebate and federally we would have $7.5k. It's pocket change compared to what we hand out to big oil from our tax dollars, all while they soak us at the pump.
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jkirkwood001
Active Member
Respect everything you say, @KEvans, but in Tesla's defence, I would hold them more accountable if this was their doing. Ontario represents... oh 5% tops? of Tesla's sales base, and Model 3 buyers affected 1%? They are up against a combative government that is trying to make them fail. Oh and they've been growing @50% per year, so their whole service network is clearly running at over-capacity (I won't say, at the breaking point). So we've been screwed, yes, and Tesla could be doing more, but I don't blame them for having a hard time and limited resources available to help us Ontarians with this problem. The fact they offered a full refund is more than they committed to us order-ers.
I, too, was given the name of Zahra Sultani. I called her and was also told that she does not speak to the public, but only to officials from other MPPs offices.
However, she did say that she was not involved in the EHVIP program at all. Apparently, she works for the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. However, the EHVIP was operated through the MTO and the guidelines were set by the MFO. So it sounds like this is a dead-end.
If anyone knows any different, please let me know.
Bluewish
Member
Wow, about a 1/3 the price for a comparable (I said "comparable", not same OK??
If you want to buy 3 years, I recommend you to lease the vehicle, not to purchase/ finance it.
Just got off the phone with Tesla. Was interested to know if I would get delivery before Sept 10 in case rebate was actually there by some miracle. Was told my VIN would be any day now and that it is currently taking 30 days from VIN assignment to delivery. There is a very good chance that reservations without VINS yet may not make the Sept 10 deadline. Was also told no refund once VIN assigned. On the flip side, my sister in law works at the MTO and she did say that the Ombudsman recommendations are always complied with.
I wish we had more time on this, but I think I will have to cancel and get the SR car next year (was told reservations available in the late fall). Good luck to all.
I wish we had more time on this, but I think I will have to cancel and get the SR car next year (was told reservations available in the late fall). Good luck to all.
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