I can and have argued both sides. I sympathize with you because I understand your logic and where you are coming from.
The problem is even if you out successfully argue someone - what do you accomplish? Nothing. People will still do what they are going to do because of their pride, values or whatever they feel like.
Even if they are wrong, the customer is right. The fact that Tesla got this much outage and Elon is going back and forth all night shows the plan was a disaster.
Doing things is unavoidable.
Issues with how you do it, when you do it, and managing repercussions is avoidable.
I already mentioned many times how Tesla could have not only given up 0 pennies but actually made more money per car.
Given that it wasn’t a no win situation, Tesla has no viable defense. They senselessly and spectacularly failed in their handling of this.
You can get angry about how wrong the customer is all you want, you still need them in the end.
I think you are confounding different issues:
Ordering and production delays - absolutely a problem. You find many posts I made on TMC saying about this being the worst part of Tesla buying process. Every time you put a deposit down, you have no idea how much your trade-in will be, when your car will show up, or how much interest you'll have to pay. My experience included my Tesla trade-in dropping as much as $9K in less than 9 weeks while waiting for the new Tesla which did not lower its price. I had to rent a car for a month once too when I sold my old one and then my new Tesla wasn't there. So I'm 100% with you on that point.
Product quality - Tesla has problems with quality and I cannot defend that. IMO they should compensate you for this experience.
Price going down - now that I don't agree is wrong at all, nor do I believe Tesla should be refunding money to anyone for this.
As I said before, there is plenty of crap Tesla's pulled on customers, including you, and I've called them out on some of those things in the past, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with them lowering prices and not refunding past buyers. While I think Tesla should compensate me for the fact that my P85D would need to produce 50% more power to meet the advertised spec of 691hp (option for which I paid over $20K), I don't think they owe me anything for including the $5K premium package 2 months after I picked up my last Model S (which I did pay for the $5K package).
PS> "Yet someone can now order one, no year wait, get a perfect car,..." - uhm, anyone one ordering today is taking the same quality gamble. You are not, nor will be, the last one who experiences quality issues with Teslas.
@whitex @MXWing We've shared many good discussions over on the Model S/X sides, so it is interesting to see your different takes on this. One might even say uncharacteristic takes?
Goes to show how complicated an issue like this is. I'm somewhat in-between.
My opinion on the Model 3 Performance price change is this: Overall I'm absolutely of the opinion that companies are free to set their pricing and product content for future sales as they please, as long as they are not misleading of course (e.g. Tesla's P85D HP was not OK IMO). In this sense my opinion aligns with that of
@whitex.
As someone who took delivery of a Model S P85 "Classic" (pre-AP) after AP1 and P85D were announced, and again were poised to do the same with Model X and AP1-to-AP2 (but chose to decline delivery that time to get AP2) I certainly know personally how technology marches on with Tesla. I have liked and enjoyed both cars tremendeously (independent of any opinions of the company) and consider both successful purchases, for different reasons.
So at least on the theoretical level and I don't have a beef with companies withholding advancements from their customers, I understand it can be in their interest and a part of business. That is how companies operate, though not all companies are the same - many other car companies do inform customers in advance (this may give some customer loyalty in return and is certainly something to be considered too). But in general, the Osborne effect and all that jazz.
That said, I also absolutely and completely understand us customers have different interests and protecting those interests is equally legitimate.
When it comes to interests, there are no rights answers, there is just a constant debate and a conflict between different ones. A car company has its interests, stock owners have their interests, car owners their interests. Sometimes these align and at other times they conflict, mildly or even violently. It is understandable and OK that all of these exist and everyone is entitled to peacefully promote their own of course.
One of these is the right for a company to set a price and of course customers to choose to buy or not - both at any given moment in time. That's capitalism. But that is not the only right.
I completely support things like online research and online advocacy as a means for customers to offset the advantage a company has over them on the secrecy front. The seller in these kinds of setups always knows more than the buying customer, which is inherenly an unfair proposition. (Even contract law amongst business knows and has precedent of these kinds of stipulations added to contracts.) So the customer has a legitimate need to be smart about it.
Things like
doing online research into future product changes, following
product timelines as a guide are just some examples of how customers can return some advantage to them. Online advocacy is another. I am old enough to remember, as
@pmppk pointed out, how the original iPhone price change was handled, caused an uproar and was partially reimbursed back in the day. The recent debacle over the
V9 software changes on Model S/X is another good example where a feedback-loop on these conflicting interests (Tesla's need to harmozine the UI between Models vs. Model S/X owners needs to make best us of their "legacy" cars) results in changes.
People have a right to have feelings about the purchases they've made and a right to advocate for solutions they deem reasonable. Especially so with product changes, because the secrecy inherent in the transaction means the game is rigged against the buyer. The seller wants to withhold information from you and they usually have superior means to do so, compared to anything a consumer might withhold in return. They are entitled to do so, but at the same time, ethically and realistically, you are entitled to have feelings and base action on those feelings afterwards - IMO that too is only fair.
Both entitlements are true at the same time. Hence the eternal conflict. Which, of course, is why not only smart consumers but also smart companies take this into consideration - as Tesla has done here, and as Steve Jobs did back in the day. One can argue the minutiate of the remedies offered in these cases - I have no particular need to debate those personally - but IMO this reality is clear: the seller-buyer relationship is an ecosystem like any relationship, affected by a multitude of factors. Ignore them at your peril. IMO
@MXWing is right about this reality existing.
Finally, I agree with
@whitex that with Tesla the buying journey can be more unpredictable than with some more traditional companies. There is also a history of quality issues that is real and I can sympathize. I've experienced all that too. On the change front, even us who have dedicated serious time in understanding Tesla's product roadmap - the hard-product, so to speak - can have a hard time making informed decisions, because reliable information is scarce and subject to change on an internal whim.
Add into this the two-quarter time frame in delivery for us international customers and it is difficult to time indeed - the U.S. customer on the other hand does not have our ability to get similarly delayed delivery and thus a delayed possibility of declining it (I would be driving AP1 instead of AP2 now had I had a U.S. delivery timeline).
Let alone if one wants to make informed decisions about pricing or other soft-product factors like re-packaging of features sold as is the case in this thread... These are even more easy for Tesla to change as they please and that is arguably even harder than predicting hard-product changes.
"Tesla happens" as they say.
A smart customer is at least knowledgeable about that.
