It would appear that the first 50,000 *or so* M3 buyers will get the full federal tax credit.
Rationale as follows:
US-centric production estimates - ~40K so far, another ~50K this year and ~75K next gets us to 165K before the first M3 is produced in late December 2017.
Then there's the wiggle room provided by the verbiage of the provision itself. The 'or so' above could mean 75,000 M3 buyers get the full credit depending upon how Elon wants to reward current MS/X owners. And then it's a matter of cranking out as many as possible in the 2 quarters subsequent to the full quarter after the quarter in which the threshold is reached (got all that?
Who comes up with this stuff - ah - committees - naturally) - all of whose buyers will get half the federal tax credit. I forget what happens thereafter.
So net net, I believe that everybody who signed up from the US within the first 24 hours is going to get something - and even during the day after. After that, well, all bets are off
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And that, folks, is why I drove from LA County to Palm Desert to sign up, and was done at 10:07am. California owner or not, I just wanted to remove all doubt - besides which, my GRV (guaranteed resale value) option triggers in early 2018 - figuring after the employees get the first 1000 cars or so, that timing should work well. If I do keep the car that long, which is by no means certain given the anemic nature of the ESA for 50,001-100,000 miles (am at 40,000 miles after 15 months now), it would make sense to transition at that point. Selling privately is of course the best option, but having the GRV as a floor can't hurt.
Now watch Elon surprise everyone and deliver the car mid-2017. Ack!