Did anyone else notice this? Deposits are fully refundable and payments vary by country: $2,500 USD and $2,500 CAD. http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts
Interesting, that was done quietly. The Model X is still $5000 to reserve though: Buy or Reserve a Tesla | Tesla Motors
Great idea, now they save on the credit card fees for $2500 on every purchase. For a 2% fee, that's an extra $50 per sale, or $1 million extra for every 20,000 cars sold.
Elon alluded to this in the conference call. He also mentioned credit card fees and the barrier to reservation as reasons.
I kind of liked the $5000 amount not as a barrier to entry but as a reduction on the MVPA amount on delivery. The psychological "before $7500 tax credit" makes a sort of price jump that while expected always seems to catch me off guard. At least when they deduct the $5000 deposit, the price delta is only $2500 against the "before tax credit price" My deposit on our 40 reservation was well over a year ago and that $5K deposit is long gone and out of mind. It was nice to see it deducted from our MVPA. As the turnaround from deposit to delivery gets shorter I guess that'll make less of an impact.
Yeah, but nowadays, there's no "reservation" stage. You finalize immediately, and you probably get the car in a few months or less. So the psychological impact is probably not the same.
This is nice, but it's not like you're really saving anything. The old amount still came off the final price. Maybe now my stupid Scotiabank credit card won't choke on this amount like it did when I reserved a Model X. (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/15173-Credit-Card-Processing-A-Model-X-Reservation-Issue)