voltage
Member
Just got email from my local store that they start taking reservations when the store opens which is 10am ET.
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Reserving Your Model 3 Blog: More info, more questions answered
- Thread starter ModelNforNerd
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Based on the outright comments by Tesla in today's release that different regions of the country and of the world would be prioritized differently, it follows that they'd take reservations at staggered times and just categorize them differently. If you order at 10 AM PST in California, taking the other factors of price point and prior ownership into account, you'll still likely get your car before someone who orders at 10 AM EST. It'll be interesting to see how it breaks down once they get into it, but today's news seems to counteract the issue of time zones.
As a non-Tesla owner, I'm no expert, but if I understand what you're saying correctly, I find it difficult to imagine that they'd manufacture cars and not immediately ship them out, and I don't think they would've said anything if we were talking a matter of days difference, as in the time it takes to deliver a car from California to Oregon rather than California to New York. By referencing a west-to-east delivery process, I took it to mean they'll be "filling orders" on the West Coast first. Manufacturing, payment, delivery - the whole shebang. I'm open to hearing otherwise, but this was my interpretation.
Darryl
ModelXTracker.com Co-Adm
They would have to be faster than the Model X rollout. It is now almost April and there are probably no more than 300-400 production cars delivered (around 50 per week) since they started the production rollout the first week of January even though they are saying they are going to deliver several thousand more by the end of the quarter (March 31). There are still Signature owners who have not yet received their car. Some paid for their car in full in November. There are about 23K Model X reservations. They still have not run a single add for a Tesla but they use events like the March 31st Model 3 launch to get a lot of publicity.
They still don't have a Model X at the Tesla stores for people to see and drive. Most people are purchasing sight unseen. Yet the reservation and orders are still coming in. Whenever I come out of the grocery store there are always people standing around my Model X P90DL to get a look. They are still pretty rare. I am the first to get mine in this part of the state. I have not seen another one on the road. The sales will skyrocket when more Model X's get on the road and are available in the Tesla Stores for people to try out.
What is really unfair, and it looks like they will continue the practice, is if I were to place a reservation for a Model X P90DL with the Autopilot and Premium Packages tonight I would get my car before those who reserved a Model X 70D three years ago. There is a good chance I would get if before the majority of Model 90D reservations who ordered years ago. This the most unfair part of the way they do the reservations.
There are several reasons why they will start delivering Model 3's to the West Coast first.
- Most of the employees are located in the San Franisco Bay or Reno Areas
- They can get the cars to the customer's faster as there is less transportation time
- Many will choose a factory delivery (and officer's compensation.
- This allows them to report the delivery of the cars in an earlier quarter which will impact the stock price
- If there are production issues they are closer to the factory and the parts depot for repair
Darryl
ModelXTracker.com Co-Adm
No where in this communication does it say you will be able to place an order when they open. It says to "allow you to get a better spot in the queue."
Lot of these locations are within shopping malls, the malls don't open until a specific time which may or may not be when the store opens. Therefore you can get there at 2AM but there is no place for you to line up until the mall and store opens. Some malls open earlier than the stores but it is rare they are open all night. You may want to call your mall, not the Tesla store, and see when the mall itself opens. Some malls also don't allow for coolers, chairs etc as they may consider this a security risk. You can ask them their policy when you call.
The two locations closest to me are not in stores. I have to verify if they will taking reservations. They are in freestanding buildings. I asked one of them if they will be locking the security gates and they said no. I understand not all locations will be taking orders. I know of one location in either south or north Carolina which has posted they will not be taking reservations. It was posted on the forum last week. I would check ahead. You would be pissed if you showed up at a location waited for hours to only find out they didn't take reservations.
You will find it rare for Tesla to send out communications to their customers. I think in the more than three almost four years I may have gotten four emails. The one saying they had accepted my reservation, the one saying I was invited to the design studio and the one saying my order was received and the final one saying my order had been confirmed and any changes would cost $500. No updates in between. One other thing to be careful of is there were people who checked the box saying they did not want to receive marketing information from Tesla. By doing this they got NO emails from Tesla even the invite to design. General update usually are only found by reading the transcripts from their board of director or stockholder meetings.
Tesla is very tight lipped even at the stores. This is why so many EV magazines and publication read this forum and use the information in their publication. A lot of people have added a phrase to their signature line stating no one has permission to re-desceminate any information from their posts. There was a person collecting information yesterday alluding they were acting on behalf of Elon Musk. When I questioned them about it they failed to respond.
SureValla
Member
I interpreted queue to mean queue to get into the design studio/get the car. I agree though it could also be your interpretation of queue to put down a deposit.
ZAKEEUS
Member
It's odd that it doesn't say 10am PST but it says you can go when the store opens. It also says the exact time one of the unveiling. And since you can now order online on the 31st, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to order in store when it opens since the time zone differences won't make a difference since they will deliver west to east.
I think this is their way of not melting their servers down when every store lets people begin ordering at the same time. Staggering by time zones doesn't seem like it's going to matter when it comes to who gets their car first. So, just be there when your store opens.
It's going to be a good PR op. They will be all over the news across the country before they even go live at the debut event.
They might even have some numbers to share. "We have already taken XXXX deposits on the Model 3 in the last XX hours."
The share price will probably be looking pretty good on April 1st.
It really does seem unfair - but it is good business sense to do it this way as the fully optioned cars make more money for them.
I think that with the Model 3 it is more than that though. I don't believe that they will be able to economically build a base Model 3 with zero options and will only be able to do that once they have ramped production and got to a scale that lets them deliver it.
My best guess is the "west coast prioritization" is simply so that time zones won't matter, given the reservations starting on store opening. I doubt the prioritization will last past the initial few hours, which would actually be pretty in-line with the Model X rollout primarily hitting the West Coast with each new production batch.
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