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Tesla Model 3 in Australia

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Yup, well Hyundai Kona Electric is the same price as a SR+. You can buy a tragically low volume $25k car that looks like a $25k car with Hyundai paint and a big battery or you can buy a Model 3 from a small new company with big plans.

Tesla are delivering 2500 cars in a month. How many did they sell in AU last year?

To be fair while I would always pick the Tesla even if the paint isn’t what it should be, it does raise some concerns about the quality and reliability of the whole car. When the car is delivered to customers with dead batteries, bubbling paint, unpainted surfaces, doors that don’t close, low brake fluid reservoirs and empty windscreen fluid, you start to fear how things will be in 3, 5 or 8 years. It is a legitimate concern and we can only hope that Tesla service is good by then to address issues.

My suspicion is that while they are aware they have major paint shop issues they just can’t fix them without taking it offline for a prolonged period of time. With the model 3 in production 24hrs a day and the company depending on every one made to survive they just can’t have the paint shop pause. Elon has mentioned in the past when they made black the default colour that this was in part due to the fact they can’t afford to have the cars taking too long at painting as it slows down the line.

The same probably applies to the rest of the issues. It’s a “keep going at all costs, stop for nothing” mentality in the factory as they’d rather have 100k cars per quarter delivered with large numbers needing fixing later than 50k perfect cars and go broke by next year. While I understand the philosophy, if it’s your $100k that buys the car it does make you *gulp* as to what you’re getting yourself into.
 
28/7/2019 order
P3+ White Interior.
Still #VINLess
Not a peep from Tesla. I'm going to call on the 1st and request an update. "Busy end of sales quarter" should hopefully no longer be an excuse.
I was just a Tesla Melbourne Delivery centre and wanted to get some more details of shipments with white seats and the gentleman that was there checked the computer and said a big batch is coming out in the next shipment and to expect delivery mid to late October.
 
Ye
In Canberra, had a 10am delivery to my house scheduled for today - no car, no messages, no email. I have seen an FB post of one home-delivery occurring in Canberra today.

Anyone else had a 29/9 home-delivery scheduled in the ACT today and success or information?
Supposed to be 3pm - radio silence. Pretty disappointing really. I know it’s only a few more days but when you take time off work to keep your end of the deal...
 
I had a 2pm home delivery appointment (northwest NSW [Inverell]) today (27/09/19) for a white SR+ (reservation Aug 2018, order July 2019). It is now 4pm. Haven't heard a thing. Can't get through to Tesla via phone. Can't leave a message as the mail box is full.

I fully understand that things don't go to plan and deliveries can be delayed. Communication however is the key. Customers need to know what is going on. Not knowing anything is the problem.

It took considerable effort (work and family logistics) to be home ready for this appointment time. I might add that I had no say in this appointment time. All I got was a phone message saying when I had an appointment. I was under the impression that an 'appointment' requires all parties to agree.

Just getting an invoice from Tesla was a battle (multiple emails and contact by both myself and my finance provider [pepper]). The invoice only came through yesterday for a delivery that is meant to take place today. Then getting the registration forms was a battle.

I sure hope this car is amazing.
 
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Brief update #2 after 1wk+ of SR+ ownership.
  • Fog lights - a few recent posts confirmed that fog lights are included and working with SR+. After a couple of failed attempts to activate them, I managed to turn them on last night. My lights are set on AUTO, so the way the fog lights work (for me) is as follows.
    • In daylight when the normal lights are off, the fog light buttons are greyed out.
    • At night when the normal lights are on, the fog light buttons are active and I could switch either or both on. The car was in D and moving slowly when I tested them.
  • WiFi Connectivity - I've been trying since day #1 to connect my SR+ to my home wifi without success ... until this morning :D. I'd read lots of M3s being in the same boat with owners having to extend their wifi coverage to the garage in various ways. I use a Ubiquiti UniFi AC Lite AP at home which has provided excellent coverage to every corner of my double storey house (and beyond), so it quirked me that my SR+ couldn't connect to it.
    Early this morning I relocated the AC Lite to my study which shares a common wall with the garage. No joy :oops:. Using a 15m Cat5e cable I brought it into the garage and placed it on the bonnet. No joy :mad:!!! WTF!?! I knew the SR+ wifi works because I had connected it to my phone's hot spot.
    Recalling a particular issue I had with a smart wifi plug, I disabled the 5GHz band on the AC Lite so it was operating only on 2.4GHz. Voila!!! My SR+ connected to the AP :). I re-enabled 5GHz and the connectivity remained. I placed the AC Lite indoors near its original location (centre of the house) and connectivity remained albeit 3 bars instead of 4. When we returned from lunch just now, the wifi automatically connected when in P.
    So if you've been busting your chops like me with your M3 wifi, try disabling the 5GHz band on your router momentarily to establish connectivity.
  • Navigation Data Update Available - The main reason why I was desperate to get wifi working was because I noticed this pending navigation data update last night and that it would only download via wifi.
    IMG_20190927_084945.jpg

  • I don't know how long the update had been there (I don't normally go into the Software page) and I've received no notification about it.
    After getting the wifi to work, the download is still stuck at the same spot. A bit of googling revealed that some people had it stuck for a couple of months and had to get Tesla support unblock it before it downloaded. I'll leave it for a few days and see how it goes.
    Do any AU M3 owners have navigational data later than AU-2018.12-983?
 
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Just had a call from the delivery advisor - he’s thinking Monday or Tuesday delivery now for my Canberra car. Apparently they overwhelmed the car carrier. I’m also promised a call on Monday with some more concrete dates and times but I remain skeptical and disappointed.
 
A question to those of you who have a VIN – when did the hidden VIN appear on your account?
Was it:
1. once the car was manufactured
2. once it was on a ship
3. only on arrival in Australia?

The second option for me. Manufactured August 1. Left on ANL Warrnambool August 8. Hidden VIN seen August 14. Car not in AU (or NZ) until September. Delivery September 26 (moved up from September 30).
 
Brief update #2 after 1wk+ of SR+ ownership.
  • Do any AU M3 owners have navigational data later than AU-2018.12-983?

My P+ has AU-2019.24-10589 which wasn't there last time I looked. It has only appeared in the last day or two.

Come to think of it. That explains why it suddenly knows about the timed school zone near my house now yet it didn't a week ago.
 
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Just had a call from the delivery advisor - he’s thinking Monday or Tuesday delivery now for my Canberra car. Apparently they overwhelmed the car carrier. I’m also promised a call on Monday with some more concrete dates and times but I remain skeptical and disappointed.
I think this is BS. I got on to tesla this afternoon about my Canberra delivery no show at 2pm. After finding out that it didn’t make it to Canberra I offered to drive up to Sydney to pick it up. Then they said, ahh actually the car is still with auto nexus and hasn’t even been detailed yet. So the plan now is I’ll get a call Monday morning (don’t count on it) for delivery on Tuesday. Maybe they already hit their 100k target for the quarter and so Tuesday delivery is fine now. Super bummed.
 
April 1st reservation (Was I an April fool, 42 months later i certainly feel like one), May 31st order and delivery today.

Finally! 11am today, car, cars everywhere. They wanted to go through their spiel, but it got derailed when she tried to pair my phone under the guise of music and I pulled out a SSD and a USB to sata converter, I think she just gave up after that because we didn't pair the phone or do the phone key.

Despite my partner's model S, I got red, I've had three blue cars, I didn't want black, white or grey / silver, so red it is and it looks so good.
Stopped off by my mum's place and it had calibrated around 35km later.

It's a mini-me!

Twins.jpg


Is there a 12v socket ? If so, where is it.

Pleasant surprise: There are bottle holders in the doors, I forgot to look when I visited Martin Place. Also the centre console is much better than the Model S.

No traffic information though, apparently there's some sort of information day on Tuesday for new owners, so I'll probably pop by and hassle them then.
 

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Tesla's are painted in California which, due to their environmental and safety laws, means they have to use water based paint, which is not ideal. Doing a better paint job would be much easier if the car were made somewhere other than California..

The last three Mercedes I have owned have had water-based paint. My understanding is that they have been using water-based paints since around 1998.