I was just messing around with a loan calculator earlier
Have some of you compared how much sales tax you'd pay to Tesla on the new vehicle if you trade-in to Tesla vs selling it separately?
Trading in my HR-V cuts the sales tax by about $1k or so (taxed on new car cost minus old car trade-in value). that means if the best offer outside of Tesla is close to only $1k more, it's easier to just trade in to Tesla so save on the headache.
Similarly, my HR-V is technically still not paid off. I found out that I still owed almost $2.5k, even though I thought it was closer to $500 or $1k (apparently my auto-pay stopped a while back, thank goodness it won't count as late until August!). So, that became negative value on my trade-in. So... pay $2.5k extra in the loan so that Tesla pays off the rest of my old loan.. or pay off the old loan and keep the new loan lower? I figure, middle of the road. They say not to completely pay off a loan because it could delay your trade-in as you wait for the title to get mailed to you. So, I paid off the $2k I thought would be paid if my auto-pay had continued and left $500 for the negative value. And since the new loan doesn't get as much tacked on, I won't end up paying as much in interest.
Maybe I should bring it down to just $1...?
Anyway, the point is... might be worth it to crunch some numbers.