TM Bulletin Board Response to Why No Perf Credit for 19" Wheels?

[Norbert]

The Performance with 19" wheels should be able to due the 0-60 in 4.6 if indeed the car was always based on those wheels being standard. If not, I do see a credibility issue with Tesla's explanation.

I'm not saying the performance package was ever planned with the 19" wheels. I'm saying the *price calculation* started with the base model (which for unrelated reasons happens to have 19" wheels).

[ EDIT: Correction: I'm not saying the performance package was ever planned with the 19" wheels as the standard choice. ]

 

[JakeP]

Then why is the pricing configuration at odds with the equipment configuration, which included 21" grey performance wheels? Because the cost of those wheels was included in the $10,000 performance drive package quoted.

Listen, I have already said too much here. I realize I am doing exactly what George B predicted, and complaining just because I received an answer I didn't want to hear. This has always been a hot topic for me, because no matter how gorgeous the 21s are, my living in the snowy and pothole-filled northeast and not wanting the hassle of two sets of wheels has always precluded me from selecting them. I was so excited to see this question on the bulletin board, and was truly disappointed when I read the explanation which I simply do not believe, and instead think I see right through as an excuse to justify a price increase.

As I said up front, if this explanation is actually true, I owe Tesla a big apology. Perhaps I am just being too cynical, and need to step back and try to apply some Roadster-owner style Zen, and realize that it is possible for a company like Tesla to do something great for their customers that costs the company money. Enough from me on this, I will now go back to counting the days until my beautiful standard 85kWh with 19" wheels arrives, and pray that 2013 brings an OEM 19" turbine wheel offering from Tesla.

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Norbert, I just had to retype this all in, and missed your clarification. Agreed, but I disagree...I think the wheel price was included in the 10K all along. If it wasn't, why leave a cost item out of a price calculation? Just to be nice? Cynical me says no.

 

[GeorgeB]

Hi everyone,

There seems to be a bit of confusion surrounding this issue...and I always believe it is best to assess a situation with facts.

1) The current 19" wheels were available as a no cost option from day one in the Performance Package. They did not become an option at a later date.

2) All wheels were actually a no cost option from day one in the Performance Package, including at one point the proposed Aero wheel. I am attaching a screen shot from February 18th showing the "wheel options" area of our Options & Pricing webpage. All wheels are shown as STANDARD or a NO COST option in both Performance Package columns.

2) 19" wheels were an available option in the Performance Package from day one when configurations started.

3) The current 21" Grey wheels were originally called 21" Performance wheels (as shown on the attached screen shot). After we started doing configurations, we found that people were confused by the name "21" Performance" as the description for 21" Grey wheels, so we decided to simplify the issue by calling the two 21" wheels --> 21" Silver and 21" Grey. This was a simplification of the name, not a change in any option availability.

We spent a lot of time putting together the Performance Package. Without a doubt we spent more time on this package than any other package or option and when all was said and done, we felt the Performance Package was the ideal place to offer something extra to our early reservation holders who were purchasing a fully loaded car. Hence, the option to choose any wheel they wanted at no additional cost. We simply thought this would be a nice thing to do.

I am acutely aware that people will always doubt what gets posted on the web, but I do think it is worthwhile making sure the facts are clear...and FWIW, the explanation given on the Bulletin Board is absolutely true.

GeorgeB

 

[David-El]

Mr. B.,
Thank you for your response. I know that the Bulletin Board is currently a "test-bed" and you are assessing whether it is worth continuing. I do hope this issue does not turn you off from continuing the BB as it seems to be giving quick answers to questions that have been around for a while.

David-El
P3078, Green, Pano, 21, Tan/Obeche Matte, 60Kwh

 

[GeorgeB]

Hi David-El,

Thanks for the nice words. No, this issue will not turn me off regarding the Bulletin Board. My response to this issue was just to make sure everyone knew the facts and the truth. While it may or may not seem that way at times, that is always my goal.

GeorgeB

 

[PeterW]

Thanks again, George, for coming on this forum to give explanations, they are apprieciated.
Since it was mentioned can you tell us why the Aero wheels never happened? Was it a performance issue, a supplier issue, or something else?
And more importantly, is there a chance of that option returning in the future?

 

[jkirkebo]

This has always been a hot topic for me, because no matter how gorgeous the 21s are, my living in the snowy and pothole-filled northeast and not wanting the hassle of two sets of wheels has always precluded me from selecting them.

If you love where there is snow regularily you'd be much better off with two wheel sets anyway. Even if I wanted the 19" for summer I'd get another set of 19" wheels with proper winter tires on them. What's the hassle ? Storing one set and using 2x45 minutes per year to swap sets ? The incremental cost are only the additional rims and you gain A LOT of traction in the winter months for it. Also with two sets you always have an extra wheel available if you feel the need to carry a spare on longer trips.

 

[Norbert]

I'm not saying the performance package was ever planned with the 19" wheels. I'm saying the *price calculation* started with the base model (which for unrelated reasons happens to have 19" wheels).

What I meant here was: "I'm not saying the performance package was ever planned with the 19" wheels as the standard choice."

 

[Norbert]

Norbert, I just had to retype this all in, and missed your clarification. Agreed, but I disagree...I think the wheel price was included in the 10K all along. If it wasn't, why leave a cost item out of a price calculation? Just to be nice? Cynical me says no.

Not sure what exactly you mean. Perhaps we are not on the same page yet. Perhaps I didn't quite get my point across. I'll try to explain with more detail:

The bulletin board entry says: "The $92,400 price assumed a 19" wheel."

I was trying to say that, at first, the "$92,400 price" was meant to be an *intermediate* calculation result. They could have added the 21" wheel cost. But they decided not to add the 21" wheel cost.

They wanted to find out which price to assign to the the performance version. So they started with these items:

Base 85 kWh Model S $77,400
Performance Drive Unit $10,000
Upgraded Interior and Treatments $3,500
Active Air Suspension $1,500
Total $92,400

At this point of the calculation, there are no wheels specified yet, which means that this price would include the wheels which come with the base model.

That's (I think) the meaning of the sentence: "The $92,400 price assumed a 19" wheel."

This sentence doesn't say anything about which wheels were planned to come standard with the performance version. It only points out that they calculated the price *as if* the performance version would always come with the 19" wheels. (And then didn't add anything for the 21" gray wheel, however always meant that to be the standard wheel for the performance version.)

This appears to be consistent with GeorgeB's clarification above.

 

[JakeP]

Thank you GeorgeB for the clarification and the reinforcement of the BB explanation as literal truth. As I stated early on, if the BB explanation was the truth, I would owe Tesla a big apology. And so I do, and will offer it here: Tesla and GeorgeB, I am truly sorry for not taking your explanation at face value, and then publicly accusing you of falsely representing your motivation and pricing in order to justify a future price increase (which, BTW, is still completely justified when it does occur, as far as I am concerned).

I was being far too cynical. After so many years of dealing with Acura, BMW and Porsche, where the thought of those companies configuring a costly bonus option into a high-end configuration at no additional price increase to the customer is not jut unlikely but downright laughable, I simply could not accept what appeared "too good to be true". As I myself stated even before GeorgeB's post above, I need to be more like the Roadster owners who have learned this repeatedly in the past: "If it sounds too good to be true, it must be Tesla."

And to all who piped in with the argument for the Performance being a bargain, you were also right and I was wrong, to say there was no relation between the two issues. This explanation makes it clear that the Perf is even more of a bargain than we all originally thought, as now we know it includes free 21" wheels...making the two issues very much intertwined.

I only wish this had been explained earlier, perhaps on the multiple phone calls and Emails I sent to various Tesla representatives at Ownership experience since early Summer, as it might well have encouraged me to configure the Performance upgrade, rather than acting as a discouraging factor against it. Instead I was only told that it had been discussed and decided that no credit for the 19" downgrade would be offered. Wouldn't the truth in this case have been a much better sales opportunity for Tesla?

Anyway, enough from me once again. I apologize for my insinuations and accusations, and I am thankful that my tirade has not discouraged GeorgeB and the Bulletin Board concept overall.

I still think storing and switching tires is a royal pain, in practice not just in theory, and this is further complicated by the requirement of a TPMS reset by Tesla Service center (or Ranger?), which are all more than 300 miles from me currently. Having said that, if Tesla offers OEM 19" turbine style wheels in 2013 or beyond, they will become my summer wheels in a heartbeat!

 

[NigelM]

@Jake: Respect to you for that post.

 

[dailydriver]

If you love where there is snow regularily you'd be much better off with two wheel sets anyway. Even if I wanted the 19" for summer I'd get another set of 19" wheels with proper winter tires on them. What's the hassle ? Storing one set and using 2x45 minutes per year to swap sets ? The incremental cost are only the additional rims and you gain A LOT of traction in the winter months for it. Also with two sets you always have an extra wheel available if you feel the need to carry a spare on longer trips.

I concur. The 21" grey wheels look too nice to not have during the better seasons we have in our climate. Tesla also offers a Pirelli winter wheel and tire set for $2,400 which I think is a very good deal (I ordered a set).

http://shop.teslamotors.com/collections/model-s-functional/products/winter-wheel-and-tire-set-pirelli

 

[dsm363]

@Jake: Respect to you for that post.

I agree.

Storing winter wheels and switching twice a year I'm sure is a pain but for certain areas, the safety factor might make it worthwhile.

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We spent a lot of time putting together the Performance Package. Without a doubt we spent more time on this package than any other package or option and when all was said and done, we felt the Performance Package was the ideal place to offer something extra to our early reservation holders who were purchasing a fully loaded car. Hence, the option to choose any wheel they wanted at no additional cost. We simply thought this would be a nice thing to do.

Thanks George! The performance package is awesome so thank you and the team at Tesla for providing that from the start.

 

[jerry33]

Storing winter wheels and switching twice a year I'm sure is a pain but for certain areas, the safety factor might make it worthwhile.

And it's far less risky than mounting and demounting tires every year (every time you mount or demount a tire you risk damaging it). Also storing tires unmounted makes the tires more susceptible to damage during storage.

 

[JakeP]

Thanks all, and thanks Jerry33 for the input on tire mount/demount options...your expert opinion on wheels and tires is *very* much appreciated by all of us at TMC! I definitely would not be switching tires on a single set of rims, but instead just keeping the "all-seasons" throughout the winter, and just not driving the Tesla in blizzard conditions.

I guess I am still a bit spooked by low-profile 21s after seeing my neighbor's Audi A7 with two utter blowouts on his 21s in the middle of summer this year. I have no doubt that the Tesla air suspension would go a long way to ameliorate this, but it is still not something I ever want to see, and would likely keep me in the 19s, and hoping for OEM 19s in a turbine style. At that point, I would definitely keep the standard 19s for dedicated winter tires, and keep all-seasons on the turbines for summer/fall.

Having said that, part of me wants to call on Monday and change my order to a Perf plus a set of 19s for winter, but I hardly think I am worthy of that treatment after my little tirade above. :redface:

 

[jkirkebo]

Storing winter wheels and switching twice a year I'm sure is a pain but for certain areas, the safety factor might make it worthwhile.

I get the storage problem if you have limited space available, but the wheel swapping twice a year takes less time than washing the car properly. I use about 45 minutes per car for wheel swaps in my driveway, including putting on work clothes, fetching the wheels and storing the other set (which by the way should be washed and waxed before storage).

 

[dsm363]

Having said that, part of me wants to call on Monday and change my order to a Perf plus a set of 19s for winter, but I hardly think I am worthy of that treatment after my little tirade above. :redface:

Go for it!:smile: For winter, the car will be so dirty in the snow anyway that the wheels probably matter less and you'd have the cool looking rims during the summer. The 21" wheels are definitely less practical though so you are absolutely right about that. The performance package is nice though.

 

[JakeP]

Storage space is actually a major concern...I have a cramped two-car garage, and three cars as it is. And with the Model S replacing a Boxster in the one garage bay, I am losing space quickly indoors. But I currently switch my own wheels on my BMW, and do find even that to be a hassle twice a year...and I can reset the TPMS myself on the BMW. I don't want to ask a Ranger to come to me twice a year just for that.

The only other two things keeping me from the otherwise ideally desirable Perf package are: 1) How much dirt will the Alcantara bolsters pick up versus plain leather, and 2) Will my wife smash into something with the extra rocketlike acceleration. I am not being facetious on number two...a "governor" profile would be very useful in that respect.

 

[bluetinc]

I still think storing and switching tires is a royal pain, in practice not just in theory, and this is further complicated by the requirement of a TPMS reset by Tesla Service center (or Ranger?), which are all more than 300 miles from me currently. Having said that, if Tesla offers OEM 19" turbine style wheels in 2013 or beyond, they will become my summer wheels in a heartbeat!

Hey Jake,

While working with the Fremont Service Center to order my second set of 19" wheels and preferred tires, it was offered that I could buy the tool to reset the TPMS system if I lived far from a service center or wanted to avoid the Ranger trip out. It turns out that I'm going to be living within a few miles of a new service center so I didn't take the conversation far enough to even find out the price, but since you are 300+ miles from a center it may very well be worth it for you.

Peter

 

[jerry33]

I guess I am still a bit spooked by low-profile 21s after seeing my neighbor's Audi A7 with two utter blowouts on his 21s in the middle of summer this year.

Not enough information here. The typical reason for two destroyed is not keeping enough air pressure in the tires (assuming there were no defects in the tires). But without examining the tires, it's not possible to say more. There are a lot of folks who are afraid of tire pressure when they should be concerned about tire heat, and there is a lot of FUD about tires some of which was true forty years ago when most tires were bias-ply.

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It turns out that I'm going to be living within a few miles of a new service center so I didn't take the conversation far enough to even find out the price, but since you are 300+ miles from a center it may very well be worth it for you.

It's been posted that the price is $500. Perhaps if there were a local Tesla Club where members could chip in...