UK Model 3 order page open!

[Peteski]

I've found this whole change incredibly frustrating. Ordered LR AWD/MSM/FSD - sounds like this will still be delivered, but differential to P w/PP has come right down and of course we're yet to see how the insurance companies handle this non-standard model (as LR AWD has become) and what will happen to resale value

In your shoes I would cancel the order and go for the Performance version with standard wheels. I predict it will be painful trying to sell a LR AWD against a load of similarly priced Performance models down the line. FWIW I wouldn't waste your money on FSD either, but that's another story!

 

[Avendit]

Sticking with mine for the tow bar. SR+ with a trailer or bikes on has a high chance of having range problems, esp if heading north. (South the sc's are close enough together it's probably fine).

Also, I tend to keep cars for 8+years, and those were ICE's. Can see this being the last car I own tbh if robo taxis turn up in the next 15 years.

 

[Peteski]

Sticking with mine for the tow bar.

That's a good point, although I expect the tow bar will be available for the Performance model (at least with standard wheels and suspension) very soon. All this chopping and changing of spec and pricing is making me feel like cancelling my order and standing back for a couple of months for the dust to settle.

Ideally I want a Performance model with standard wheels/suspension, white interior and a tow bar. I don't think that's asking for too much! I understand that the first boat load to arrive will have very limited options, but beyond that it should be easy enough to spec something slightly different.

I was happy to pay for the original M3P with all the bells and whistles, but certainly not now they've slashed the pricing and allowed the option of standard wheels/suspension. I bet I'm not alone in my thinking, so Tesla should expect a few phone calls and emails in the coming days!

 

[Dangerous Fish]

Due to these latest spec changes I tried to update my M3P order online to drop the 20" wheels and change to black interior etc. It was showing a saving of about £8k over my original order, but wouldn't save the new configuration. This morning I notice that the edit spec button has now disappeared. So I've fired off an email querying it. There's no way I'm paying £8k extra for stuff I really don't want. I'll cancel the order if necessary and start again! I would still prefer the white interior and don't mind paying £950 for that option, so I'm hoping I can just amend my original order without the Performance upgrade at the revised price. I don't care if it delays delivery, it's too much of a saving to ignore.

But you're not changing the spec of the P3D+ you originally ordered, you're changing the car to a P3D-, so I would expect you'll need to cancel the original order and place a new one for a P3D-.

 

[Peteski]

But you're not changing the spec of the P3D+ you originally ordered, you're changing the car to a P3D-, so I would expect you'll need to cancel the original order and place a new one for a P3D-.

I beg to disagree. There are only 2 base specifications of car currently available i.e. SR+ and P. There was never a P+ and P- base car. I'm only changing the spec of my P order to delete the now optional performance upgrade package. To my mind it is no different than changing the colour or interior spec options.

As for cancelling my order, I will do if necessary and will probably then sit it out for a few months while they get their act together.

 

[RjbT3]

In your shoes I would cancel the order and go for the Performance version with standard wheels. I predict it will be painful trying to sell a LR AWD against a load of similarly priced Performance models down the line. FWIW I wouldn't waste your money on FSD either, but that's another story!

Hmmmm. Interesting. All comments here are interesting and have calmed my initial frustration and made me more reflective. Particularly those commenting on how dealers handle sales. I have had some awful experiences with dealers.

I ordered Black LRAWD/White Interior/18"Aero/FSD. Since then I've been deliberating my choice of interior colour, wheels, exterior colour and whether the Full Self Driving is worth the £4.9k. Then they crashed the price of the Performance and allowed the option to drop the 20" etc.

First I was annoyed and thought I would have preferred my options in Performance version. However, having read all these posts many here are so right.

At the end of the day I'd have to pay extra insurance and I'm not sure I'd want to. Plus, I intend to keep this car for some time and even if I did want to sell, I'm sure the value would be on par or just below any used performance versions because others will value lower insurance and increased range.

I think those of us who have ordered LRAWD are still in a good position. It's the boys and girls who have orderes the Performance version at considerably higher values who are in a quandary. If I had I'd be cancelling or praying for a discount.

 

[sixela]

standing back for a couple of months for the dust to settle.

For us who've been around for longer: it never settles.

When you buy from a "traditional" dealer things are different. Having been in sales in another sector I know that prices can also fluctuate wildly, but a lot of it is hidden from sight of the end customer because the dealers have some leeway in how they allow discounts or not and because there is usually a lot of invenotry at dealerships. With Tesla, you are not insulated at all from price and configuration fluctuations.

 

[Dangerous Fish]

It's the boys and girls who have orderes the Performance version at considerably higher values who are in a quandary. If I had I'd be cancelling or praying for a discount.

There's no need to do anything if someone originally ordered what is now a P3D+. The price has dropped and that will be reflected in the final price sheet. Praying certainly won't achieve anything!

 

[sixela]

At the end of the day I'd have to pay extra insurance and I'm not sure I'd want to.

Plus: the P-sans-Performance-Upgrade and the older LR AWD are actually the exact same car, except possibly for different binning of the rear engine and how much power the software will allow the inverter to supply to the rear engine. The "P"s rear engine does not get more power than a RWD LR engine does, so by this time my guess is that the difference is mainly software, and would not be noticeable in normal road usage anyway (the times I have floored the accelerator on even my mundane LR RWD are few and far between).

So any existential angst on having an AWD/LR rather than a P is, I think, really unwarranted (and if you want a tow bar just the current tow weight certification issue might make the latter uninteresting, even though the real issue is probably the larger tires that the P will accept).

I think Tesla may be testing the waters to see if instead of SR+/LR/AWD/P they might not simply transition to an SR+/LR/P range (with "P" being either P or P+PUP) everywhere, also in left hand drive countries. They sold a lot of AWDs in Europe at first, but now that the LR is out I think that it might prove interesting to them to unlock the "P" power on the rear drive unit just to get people to upgrade beyond the RWD/LR.

 

[Dangerous Fish]

Latest rumour is that they are dropping the LR completely for the time being...

i.e. in all markets.

 

[Peteski]

For us who've been around for longer: it never settles.

When you buy from a "traditional" dealer things are different. Having been in sales in another sector I know that prices can also fluctuate wildly, but a lot of it is hidden from sight of the end customer because the dealers have some leeway in how they allow discounts or not and because there is usually a lot of invenotry at dealerships. With Tesla, you are not insulated at all from price and configuration fluctuations.

I've owned a Tesla (Model X) for a couple of years now and followed the forums closely, so I have a pretty good idea how Tesla work. I realise specs will continue to fluctuate and the product will be on a continuous development curve, but it's pretty obvious they have no clue how to price M3 variants for the UK at this point. Suddenly slashing the Performance model price by that much without delivering a single UK vehicle shows what a mess they are in with UK pricing/supply/demand.

Basically last week my order was going to cost £59k and suddenly I can order the same car for £54k or £51k without the wheel/suspension upgrade. I'm certainly not complaining about the sudden price drop, but cancelling my original order is a no-brainer for anyone in my shoes.

I'm sure Tesla would honour the latest price reduction on my original order if I chose to keep the performance upgrade package (unless they want pretty much all their original Performance orders cancelled?) but I don't particularly want the 20" wheels so I guess that might mean a re-order in my case.

One thing you can say for certain is that mixing up pricing and spec like this right ahead of first deliveries is going to cause chaos for the sales team. I bet their phone has been ringing off the hook.

 

[sixela]

There's no need to do anything if someone originally ordered what is now a P3D+. The price has dropped and that will be reflected in the final price sheet. Praying certainly won't achieve anything!

That's not our LHD experience on the continent. Whenever these price drops occurred, we usually were left with a choice to either cancel and reorder (in which case they'd give your VIN to someone who didn't cancel, who would in essence pay extra to have his car earlier) or pay the original contract's price.

We had that with their AP fiasco on the off-menu RWD/LR: first it was included, then it was excluded and the price stayed the same, then suddenly it was included but the price went up by €1100. The people "in the middle" who wanted AP were indeed forced to cancel and reorder, although internal sales helped people with the process (although it helps to remain polite and very patient when you need their help ;-) ).

And yes, I would not have wanted to be in internal sales at Tesla for either Germany or the Benelux those two weeks ;-). It was even worse for Germany (first of all Germans tend not to deal well with this sort of chaos, both at the customer end and in internal sales, and secondly, everyone was confused about whether the prices were inclusive of manufacturer and end customer "green" rebates/subsidies).

Sometimes "canceling and reordering" would make you (literally) "miss the boat" (they'd deliver the VIN assigned to you to someone else and you'd have to wait for a new boat to arrive), sometimes you would hardly incur any delay (there are accounts of people for which Tesla 'canceled and reordered' without the VIN assignment actually changing at all), especially when no VIN had been assigned in the first place. It was also very option-dependent (canceling a white interior would usually make someone else very happy, and you'd end up waiting for a lot longer. "Stormtrooper" configs --pearl white exterior, white/black interior-- were even worse off).

 

[sixela]

Latest rumour is that they are dropping the LR completely for the time being...
i.e. in all markets.

"Off-menu" does not mean "dropped" -- we've heard rumours of the RWD LR's impending demise for years. In April for mainland Europe the off-menu RWD LR was actually on the boats (in really large quantities) but not in the configurator, and SR+ was in the configurator but not on the boats. AWD was in the configurator but on the boats only in limited quantity.

I always wanted RWD/LR and I stuck to it, BTW. The real, not advertised, range is better and the acceleration is more than "good enough", and insurance is usually cheaper over here (as it's often partially horsepower/kW-rated). Even if they had thrown in the second motor for free I would not have wanted it.

Then you had the towbar...they had RWD LR with towbar on the boats before these were even officially announced as existing. Obviously no one had ordered these, so converting your order to get a towbar got you a car sooner. Once they had assigned all the non-towbar VINs, they even started phoning customers with orders without a towbar and without a VIN to ask if they were interested in adding a towbar...

In other words: the latest rumours are just that. Even Tesla itself does not know what they are going to do next week; it depends on demand and on where exactly the production constraints are. My guess is that the UK doesn't get to order the RWD LR right now, even off-menu, because they need the battery packs of those for left hand drive EU RWD LRs, for which there was more than the anticipated demand. They probably also want to sell dual motor versions with better margins into the RHD markets to recoup some of the extra cost the RHD models were causing.

The unexpected success of the off-menu RWD/LR drives them to experiment with trying to convert some of the demand for these RWD/LRs to dual motor versions with better margins, and since the RHD markets are newer, they're experimenting there. Since in current production the difference between AWD/LR and AWD/P-without-PUP is probably merely software --they're making so many RWD-specced rear motors for the RWD LR and P variants that it's probably become cheaper for them to ship AWDs as software-nerfed Ps--, that experiment doesn't cost them anything.

 

[Peteski]

Plus: the P-sans-Performance-Upgrade and the older LR AWD are actually the exact same car, except possibly for different binning of the rear engine and how much power the software will allow the inverter to supply to the rear engine. The "P"s rear engine does not get more power than a RWD LR engine does, so by this time my guess is that the difference is mainly software, and would not be noticeable in normal road usage anyway (the times I have floored the accelerator on even my mundane LR RWD are few and far between).

So any existential angst on having an AWD/LR rather than a P is, I think, really unwarranted (and if you want a tow bar just the current tow weight certification issue might make the latter uninteresting, even though the real issue is probably the larger tires that the P will accept).

I think Tesla may be testing the waters to see if instead of SR+/LR/AWD/P they might not simply transition to an SR+/LR/P range (with "P" being either P or P+PUP) everywhere, also in left hand drive countries. They sold a lot of AWDs in Europe at first, but now that the LR is out I think that it might prove interesting to them to unlock the "P" power on the rear drive unit just to get people to upgrade beyond the RWD/LR.

It doesn't matter that it's only software, the P model is still a LOT faster than the LW AWD. I realise that may not matter to you personally, but it will to anyone eyeing up a Model 3 as an alternative to a BMW M3 etc in the same price bracket. The fact that you can now effectively have the P model for little more than the LR AWD makes it a no-brainer for most people unless you absolutely need a tow bar and I'm sure that will be an option shortly anyway. It is no wonder they are dropping the LR AWD in this move. Hardly anyone would buy one with such a small price differential to the P. It would be unprecedented in any other conventional ICE product engine line up.

 

[Peteski]

and whether the Full Self Driving is worth the £4.9k.

It would be worth it if it was literally full self driving, but the reality is that you are paying £4.9k for a promise that they probably can't keep. Personally I would save your money until you are able to actually demo it. The current watered down version of FSD (formerly marketed as EAP) is nothing remotely like a full-self-driving car. IME the only genuinely useful feature missing from standard AP is the semi auto-lane changing function, but no way is that worth nearly £5k on its own. Auto parking is quite cool when it works, but not really something I would really miss. Summon is just a gimmicky party trick with a real risk of dinging your pride and joy! But it's your money to spend.

 

[sixela]

It doesn't matter that it's only software, the P model is still a LOT faster than the LW AWD.

If you floor it, yes. If the torque or power you're asking the engine to deliver are within the AWD envelope, there really is no difference. On roads limited to 130km/h the "P" is not faster than the AWD. It accelerates more in certain circumstances, but frankly even the RWD LR will make your passengers sick if you floor it.

I imagine that if you really want to get out of that AWD envelope, you'd also want the Performance Upgrade Package. And then, yes, there is a price drop and you might want to phone Tesla and say "either I get it at the new price or I will cancel and reorder".

It is no wonder they are dropping the LR AWD in this move.

They're not really "dropping" it (at this point in time). They're just removing the software nerfing.

 

[sixela]

IME the only genuinely useful feature missing from standard AP is the semi auto-lane changing function, but no way is that worth nearly £5k on its own.

That, and Navigation on Autopilot, which is just starting to become more or less functional enough to make using it more rather than less relaxing (but is nowhere good enough yet to be considered as fully automatic). But yeah, at the price I paid for it, it was merely a price guarantee to cover for the inevitable future upgrade to HW3 that a better autopilot is going to require.

 

[Peteski]

If you floor it, yes. If the torque or power you're asking the engine to deliver are within the AWD envelope, there really is no difference. On roads limited to 130km/h the "P" is not faster than the AWD. It accelerates more in certain circumstances, but frankly even the RWD LR will make your passengers sick if you floor it.

I imagine that if you really want to get out of that AWD envelope, you'd also want the Performance Upgrade Package. And then, yes, there is a price drop and you might want to phone Tesla and say "either I get it at the new price or I will cancel and reorder".


They're not really "dropping" it (at this point in time). They're just removing the software nerfing.

That's like saying a BMW M3 has the same performance as a 340i if you don't put your foot down. But the reality is that you do tend to put your foot down when in the mood. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but that's just how it is for people who crave the performance envelope.

20" wheels, lower suspension, bigger brakes - great for track days, although 20" wheels is highly debatable even for that use. For normal road driving it's just a pita, literally! The extra straight line acceleration of the P model would be very nice though for minimal cost. Much more debatable of course if there was a larger price differential e.g. I didn't fancy paying £30K extra for a P100D when we bought the X. But had it been a couple of grand difference as in this case I would have jumped straight on it!

 

[Peteski]

That, and Navigation on Autopilot, which is just starting to become more or less functional enough to make using it more rather than less relaxing (but is nowhere good enough yet to be considered as fully automatic). But yeah, at the price I paid for it, it was merely a price guarantee to cover for the inevitable future upgrade to HW3 that a better autopilot is going to require.

I would have felt totally ripped off had I paid for FSD on our Model X two years ago. Literally zero benefit to show for it so far. I'm quite happy that they have made AP a standard feature on new builds, although a shame they moved auto-lane change to so called "FSD". I'm sure a lot of people will buy FSD thinking it offers a lot more than it really can. I would only give it a second thought on a car I was planning to keep for 10+ years and that is not something I would consider with a Tesla at this point.

I tried Nav on AP for the first time at the weekend on the M1. Totally underwhelming experience. I get the idea, but it simply can't cope with real life aggressive traffic movements. I can easily think much quicker to get in the right lane. I'm totally happy NOT to have this feature on the Model 3.

 

[WannabeOwner]

but wouldn't save the new configuration. This morning I notice that the edit spec button has now disappeared

Typical combination of web site building not being in step with marketing model-choices etc., the "cooling off period" before online order is finalised, and so on (as you will know of course )

But I would expect direct comms with Sales Folk should enable you to just adjust your order (if not actually built** etc.)

** Not sure if "Built" is the same as "already part of a speculative build-for-stock on a boat and going to be allocated to you"

I would have felt totally ripped off had I paid for FSD on our Model X two years ago

Agreed. Musk seems to be saying that FSD price is going to increase, from now on, as features are added. I think its already quite a chunk-of-change and not sure how much people will genuinely pay for "Further reduction of Driver Workload" (compared to current AP). Of course when it really is FSD then for those people who want to "send the car to pick up an elderly relative" or "rent it out on Tesla-Uber" that will have a value ... but for anyone else "significant value"? I can't see me paying, say, £10K for full-blown FSD as an option to "reduce driver workload to close to zero" or even "... completely to zero" (although i could work/earn instead of driving ...)