UK Model 3 order page open!

[sixela]

I hear where you're coming from, I think my main issue is that they literally put these on sale a month ago and are now moving the goal posts.

E V E R Y car manufacturer does this. The dealers usually shield you from it because the catalog price is not the street price and they have discretion to give some discounts to customers or not: in other words, they'll see whether they can fleece you or not and decide on an ad hoc price (if you're not well informed you'll get fleeced), and they'll make it seem as if the goal posts move smoothly by pocketing more money for some time when the manufacturer abruptly lowers the price they have to pay for the cars.

This thread is actually mind-boggling: Tesla has transparent pricing, drops prices (which normal people would see as an opportunity), and allows people to decide for themselves that they can save money since they have no cancellation penalties -- something that is far from universal in car sales--, and all you hear is a lot of whinging.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I don't understand why we have to cancel to get the discount? Surely it's just a simple input into a computer. After all if they can change other options surely the price deduction is far simpler? Again sorry if I'm totally missing something here?

Its been like that, with Tesla, since Day One.

based on past history I think if you bought the car, at full price, you would likely get a refund later ... although (from memory) that has only actually happened where you bought the car today at £X and tomorrow the price was a lower £Y and then, some time later, they refunded the difference to everyone who had bought recently at £X.

I surmise that the problem is that:

Someone, somewhere (marketing?) decided that [to pick one example] LR no longer available and P- offered instead. Price difference is so little that everyone who ordered LR wants P-

But no one told all the sales staff ... no one told all the support staff ... no communication or training was done ... it was a decision [which appeared to be] taken on the Hoof.

No one told the software people either (well, i suppose they did because the LIST price is correct, so that part at least they have made easy to change), but no one put in place the extra software to allow existing users to change their mind (even though it is blindingly obvious that people will)

So it falls to support to sort out. They are completely overloaded by this sort of change-of-direction, and also left-hand/right-hand not speaking to each other. I had a reply to a Referral question yesterday; that took exactly 7 WEEKS to get a reply. For the Referral team that is normal (actually its got a bit worse, used to be 6 WEEKS). I have no idea how you can run a 7 week backlog ... i.e. without the backlog getting ever-longer.

Personally I think it costs Tesla a fortune in Support Costs, not to mention bad PR ... but I suspect they don't care about bad PR because:
it will be sorted out
you will get & buy what you wanted
you will have spent ages tearing your hair out, on hold on the phone, etc. ...
but when you get the car you will forget all that and become a happy and loyal TEsla Fan ...

There are a few that get royally pissed off ... and piss off of course. But always get some of those anyway ...

I think Tesla's implementation of their marketing model stinks, as does their ramping up of service/parts, as does their QA of Infotainment (about which I have a professional, rather than personal, opinion).

But the rest of it is what I actually want ... big grin on my face every time I get in it ... provided I don't buy another one, bend the one I have got, or get too early a download of new Infotainment version ...

 

[goRt]

Its been like that, with Tesla, since Day One.

based on past history I think if you bought the car, at full price, you would likely get a refund later ... although (from memory) that has only actually happened where you bought the car today at £X and tomorrow the price was a lower £Y and then, some time later, they refunded the difference to everyone who had bought recently at £X.

I surmise that the problem is that:

Someone, somewhere (marketing?) decided that [to pick one example] LR no longer available and P- offered instead. Price difference is so little that everyone who ordered LR wants P-

But no one told all the sales staff ... no one told all the support staff ... no communication or training was done ... it was a decision [which appeared to be] taken on the Hoof.

No one told the software people either (well, i suppose they did because the LIST price is correct, so that part at least they have made easy to change), but no one put in place the extra software to allow existing users to change their mind (even though it is blindingly obvious that people will)

So it falls to support to sort out. They are completely overloaded by this sort of change-of-direction, and also left-hand/right-hand not speaking to each other. I had a reply to a Referral question yesterday; that took exactly 7 WEEKS to get a reply. For the Referral team that is normal (actually its got a bit worse, used to be 6 WEEKS). I have no idea how you can run a 7 week backlog ... i.e. without the backlog getting ever-longer.

Personally I think it costs Tesla a fortune in Support Costs, not to mention bad PR ... but I suspect they don't care about bad PR because:
it will be sorted out
you will get & buy what you wanted
you will have spent ages tearing your hair out, on hold on the phone, etc. ...
but when you get the car you will forget all that and become a happy and loyal TEsla Fan ...

There are a few that get royally pissed off ... and piss off of course. But always get some of those anyway ...

I think Tesla's implementation of their marketing model stinks, as does their ramping up of service/parts, as does their QA of Infotainment (about which I have a professional, rather than personal, opinion).

But the rest of it is what I actually want ... big grin on my face every time I get in it ... provided I don't buy another one, bend the one I have got, or get too early a download of new Infotainment version ...

It will never go mainstream until it sorts itself out.

The longer it takes the less its first mover status counts.

No, I don't hold a stock position in Tesla, but I used to fix failing businesses.

 

[-DB-]

No, I don't hold a stock position in Tesla, but I used to fix failing businesses.

Hello Gordon Ramsey

 

[BubblegumPete]

Agree with all the above.

In regards to comparing to traditional car manufactures, as Sixela points out. Tesla is trying to be very different to traditional car manufactures. And from what I've read, originally they were very good at sales. making sure the customer was always informed and even having a mini ceremony for when the customer came and picked up their car.
In my opinion they're trying to be the Apple of the car market. And by being transparent with their pricing they should also expect people to react when they change their pricing, especially when their product has only just been released (here in the UK). As I mentioned before, just because car manufactures use under hand tatics doesn't mean they should. And if Tesla are trying to look like the all new green and friendly manufacturer, then changing the pricing before customers even have the product in their hands isn't going to go down well.

To take the Apple example. Lets imagine that the new Mac Pro is now ready for pre-orders on their website. I put a deposit £100 down on a £5000 version and it says collect in store in a week. But two days later I see they've changed the price to £4500 on the website. Personally I would be under the impression that when I go to collect the computer I will be be paying £4500 for it as I never owned it while they decided to change the price. And I'm pretty sure if I then complained they wouldn't take the computer I'd had on hold, hand it to another customer who just walked into the store allowing them to pay £4500 and then tell me to come back in a month for my identical one.

Basically I feel you can't try to be one thing and then do the other. So in Tesla's case you can't be the 'think different' of the car manufacturing world only to then fall back to old ways in certain areas. It taints the whole buying purchase. But I agree with others that I'm sure once you have the car all will be forgotten.

 

[Peteski]

This thread is actually mind-boggling: Tesla has transparent pricing, drops prices (which normal people would see as an opportunity), and allows people to decide for themselves that they can save money since they have no cancellation penalties -- something that is far from universal in car sales--, and all you hear is a lot of whinging.

The only mind-boggling thing about this thread is how you just don't seem to understand why people with long term P+ reservations are pissed at the sudden £5k price drop which they can't seem to get without proactively cancelling their original orders and potentially dropping down the delivery queue. The constant spec juggling (optional 20" performance package, white interior on/off/on etc) is irritating too, but a little more understandable as the market opens.

But anyway I'm not here to convince you of anything, but if you were a Tesla sales guy trying to justify their position I would not be buying this BS.

Basically by dropping the price of the P by such a significant amount and allowing more flexible options, anyone with an original order would be advised to cancel and re-order. I certainly will be for that kind of saving. For me it's nearly £10k less with the 18" wheels. Also those with original orders for LR AWD should be seriously thinking about cancelling and upgrading to a P- at minimal cost.

The hardest part now is getting hold of someone at Tesla to talk to. The lines are busy and they are not responding to emails. I guess they are a bit busy right now!

Incidentally when I ordered my Model X a couple of years ago they said that any price reduction between order and delivery would be honoured and indeed it was. But now they seem incapable of following that same example with the Model 3.

The final piss off for me is that Tesla are not being proactive in contacting those customers who stand to benefit from the recent price reductions. They were quite happy to let me pay the higher price as if I was born yesterday. I can only imagine the forum posts from those who do go ahead with their original P+ orders only to later find out that they got ripped off for £5k. They've already had enough flack recently from random price/spec changes across all models. It's as if someone high up in their finance hierarchy has been let loose with a machine gun over the last few months.

All that aside I'm a bit worried why they decided to cut pricing so dramatically before even delivering a single UK car? Are they really struggling that much for UK demand at this point? If the original pre-order book was anywhere near full it would have made sense to deliver all the P+ models at the original price we all signed up for and then drop the price in say 6 months time to pick up fresh new orders. I can only presume they had far too many RHD P cars sitting unsold and a price reduction was the only way to shift them all.

 

[Jason71]

I can only presume they had far too many RHD P cars sitting unsold and a price reduction was the only way to shift them all.

as far as any one knows they have only registered 1300 RHD VINS intotal with the transportation safety board in total so it seems unlikely they would have had lots of finished RHD cars stilling around of any type. An excess of parts for P cars maybe? but unlikely it was finished cars

 

[Peteski]

as far as any one knows they have only registered 1300 RHD VINS intotal with the transportation safety board in total so it seems unlikely they would have had lots of finished RHD cars stilling around of any type. An excess of parts for P cars maybe? but unlikely it was finished cars

It has to be something to do with demand vs supply. I only have a A-level in economics, so maybe I'm missing something, but it seems odd to knock off £5k right before delivery of the first batch of UK cars unless there are not enough orders on the books.

 

[interbear]

I completely agree with @Peteski on this ordering issue. If I was in the same position having ordered the original M3 Performance only to find it dramatically reduced in price before my vehicle was confirmed, I’d be expecting Tesla to contact me to advise me of the change and provide options. One of which should be for me to change the order to reflect the new spec / pricing but retain my place in the “queue” for delivery. If that didn’t happen I’d be annoyed too and would certainly cancel / reorder anyway, even if it meant a delay, to take advantage of the dramatically different pricing. That’s common sense. I don’t understand why anyone would keep their original order in place given the scale of the price drop.

Having not ordered yet personally I remain unsure. A bit of me is hoping they reintroduce the LR AWD with a similar price reduction but that seems a very faint hope as it seems they want to push everyone towards the Performance version.

 

[Jellus]

If you cancel and reorder can you get your £3k transferred to the new order, or do you have to stump it up a second time and wait for the original £3k to be eventually reimbursed?

 

[Peteski]

Well that's assuming that this other person hasn't checked back into the Tesla website and seen these drastic changes. I'd take a guess that most people buying a Tesla check back on the website regularly, I know I do. I'd imagine the only people that wouldn't, are possibly the super rich that have bought one on a whim. If that's the case, then they're not going to miss £3000.

IME it's the super rich that actually get most pissed off if they feel they got shafted. It's the principle rather than the "trivial" amount of money to them. That's how many of them get rich in the first place!

 

[BubblegumPete]

The only mind-boggling thing about this thread is how you just don't seem to understand why people with long term P+ reservations are pissed at the sudden £5k price drop which they can't seem to get without proactively cancelling their original orders and potentially dropping down the delivery queue. The constant spec juggling (optional 20" performance package, white interior on/off/on etc) is irritating too, but a little more understandable as the market opens.

But anyway I'm not here to convince you of anything, but if you were a Tesla sales guy trying to justify their position I would not be buying this BS.

Basically by dropping the price of the P by such a significant amount and allowing more flexible options, anyone with an original order would be advised to cancel and re-order. I certainly will be for that kind of saving. For me it's nearly £10k less with the 18" wheels. Also those with original orders for LR AWD should be seriously thinking about cancelling and upgrading to a P- at minimal cost.

The hardest part now is getting hold of someone at Tesla to talk to. The lines are busy and they are not responding to emails. I guess they are a bit busy right now!

Incidentally when I ordered my Model X a couple of years ago they said that any price reduction between order and delivery would be honoured and indeed it was. But now they seem incapable of following that same example with the Model 3.

The final piss off for me is that Tesla are not being proactive in contacting those customers who stand to benefit from the recent price reductions. They were quite happy to let me pay the higher price as if I was born yesterday. I can only imagine the forum posts from those who do go ahead with their original P+ orders only to later find out that they got ripped off for £5k. They've already had enough flack recently from random price/spec changes across all models. It's as if someone high up in their finance hierarchy has been let loose with a machine gun over the last few months.

All that aside I'm a bit worried why they decided to cut pricing so dramatically before even delivering a single UK car? Are they really struggling that much for UK demand at this point? If the original pre-order book was anywhere near full it would have made sense to deliver all the P+ models at the original price we all signed up for and then drop the price in say 6 months time to pick up fresh new orders. I can only presume they had far too many RHD P cars sitting unsold and a price reduction was the only way to shift them all.

If you cancel and reorder can you get your £3k transferred to the new order, or do you have to stump it up a second time and wait for the original £3k to be eventually reimbursed?

This is another thing I'm trying to find out. I know you could transfer it to a model S or X when it was still in the reservation mode but I bet it's not so simple now. Which means on top of having to re-order you'd have to wait to get your money back as well.

 

[BubblegumPete]

IME it's the super rich that actually get most pissed off if they feel they got shafted. It's the principle rather than the "trivial" amount of money to them. That's how many of them get rich in the first place!

Yeah that's very true.

 

[Jason71]

It has to be something to do with demand vs supply. I only have a A-level in economics, so maybe I'm missing something, but it seems odd to knock off £5k right before delivery of the first batch of UK cars unless there are not enough orders on the books.

It is Tesla. Do the normal laws of economics apply?

 

[Peteski]

I completely agree with @Peteski on this ordering issue. If I was in the same position having ordered the original M3 Performance only to find it dramatically reduced in price before my vehicle was confirmed, I’d be expecting Tesla to contact me to advise me of the change and provide options. One of which should be for me to change the order to reflect the new spec / pricing but retain my place in the “queue” for delivery. If that didn’t happen I’d be annoyed too and would certainly cancel / reorder anyway, even if it meant a delay, to take advantage of the dramatically different pricing. That’s common sense. I don’t understand why anyone would keep their original order in place given the scale of the price drop.

Having not ordered yet personally I remain unsure. A bit of me is hoping they reintroduce the LR AWD with a similar price reduction but that seems a very faint hope as it seems they want to push everyone towards the Performance version.

Well I'm glad someone else can see this as plainly as it is. I feel like some people just like to argue for the sake of arguing! I fully welcome the price reduction, I simply want it applying to my order seeing as I've waited about 2 years for the car while Tesla have sat on my deposit. If they really can't apply a simple price reduction to an existing order then maybe I can't be bothered to re-order, especially if I lose my place in the queue. In reality I'm not that bothered about a delayed delivery, it's more the principle of it, but a delay shouldn't be necessary for a simple price change. No contact from Tesla regarding the sudden price change is not acceptable either. Had they called or dropped me an email stating the new lower price I would have been very happy. But to contact me to finalise my registration details and confirm finance at the higher price is taking the piss. They are just lucky there is no competition otherwise I would be stepping off the Tesla bandwagon at this point.

 

[sixela]

It has to be something to do with demand vs supply. I only have a A-level in economics, so maybe I'm missing something, but it seems odd to knock off £5k right before delivery of the first batch of UK cars unless there are not enough orders on the books.

the RHD deliveries are just starting, so there are a lot more reservation holders from even 2016 than there are cars on ships or even on the assembly lines. So they either don't want your money, or you are indeed missing something.

Some possibilities:
-The P+PUP orders are less in number than the SR+ orders. upselling P- to SR+ owners might be interesting for margins even if the margin for P+PUP orders decreases.
-In some markets it's interesting (in the longer run) to trade in margin for information. How many more orders of P- would they get relative to AWD LR? How many people buying the P in this guise will still be willing to fork out money for the Performance upgrade Package? What are current AWD LR reservation holders going to do?
-Perhaps the experiment and how it goes will also influence how they change the product mix in the larger EU LHD market (which, despite appearances, is 'a bit' larger than the UK market).

I can only presume they had far too many RHD P cars sitting unsold and a price reduction was the only way to shift them all.

They might have been AWD LR before someone decided to convert them to P- -- and yes, it's possible that the unexpected demand for the off-menu RWD LR in continental Europe has left them with more front motors than they'd want, so they're probably experimenting on how to match the ordered product mix to what they can produce. I doubt that 's cars already produced "sitting unsold" (if that is your hypothesis, then canceling and reordering would be a no-brainer, and have absolutely zero influence on delivery times).

Since the RHD market is new it's a good one in which to make some experiments (although I doubt they'll ever understand how UK people can be angry and threaten to walk away because you 'threaten' to give them a discount if they work for it).

Right now the LHD country folk who want AWD are green with envy at your new choices. I can't pick Tesla's brain, but I would not assume that they won't tinker with the prices again especially if the experiments involve discovering the price elasticities involved.

In April, the price for AutoPilot on RWD LR in my country went from €0 tot €3000 (but optional) and back to €1100 (but mandatory) in two weeks, so there is a certain risk in "waiting until the dust settles" as well.

 

[sixela]

IME it's the super rich that actually get most pissed off if they feel they got shafted.

Since you seem to be pretty pissed off: are you trying to show off ;-) ?

 

[Peteski]

the RHD deliveries are just starting, so there are a lot more reservation holders from even 2016 than there are cars on ships or even on the assembly lines. So they either don't want your money, or you are indeed missing something.

Some possibilities:
-The P+PUP orders are less in number than the SR+ orders. upselling P- to SR+ owners might be interesting for margins even if the margin for P+PUP orders decreases.
-In some markets it's interesting (in the longer run) to trade in margin for information. How many more orders of P- would they get relative to AWD LR? How many people buying the P in this guise will still be willing to fork out money for the Performance upgrade Package? What are current AWD LR reservation holders going to do?
-Perhaps the experiment and how it goes will also influence how they change the product mix in the larger EU LHD market (which, despite appearances, is 'a bit' larger than the UK market).


They might have been AWD LR before someone decided to convert them to P- -- and yes, it's possible that the unexpected demand for the off-menu RWD LR in continental Europe has left them with more front motors than they'd want, so they're probably experimenting on how to match the ordered product mix to what they can produce. I doubt that 's cars already produced "sitting unsold" (if that is your hypothesis, then canceling and reordering would be a no-brainer, and have absolutely zero influence on delivery times).

Since the RHD market is new it's a good one in which to make some experiments (although I doubt they'll ever understand how UK people can be angry and threaten to walk away because you 'threaten' to give them a discount if they work for it).

Right now the LHD country folk who want AWD are green with envy at your new choices. I can't pick Tesla's brain, but I would not assume that they won't tinker with the prices again. In April, the price for AutoPilot on RWD LR in my country went from €0 tot €3000 (but optional) and back to €1100 (but mandatory) in two weeks, so there is a certain risk in "waiting until the dust settles" as well.

The only way I can look at this is that my exact car is now £5k less than it was last week and Tesla are not even telling me about it. So whatever silly marketing strategy they are playing is not making me very happy. The price drop itself is great of course, even if I need to piss about to get it while new customers can simply order it today. So much for looking after long term P+ reservation holders.

Unless you work high up in Tesla marketing, all the stuff you have written above is nothing more than conjecture. FWIW my simple conjecture is that they have suddenly decided to aggressively push the P model in the UK in favour of the software limited LR AWD rather than charge a sizeable premium as in their previous marketing plan. It's similar to what has happened with S/X P models, which are now way cheaper than they were a year ago, especially in the UK. It's like they feel the need to give away most of the premium for the higher performance models now that EV competition is finally looming up. It's all great for customers except for the way they go about implementing the changes.

We will all have a better idea of what is really happening once UK deliveries actually commence. If cars suddenly start appearing in inventory, especially P models, then we will know they are in some trouble with demand and supply. With the Model X I sat it out for the first year and things did very much settle down by the time I ordered mine. So I'm thinking I don't need all this uncertainty right now and will order again once the first shipment chaos clears and they start taking new custom orders. I will also keep an eye out for inventory cars in the meantime. I should have known it was a bad idea to take an early market Tesla in the first place!

 

[Peteski]

Since you seem to be pretty pissed off: are you trying to show off ;-) ?

ha, ha, ha! I'm not as pissed off as I sound. Actually I'm really pleased about the price reduction. Just not the way Tesla are handling it with my specific order. I'm still a big Tesla fanboy and will eventually get a Model 3 once they've finished "experimenting" with the UK market and the exact spec I want is available. I see white interior has popped back on the options list this morning, lol.

 

[WannabeOwner]

making sure the customer was always informed and even having a mini ceremony for when the customer came and picked up their car

That wasn't my experience 3 years ago. yes they did the "whip the cover off" reveal when I collected it, but the COMMs was far from stellar, and all the same long delays for parts / servicing etc. as now - just more-worse in some areas ... and model I wanted became discontinued [post Order] and I had to Up or Down-grade (handled a bit better than this, but other Auto companies would have known that Model-X had an imminent discontinued date, Tesla just announced that "overnight"

changing the pricing before customers even have the product in their hands isn't going to go down well

I don't understand what they are up to. That is definitely new - and started with lopping £30K off the price of Model-S/X ... and that has frightened PCP finance providers ... and driven down GFV ... and that has incurred the wrath of HMRC on VAT .. .and that has completely screwed PCP, or so it seems.

Ever since then THIS and THAT option have come and gone like the wind, prices up and down, better-deals-tomorrow all the time ...

I can only presume they had far too many RHD P cars sitting unsold and a price reduction was the only way to shift them all.

... I can't believe all this change-for-change-sake can be lack of demand. UK RHD must have huge backlog of Deposits which can be turned into Orders; just make the most-profitable-models available first (e.g. don't even both with SR+ at all initially) ... some people who can't afford P-model but want to be "first in my street" will over-extend to buy it ... but make the SR available on Day One and they'll buy that instead (and de-/re-badge it maybe?!!)

So I think it is incompetence of some sort .... of Elon is smoking something and noone has said "Boo" to him ... yet.

IME it's the super rich that actually get most pissed off if they feel they got shafted. It's the principle rather than the "trivial" amount of money to them

Hey! I'm only fabulously rich, not super rich, and even I get pissed off at that ...

there are a lot more reservation holders from even 2016 than there are cars on ships or even on the assembly lines

Although ... "reservation holders" <> "people who placed orders in first few days of May" ... they may have wanted SR-, or some other configuration which they think will be coming-soon and are sitting waiting.

But then there are people like me: placed an order on 01-May, but never placed a reservation / deposit.