Waitlist Update: 2009 Price Set, Sort of

[Dogtown]

Just got this from Tesla. I'm not sure I am ready to send in 60k for a car that has not had the price set and a company that still has many questions to answer...

On March 17th, Tesla Motors officially began production on the breakthrough, 100% electric 2008 model year Tesla Roadster. 2009 model year production is just one year away! We've finalized 2009 program details and would like to explain the process of transferring your waitlist position to Roadster Club Membership. Roadster Club Membership secures a slot for a 2009 production car. Membership also provides additional privileges such as access to the Owners Area on the Tesla Motors website and test drives at Tesla Store locations. Your waitlist position determines your production sequence, but specific VIN numbers will not be communicated prior to production of your vehicle.

The estimated base price for the 2009 Roadster is $109,000. Final pricing will be set just prior to start of 2009 production. The membership fee for the Roadster Club is $60,000; your wait list fee of $5000 will be applied to that total. This balance is fully refundable up until 90 days prior to production of your car. At that point, the remaining balance will be due and options selections will be locked in. Tesla Roadsters are ?built to order? which is why you need to finalize your purchase commitment, color, and options prior to your vehicle going to the production line.

A Tesla sales consultant will be contacting you by phone within the next few weeks according to your place in line on the wait list. At that time, you can ask further questions and receive payment instructions to submit your membership fee and secure your production slot. Your payment will be due within two weeks from the date of our phone conversation with you.

In case you missed it, the Roadster has recently been reviewed by: Car & Driver, Automobile, Motor Trend, Road & Track, and Auto Week magazines - check out the reviews by clicking on the links.

We look forward to speaking with you soon and welcoming you to the exclusive group of Roadster Club members.

 

[mt2]

On March 17th, Tesla Motors officially began production on the breakthrough, 100% electric 2008 model year Tesla Roadster. 2009 model year production is just one year away! We've finalized 2009 program details and would like to explain the process of transferring your waitlist position to Roadster Club Membership. Roadster Club Membership secures a slot for a 2009 production car. Membership also provides additional privileges such as access to the Owners Area on the Tesla Motors website and test drives at Tesla Store locations. Your waitlist position determines your production sequence, but specific VIN numbers will not be communicated prior to production of your vehicle.

The estimated base price for the 2009 Roadster is $109,000. Final pricing will be set just prior to start of 2009 production. The membership fee for the Roadster Club is $60,000; your wait list fee of $5000 will be applied to that total. This balance is fully refundable up until 90 days prior to production of your car. At that point, the remaining balance will be due and options selections will be locked in. Tesla Roadsters are ?built to order? which is why you need to finalize your purchase commitment, color, and options prior to your vehicle going to the production line.

Wait a minute... So Motor Club membership gets you a test drive in a Tesla before yours is delivered AND registration at a web site for only $60,000? Sign me up!

 

[BBHighway]

Why Not?

Or you can wait for the Volt, Fisker, or one of the others to come through. Or wait for Whitestar. If you want a Tesla Roadster, you have to supply cash, and a good deal of it.

There is enough buzz and demand for the Roadster that Tesla could get away with charging even more. So why should they say no making more money? It's the capitalist system. Besides, they are going to need that money to complete development of Whitestar. I'm sure that's going to cost a lot more money to develop, and then even more cash to get the production line going.

I truly want to start seeing thousands of electric cars on the roads, ASAP. With gasoline expected to hit $4 this summer, it can't come too soon.

 

[DDB]

I truly want to start seeing thousands of electric cars on the roads, ASAP. With gasoline expected to hit $4 this summer, it can't come too soon.

I feel the same way. But Tesla will feel heat from competitors sooner rather than later. I think though, many Tesla fans are disappointed to see the Company so focused on expansion and with the price increases before showing any results with production cars--especially after Martin and others were canned. Halo car yes. Excitment yes. But there are some clouds.

 

[Kardax]

That price hike isn't as bad as I feared, but it's still well out of reach for me. In my current financial situation, the absolute maximum amount of car I can afford is around $50,000. And I do not want a sedan, so WhiteStar is not an option either. Looks like I'm stuck on fossil fuels for a while yet. I don't expect a lower-cost alternative to the Tesla Roadster to appear in at least the next 5 years, so my only option is to make more money :| Anybody need a highly experienced .NET (VB, C#, SQL Server, ASP.NET) developer for some contracting work?

The "dark clouds" over the company right now are probably temporary. With Martin deposed and Elon crowned Founder, it's unlikely that any "official" event will be associated with delivery of #2.

Once the rest of the founders series and especially the signature 100 cars start getting delivered, I expect we'll see a steady pace of happy owner blogs and Tesla's buzz will be restored

-Ryan

 

[SByer]

Interesting. I think the price increase was was a pretty foreseeable thing. And the deposit increase is in line with what the original "impatient" deposits were in relation to the price at that time, and with the now-reduced risk and wait time. Being lucky enough to be able to afford the car, I consciously chose the "patient" option - I figured it would be the ideal split, getting a deposit in early enough to get a car this year while at the same time being late enough in line to let things "settle out". I'd still get in on the game, even with the higher price and deposit - it is that fun a car.

 

[stopcrazypp]

While it was forseeable for them to raise the price since it looks to be a hot item right now, I think what Dogtown is concerned about is that there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Think about it, if you were to give up $60k upfront wouldn't you being thinking hard about it? First off, he doesn't know what the final price will be, second is that there still haven't been an update on how the current cars in the production line are going, third is that we don't know the process on the final drivetrain. Sure it's refundable up to 90 days before production of the car, but it's still a good sum of money to put out. If any one of those questions have a firm answer, then the decision process will be a lot easier. Hopefully Siry can provide some assurance of when there will be an update, or even better is to provide an update on those questions soon.

 

[BBHighway]

First off, he doesn't know what the final price will be, second is that there still haven't been an update on how the current cars in the production line are going, third is that we don't know the process on the final drivetrain.

I was expecting the final 2009 price to be $125K, so I was surprised to see the $109K number. I don't think anyone has a good prediction on what exchange rates will be a year from now.

Actually, there was a brief update on production in the "Owners Only" section of the website. There was not a lot of details provided, but I don't feel comfortable repeating what there was, because I felt that if they wanted it public, they would have made it public. That was about two weeks ago, so by now it would be dated anyway. Suffice to say that progress is being made on production cars (note plural usage). From past experience, you don't hear a lot of news of what's going on in the UK, but the cars arrive stateside to much fanfare. My guess is for that to happen early May.

I thought the final drivetrain is a done deal: one "gear", more power, still 3.9 sec 0-60. I've noticed that on the website the 0-60 has changed over time from "4 sec", to "under 4 sec", to "about 4 sec", etc. It now shows 3.9 seconds, so I take that as a sign of confidence in the new 1.5 drivetrain.

 

[siry]

There is going to be a program update to customers very soon that covers a variety of issues that are of more immediate interest, such as warranty, service locations, production ramp, etc.

As BBHighway mentions, there have been several cars launched on the line and in various stages of completion. The slow ramp that was always planned is intended to allow the production line and supply chain to get up to speed slowly and ensure that the very first cars of the production line are of top quality.

It is often the case that as you start production and ramp up you see little things that need correcting. This can cause fluctuations week to week so I have intentionally decided not to be too specific in the early going about which car goes on the line when and what specific stage it is in. We will definitely communicate deliveries as they start happening in a short period. I am also going to post some photos of the production process with various cars in various stages soon.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Actually, there was a brief update on production in the "Owners Only" section of the website. There was not a lot of details provided, but I don't feel comfortable repeating what there was, because I felt that if they wanted it public, they would have made it public. That was about two weeks ago, so by now it would be dated anyway.

I think one kind of problem for those riding on the fence with their $5k deposits and this announcement, is that they don't have access to the Owner's only section, so they have less info on the process of the car. I suppose that's how the Owner's Area is designed, but it's good to hear from siry at least there will be some kind of update on the cars publicly. I know it's been busy for Tesla these last couple of weeks, but it helps convince both these prospective buyers and also people who haven't put up a deposit yet if there is some public update on the process at least sometime during this month. But I understand it's still very early in the 2008 production and they have a while before the stage where the 1.5 drivetrain will be put into the production. When it reaches that stage, and maybe some reviews come out, I think a lot of these doubts will be erased.

 

[vfx]

"I think one kind of problem for those riding on the fence with their $5k deposits and this announcement, is that they don't have access to the Owner's only section..."

So $5K does not get access to the special pages of Tesla? What is so critical that %5 down is not good enough to know?

Makes one wonder if the Whitestar buyer pages will be seperate from the Roadster buyer pages.

 

[DDB]

It is often the case that as you start production and ramp up you see little things that need correcting. This can cause fluctuations week to week so I have intentionally decided not to be too specific in the early going about which car goes on the line when and what specific stage it is in. We will definitely communicate deliveries as they start happening in a short period. I am also going to post some photos of the production process with various cars in various stages soon.

Thanks for the update, and good luck!

 

[pgwoosley]

Risk inherant in putting up a $60,000 deposit

Unless there is some sort of escrow arrangement (which has not been suggested by the email) people increasing their deposit from $5,000 to $60,000 are increasing their exposure in the case of a Tesla bankruptcy. Should, heaven forbid, Tesla go bankrupt, the depositor will just be a general creditor in the bankruptcy.

 

[malcolm]

Whilst there is no such thing as "no risk" we are a very long way from seeing that. Elon is on record as stating that the financial status of the company is secure and I have no reason to doubt him; the product is hot and so is its technology - there is no competition for what Tesla are doing.

There would have to be a mass recall of vehicles for things to get bad and even then, bankruptcy is not a forgone conclusion.

 

[raymond]

The estimated base price for the 2009 Roadster is $109,000...

OK, so just why would I lay down EUR 99,000 (US$ 155,000) instead of importing a $109,000 car from the US (and pay 10% duty)? I know the EUR 99,000 package includes a hard top, etc. but that turns out to be quite an expensive hard top!

Do I correctly see a $25,000 premium on each of those 250 Roadsters? That's an extra US$ 6,000,000 for Tesla.

Very clever, but I'll pass.

 

[SByer]

I guess some people have no tolerance for risk ;-).

I've tried and failed three times to find an nice and amusing way of saying that I think those afraid of bumping their deposit are mis-estimating the risk/reward proposition involved, so I'll just say it this way: the car is worth every last penny and more, just do it if you can.

 

[Cobos]

Raymond: I do beleive the first signature 250 cars in Europe should be safe from parallell import. This because these are special items and probably will get some priority in delivery etc etc. Now the "normal" models siry hinted to would be a bit cheaper and not fully loaded. For those I guess grey import or parallell import will be a problem. They haven't said how they will handle that and it might be a problem...

Cobos

 

[Dogtown]

What is the Writing on the Wall?

My primary concern is the timing of it all. Why now? Delivery of the ’08 models has not even started. We are not even sure what the configuration of the ’09s will be. Is this just another round of funding. How many are on the waiting list? Lets say it is 200. So you have the original 600 who paid around 50k up front and now another 200 at 60k. So, let me know if my numbers are off but that would be $42 million just from prebuys. How much does Elon have in right now? Are the customers more vested than the owners? I hope they at least get a chance at the IPO.

Of course there is also the concern of what if it does not work out. Anything in this article sound familiar? They had a prebuy program and several deliveries already under there belt. All the air taken out - The Denver Post
How did that last “New” car manufacturer do?

 

[BBHighway]

Why now? People in Europe want to buy the car. Tesla is in business to sell cars. The cars they are planning to ship to Europe aren't going to be produced until after the 2008 backlog is filled.

There is no doubt that there is risk. The car business is difficult and full of failures. Anyone who is going to lie away at night with worry about this should probably not buy the car, but there are plenty of people who are not deterred.

 

[Kardax]

I'm sure there are tons of people sitting on the fence, though, as evidenced by this very discussion. After a couple hundred have been delivered, and especially if Tesla IPOs with good financial condition, there could be a major surge in orders as confidence in the company grows.

-Ryan